Paper details

Paper authors	Rosanne Anholt
In panel on	Technology, Innovation and Experimentation in the Refugee Sector
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

Dear dr. Aila Spathopoulou and dr. Hanna Ruszczyk,

Hereby I would like to submit the following abstract Imagining humanitarian assistance anew: Innovation, informality and experimental humanitarianism by my colleague, dr. Marijn Hoijtink and myself for the your panel titled Technology, innovation and experimentation in the refugee sector. An earlier version of this abstract has been accepted for inclusion in a special issue titled Imaginaries of (in)security: Technopolitical futures at the nexus of security-innovation for the journal Geopolitics, edited by Dagmar Rychnovská (University of Sussex), Christian Haddad (Austrian Institute for International Affairs), Nina Klimburg-Witjes (University of Vienna) due by December 2021. As we are still developing our thinking around the issues of innovation, informality and experimentality in the humanitarian sector (for example, we are still in the process of selecting specific empirical cases), we would be very much looking forward to exchanging ideas with you and the other panelists.

Thank you very much for your consideration,
Sincerely,

Dr. Marijn Hoijtink
Assistant professor of International Relations
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
m.hoijtink@vu.nl

Rosanne Anholt, MSc.
Assistant professor of Conflict Studies
Radboud University Nijmegen
rosanne.anholt@ru.nl

Abstract

Imagining Humanitarian Assistance Anew: Innovation, Informality and Experimental Humanitarianism

There is a growing focus on innovation within the humanitarian sector. The use of (digital) technologies in particular, such as machine learning, blockchain, and biometrics, are expected to build new forms of humanitarian assistance that are better, faster, and more efficient (see also Duffield, 2018; Sandvik, Jumbert, Karlsrud, & Kaufmann, 2014) in line with global agreements such as the Grand Bargain. As such, the humanitarian imperative has been an important enabler of the circulation of (digital) technologies in the Global South, overriding concerns related to data protection and privacy. Recent cases demonstrating the negative unintended effects of humanitarian technologies on vulnerable populations, as in Afghanistan (Jacobsen & Steinacker, 2021) and Bangladesh (Human Rights Watch, 2021), stress the importance of considering the potential risks and ethical challenges arising from their use.

In this article, we build upon and connect different bodies of literature. First, we consider the rich body of literature within critical security studies that has engaged with the role of technology in security and war, as well as with the specific ‘socio-technical imaginaries’ (Jasanoff, 2015) that inform and sustain contemporary manifestations of ‘precision warfare’ (Demmers & Gould, 2018) or ‘algorithmic security’ (Amoore & Raley, 2017). We connect it to the burgeoning literature on humanitarian technology and innovation (Sandvik, 2017; Scott-Smith, 2016). In addition, we take note of the (postcolonial) science and technology studies literature on experiments and experimentation in the Global South, the (medical) anthropology literature on innovation and experimentation, as well as on the concept of ‘informality’.

Whereas much of the existing literature on humanitarian technology and innovation focuses on the uses of (already-existing) technologies and their implications, our emphasis in this paper instead is on how they come to be in the first place, that is, on imaginaries, rationalities and (implementation) practices (including partnerships) of innovating humanitarian technology. Importantly, in conceptualizing ‘experimental humanitarianism’ (see also Sandvik, Jacobsen and McDonald (2017) on the humanitarian ethics of experimentation), we draw parallels with developments in the military and security sectors, and how particular (digital) technologies circulate between them, thereby illustrating how humanitarianism, security and imaginaries of technoscience are increasingly (re-)entangled, albeit in multiple and ‘messy’ ways.

We construct our argument based on the different bodies of literature mentioned above as well as a variety of empirical illustrative cases, considering for example existing partnerships between humanitarian organizations and the international private sector. In doing so, we aim to show how, mirroring developments in the security and military sector, technological innovation within humanitarian aid has taken a highly experimental form, and that humanitarian aid – like security – is increasingly understood as ‘a problem of experimentation’. This means that its primary logic is being reversed: humanitarian crises become the solution for technological innovation rather than the other way around. Ultimately the transformation of fragile and conflict-affected contexts into ‘living laboratories’ (Hunt, 2019), only serves to further entrench the power inequalities between humanitarian organizations and vulnerable populations (Madianou, 2019). (454 words)

References

Amoore, L., & Raley, R. (2017). Securing with algorithms: Knowledge, decisions, sovereignty. Security Dialogue, 48(1), 3-10. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010616680753

Demmers, J., & Gould, L. (2018). An assemblage approach to liquid warfare: AFRICOM and the ‘hunt’ for Joseph Kony. Security Dialogue, 49(5), 364-381. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010618777890

Duffield, M. (2018). Post-humanitarianism: Governing precarity in the digital world. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Human Rights Watch. (2021, June 15). UN shared Rohingya data without informed consent: Bangladesh provided Myanmar information that Refugee Agency collected. Available from: https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/06/15/un-shared-rohingya-data-without-informed-consent

Hunt, M. (2019). A living laboratory? Ethics and experimentality in humanitarian innovation. Paper presented at PREA Conference. Ethics and Humanitarian Research: Generating Evidence Ethically. The Fawcett Event Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, March 25-26, 2019. Available from: https://kb.osu.edu/handle/1811/87663

Jacobsen, K. L., & Steinacker, K. (2021, August 26). Contingency planning in the digital age: Biometric data of Afghans must be reconsidered. Available from: https://blogs.prio.org/2021/08/contingency-planning-in-the-digital-age-biometric-data-of-afghans-must-be-reconsidered/?fbclid=IwAR1Vf8izW9z_zpdiSOG0u0eTSxBI-cqQVLIh3wldGuCPJXsZk6PlqLtR8Ec

Jasanoff, S. (2015). Future imperfect: Science, technology, and the imaginations of modernity. In: S. Jasanoff & S. Kim (Eds.), Dreamscapes of modernity: Sociotechnical imaginaries and the fabrication of power (pp. 1-33). The University of Chicago Press.

Madianou, M. (2019). Technocolonialism: Digital innovation and data practices in the humanitarian response to refugee crises. Social media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119863146

Sandvik, K.B. (2017). Now is the time to deliver: looking for humanitarian innovation’s theory of change. International Journal of Humanitarian Action 2(8). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41018-017-0023-2

Sandvik, K. B., Jumbert, M. G., Karlsrud, J., & Kaufmann, M. (2014). Humanitarian technology: A critical research agenda. International Review of the Red Cross, 96(893), 219-242. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1816383114000344

Sandvik, K.B., Jacobsen, K. L., & McDonald, S. M. (2017). Do no harm: A taxonomy of the challenges of humanitarian experimentation. International Review of the Red Cross, 99(904), 319 – 344. https://doi.org/10.1017/S181638311700042X

Scott-Smith, T. (2016). Humanitarian neophilia : The ‘innovation turn’ and its implications. Third World Quarterly, 37(12), 2229-2251. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2016.1176856

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