SAHA EP 16 Raksha Vasudevan

Stories and Humanitarian Action

In this episode,Raksha Vasudevan, an Economist, Writer and former Aid Worker whose essays and reporting have appeared inThe New York Times, VICE, Guernica,and I,discussThe Story of a Brief MarriagebyAnuk Arudpragasam.

She says,“The best way for me to answer this question is thinking about it in terms of contribution rather than attribution. I haven’t been able to draw a direct line between reading a novel about a humanitarian crisis in a country and direct action beyond making a donation, perhaps, which is still significant, of course, but when you think about it in terms of contribution and an ecosystem of factors that can motivate action, certainly stories have the power to do that and they have done that in my life. Just like the media has a role in telling us what’s going on in the world and potentially motivating action, fiction can do that by bringing us into the lived experiences of people and not just in western societies having a personal or existential crisis, but people living through serious external events.”