Panel details

Panel organiser(s) will be presenting	In-Person & Online
Number of paper presentations	6
Location	Istanbul

Abstract

Panel organisers: Susanne Jaspars (SOAS, University of London), C.Sathyamala (Institute of Human Development, New Delhi, and Institute of Social Studies, The Hague), Tamer Abd Elkreem (University of Khartoum), Iris Lim (SOAS)

Discussant session 1. Pierrick Devidal

Discussant session 2: Usha Ramanathan

Providing general reflections on the role of digitalisation in food assistance, its effects and issues raised in the presentations.

Over the last decade, inequality, hunger, and food and humanitarian crisis have been increasing globally. Humanitarian crises are no longer confined to the Global South. This is closely linked to changing geopolitics and neoliberal ideologies, the results of which are evident in widely varying contexts, for example in Sudan’s humanitarian crisis, India’s protracted hunger crisis, and the UK’s deepening food crisis. This trend is also associated with an increase in technocratic approaches, including the digitalisation of food and humanitarian assistance. While promoted for reasons of efficiency and accountability, the use of digital technologies to provide assistance may lead to new forms of exclusion. At the same time, they involve powerful multinational and national companies, states, and organisations, each with their own political and economic motivations, interests, and effects.

This panel invites papers examining the various political dynamics involved in the digitalisation of food and humanitarian assistance. This can be globally, for example with North-South comparisons and how technology itself becomes a form of power feeding into structural inequalities. It can also be at national level political- or war - economies. At the local level, how do new technologies, including their design, influence inclusion/exclusion and power relations between those deciding on the use of digital technologies, aid/welfare support workers, and recipients on ground. Papers analysing the effect of remote working on relationships of trust and the role of local knowledge are also welcome. We invite scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and activists to contribute their insights and research findings.

Paper presentations