Digitisation and Sovereignty in Humanitarian Space: Technologies, Territories and Tensions

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • Aaron Martin
  • Gargi Sharma
  • Siddharth Peter de Souza
  • Linnet Taylor
  • Boudewijn van Eerd
  • Sean Martin McDonald
  • Massimo Marelli
  • Margie Cheesman
  • Stephan Scheel
  • Huub Dijstelbloem

Debates are ongoing on the limits of–and possibilities for–sovereignty in the digital era. While most observers spotlight the implications of the Internet, cryptocurrencies, artificial intelligence/machine learning and advanced data analytics for the sovereignty of nation states, a critical yet under examined question concerns what digital innovations mean for authority, power and control in the humanitarian sphere in which different rules, values and expectations are thought to apply. This forum brings together practitioners and scholars to explore both conceptually and empirically how digitisation and datafication in aid are (re)shaping notions of sovereign power in humanitarian space. The forum’s contributors challenge established understandings of sovereignty in new forms of digital humanitarian action. Among other focus areas, the forum draws attention to how cyber dependencies threaten international humanitarian organisations’ purported digital sovereignty. It also contests the potential of technologies like blockchain to revolutionise notions of sovereignty in humanitarian assistance and hypothesises about the ineluctable parasitic qualities of humanitarian technology. The forum concludes by proposing that digital technologies deployed in migration contexts might be understood as ‘sovereignty experiments’. We invite readers from scholarly, policy and practitioner communities alike to engage closely with these critical perspectives on digitisation and sovereignty in humanitarian space.

Original languageEnglish
JournalGeopolitics
Volume28
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)1362-1397
Number of pages36
ISSN1465-0045
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20.03.2023
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Titel der Ausgabe: The Geopolitics of Return Migration in the International System

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