TY - JOUR

T1 - Digitisation and Sovereignty in Humanitarian Space

T2 - Technologies, Territories and Tensions

AU - Martin, Aaron

AU - Sharma, Gargi

AU - Peter de Souza, Siddharth

AU - Taylor, Linnet

AU - van Eerd, Boudewijn

AU - McDonald, Sean Martin

AU - Marelli, Massimo

AU - Cheesman, Margie

AU - Scheel, Stephan

AU - Dijstelbloem, Huub

N1 - 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 The Tilburg University team was funded by the European Research Council under the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement n° 757247).

PY - 2023/3/20

Y1 - 2023/3/20

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - Sociology

KW - Politics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85126763569&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/ef620509-9692-3a94-b1f7-ddd3850a557c/

U2 - 10.1080/14650045.2022.2047468

DO - 10.1080/14650045.2022.2047468

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 37153004

AN - SCOPUS:85126763569

VL - 28

SP - 1362

EP - 1397

JO - Geopolitics

JF - Geopolitics

SN - 1465-0045

IS - 3

ER -