Research interests
Humanitarianism, technology, refugees, nutrition, shelter, NGOs
Tom Scott-Smith
Tom Scott-Smith is Associate Professor of Refugee Studies and Forced Migration, fellow of St Cross College and Course Director for the MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration. He specialises in the ethnographic and historical study of humanitarian relief and its impact on the lives of refugees.
He holds an MPhil and DPhil from the University of Oxford, and was previously Lecturer at the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol and Senior Scholar at Lincoln College, Oxford.
Tom's work on humanitarianism has appeared in a number of peer-reviewed scholarly journals, including American Ethnologist, Social Studies of Science, Development and Change, Third World Quarterly, and the Journal of Refugee Studies. His book on the history of humanitarian nutrition, entitled On an Empty Stomach: Two Hundred Years of Hunger Relief, is published by Cornell University Press.
Before coming to academia, Tom worked as a development practitioner in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Teaching
Tom Scott-Smith is Course Director for the MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. He teaches courses on The Anthropology of Forced Migration; Research Methods in the Study of Forced Migration; and The History and Politics of Humanitarian Aid.
Doctoral supervision
Tom is interested in supervising doctoral research on the history and politics of humanitarian action, the ethnography of humanitarian institutions, the everyday life of aid workers, and the study of technological objects used in emergencies. He has particular expertise in the nutrition and shelter sectors, non-governmental organisations, and the politics of humanitarian principles.
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Books and monographs( ) Fragments of Home: Refugee Housing and the Politics of Shelter . , Stanford University Press( ) Structures of Protection? Rethinking Refugee Shelter . , Berghahn( ) On an Empty Stomach: One Hundred Years of Hunger Relief . , Cornell University Press
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Journal articles and special issues( ) Building a Bed for the Night: The Parisian “Yellow Bubble” and the Politics of Humanitarian Architecture . Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development 11 (3) 317-31( ) Beyond the boxes: Refugee shelter and the humanitarian politics of life . American Ethnologist( ) Places for People: Architecture, Building, and Humanitarian Innovation . Journal of Humanitarian Affairs 1 (3) 14-22( ) Paradoxes of Resilience: A Review of the World Disasters Report 2016 . Development and Change 49 (2) 662-77( ) Sticky technologies: Plumpy’nut®, emergency feeding and the viscosity of humanitarian design . Social Studies of Science( ) Special Issue: Humanitarianism and the Migration Crisis . Refugee Survey Quarterly 35 (2)( ) Humanitarian neophilia: the ‘innovation turn’ and its implications . Third World Quarterly( ) Humanitarian dilemmas in a mobile world . Refugee Survey Quarterly 35 (2) 1-21( ) Beyond the 'raw' and the 'cooked': a history of fortified blended foods . Disasters 39 (s2) s244-60( ) Control and Biopower in Contemporary Humanitarian Aid: The Case of Supplementary Feeding . Journal of Refugee Studies 28 (1) 21-37( ) How projects rise and fall: the lifecycle of a dietary modernisation scheme . Development in Practice 24 (7) 785-96( ) The fetishism of humanitarian objects and the management of malnutrition in emergencies . Third World Quarterly 34 (5) 913-28
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Chapters( ) Places of Partial Protection: Refugee Shelter since 2015. . In T Scott-Smith and ME Breeze Structures of Protection? Rethinking Refugee Shelter , Berghahn( ) Insulating the developing classes: ideology and humanitarianism in practice . In Tina Wallace, et al Aid, NGOs and the Realities of Women's Lives: A Perfect Storm , Rugby: Practical Action
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Other publications( ) A slightly better shelter? . Limn 9( ) The Humanitarian-Architect Divide . Forced Migration Review 55 67-8
