Business Helping in Crisis: Tourism’s Response to Covid-19 in Tanzania as Everyday Humanitarianism

Abstract

Disasters can function as social disruptors, shifting the day-to-day relations of power in response to the crisis. In Tanzania, coronavirus disease-2019 (Covid-19) was not nationally acknowledged as a disaster in the same ways as in neighbouring countries. Yet, in northern Tanzania, where much of the economy depends on tourism, it was a disaster. This article examines how Tanzanian tourism companies responded to the Covid-19 crisis through the interpretive lens of everyday humanitarianism. Through collaboration, qualitative interviews with stakeholders, and participant observation, we argue that businesspeople in tourism engaged in a locally grounded form of corporate helping that mitigated the crisis while avoiding direct political conflict. The actions of Tanzanian tourist companies involved navigating complex political dynamics around naming the crisis, negotiating relationships with foreigners, and distinguishing effective helping from aid dependency. Thus, understanding how these everyday humanitarians experience and negotiate the politics of helping challenges our preconceptions around business helping in crisis and expands our conceptualization of humanitarianism.