Bread and Borders: the Mediterranean's Food Crisis and Unrra's Response during and after the Second World War

The paper takes as its starting point a small set of individual figures. Unrra officers whose trajectories, writings, and assignments offer a lens through which to examine how humanitarian priorities, especially around food, were enacted on the ground. These case studies are not meant to be representative, but illustrative: they allow us to trace how practices of provisioning, rationing, and logistical accountability emerged from the intersection of personal experience, organizational norms, and transnational circulation. Through this restricted biographical focus, the paper reflects more broadly on the international mobility of relief personnel and on the forms of knowledge and authority that structured the politics of food in the postwar Mediterranean.