Research Lead:
Nora Doukkali
HUD PhD Researcher
Geneva Graduate Institute
nora.doukkali@graduateinstitute.ch

As part of HUD’s core research, its doctoral researchers are conducting independent projects extending our work in distinct and important directions. Below, Nora Doukkali expands on her project…

Waiting is about the senses. We shift our weight from one leg to the other when one tires. Waiting is about emotions. Boredom, anxiety, and excitement can alternate and mix in a weird mishmash. Everybody waits. Waiting is so ubiquitous that it can become an unthoughtful phenomenon. But waiting is also political and not simply a reflection of the human condition. Time and uncertainty are unevenly distributed, forging, and forged by relationships mediated by gender, class, race, and power relations.

How do interplays of practices shape, sustain, and transform humanitarian waiting-scapes?

This HUD doctoral project seeks to explore the many forms of waiting in humanitarian programs. People wait for care around consultation rooms or humanitarian tents, hoping to find medication, information, or a listening ear. Another form of waiting occurs in cash and voucher assistance programs. People queue in long lines at registration and distribution points. Increasingly, though, this form of waiting has moved online. In humanitarian settings, receiving a notification on your phone that funds have been transferred has become a common way to experience assistance.

Studying waiting in such settings is crucial, as it reveals the often hidden hardships faced by those affected by conflict and violence. Waiting is not just a passive activity; it is often a matter of survival. For example, delayed access to post-rape care can reduce the effectiveness of treatments for sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Similarly, long waits in queues for aid can take precious time away from other essential activities, like securing a livelihood or spending time with loved ones. Repeated, uncertain waiting can strip people of their dignity and cause deep psychological distress. The act of waiting itself can even become a form of violence. Long waits for cash, food, or other aid can generate household tensions, sometimes even contributing to gender-based violence (GBV). Waiting is full of trade-offs and decisions — choices that impact people’s lives in very concrete ways.

There are also forms of humanitarian waiting that persist long after direct violence has stopped. For instance, forms of suspension surround the presence of suspected landmines. In Colombia, farms and hunting areas are abandoned, as people wait for humanitarian demining operations to clear the land. In these areas, the land itself seems to “wait,” frozen in time. Waiting for missing ones is also linked to those humanitarian activities that stretch over time. But even here, people adapt, finding ways to live with the ongoing violence that lingers from conflict.

This research is addressed to several audiences: people experiencing waiting situations, humanitarian workers,
and academic audiences working on time politics and temporal onto-epistemologies.

Research in this area can help humanitarian organizations rethink how they design and implement programs. Many factors contribute to waiting, from logistical and political obstacles—like restricted access or limited resources—to humanitarian principles such as “do no harm.” These factors create uneven waiting experiences, with some groups waiting longer or facing worse conditions than others. How can organizations work within these constraints, reducing the time people spend waiting or improving the quality of that wait? And how do short-term waits (like queuing for aid) intersect with long-term, existential waits (such as prolonged displacement)?

This HUD doctoral sub-project is not just for humanitarian organizations; it is for the people who are waiting. It aims to shed light on how people endure, adapt, and find vitalizing ways to navigate such temporalities and spaces. Rather than simply trying to solve a problem, this project intervenes in the very nature of waiting, pushing us to think about how we can improve these conditions and, perhaps more fundamentally, why waiting has become such a common part of life in humanitarian contexts.

The research for this project takes place in the Darien region (Panama and Colombia) and the refugee camp of Nakivale and its surrounding (Uganda).