Humanitarianism: Key Debates and New Approaches Humanitarian Extractivism

Digital initiatives aimed towards ‘fixing’ the humanitarian system, making it better and more secure, also create risk and harm for vulnerable individuals and communities. This book investigates the digital transformation of aid as a form of humanitarian extractivism. Humanitarian extractivism provides an innovative perspective on how the aid sector uses technology to embrace the challenges of the twenty-first century. Focusing on how practices of data extraction shift power towards states, the private sector and humanitarians, the book illustrates how new partnerships – with a focus on data governance, marketisation and surveillance – emerge through digital transformation.Humanitarian data is harnessed for monetary, experimental and political purposes. In conflict-ridden and fragile settings, providing data about the body is increasingly a precondition for receiving humanitarian aid – but engenders risk for individuals’ physical as well as their digital bodies. Drawing on two decades of engagement with the humanitarian field as a scholar, practitioner, activist and ethics advisor, the author provides an in-depth insight into key aspects of the digital transformation. How is humanitarian work changing? How do we protect children’s digital bodies? What is the role of experimentation in humanitarian aid? Are humanitarians accountable for cyber-attacks? What role will the drone airspace play in aid? While there is talk of ‘ethics-washing,’ how can work on humanitarian ethics support local innovation labs?Humanitarian extractivism covers disasters, development contexts and conflict settings, and draws on examples from emergency zones globally. Written in an engaging and personal style, the story of how aid is becoming a practice of humanitarian extraction will be of interest to scholars, practitioners, innovators and policymakers – and anyone interested in how technology changes the way we understand crisis and human suffering. This book investigates the digital transformation of aid as a form of humanitarian extractivism. It focuses on how practices of data extraction shift power towards states, the private sector and humanitarians.Digital initiatives aimed towards ‘fixing’ the humanitarian system, making it better and more secure, also create risk and harm for vulnerable individuals and communities. Central to the digital transformation of aid is the digital body – with digital identities becoming a prerequisite for receiving aid and protection – and the centralisation of vulnerability arising from enormous databases holding ever more humanitarian data. Cyber-attacks, human error and technological problems generate risks for humanitarians, but also mean that humanitarians themselves can put populations in need at risk.The book explores new humanitarian spaces and practices such as the humanitarian drone airspace, wearable innovation challenges and ethics in global disaster innovation labs.