Paper details

Paper authors	Modesta Alozie
In panel on	Data and Displacement: Data Justice in Humanitarian Targeting
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

Data injustice and humanitarian targeting in North-eastern Nigeria and South Sudan
Digital humanitarianism is changing the face of aid and development. Yet targeting assistance through large-scale data raises pressing questions about the opportunities and dangers of the so-called “data revolution” in assisting at-risk groups. How effective is data-based targeting in practice? Who benefits from such developments – and who is excluded? What practical problems and ethical concerns arise in the collation and use of data, and how do beneficiaries or potential beneficiaries respond to the move toward data-based targeting of humanitarian aid? This paper addresses these questions through the lens of data justice, focusing on the provision of assistance to Internally Displaced Persons in North-eastern Nigeria and South Sudan. It argues that the production and use of large-scale humanitarian data not only raises operational and ethical challenges, but also perpetuates longer-standing epistemic and political dynamics of concern. The paper explores moments of interference and friction, while considering how both controversies and ignorance are embedded in the production and use large-scale data. Highlighting the dangers of data misuse, we draw on postcolonial conceptions of epistemic violence and injustice in order to establish a conceptual framework for the analysis of data justice that acknowledges the multiple dimensions and cumulative character of injustice.

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