DETAILS
Date/Time: Thurs 7th March 2023, 4pm – 5.30pm (UK)
Location: Hybrid - Samuel Alexander Building, Room SG.16 + Zoom
Open to all // Registration essential // Organised by HCRI at University of Manchester
ABOUT THE TALK
This talk will investigate 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 talk will explore new humanitarian spaces and practices such as the humanitarian drone airspace, wearable innovation challenges, and ethics in global disaster innovation labs.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Kristin Bergtora Sandvik is a Research Professor in Humanitarian Studies at Peace Research Institute Oslo and Professor of Sociology of Law at the University of Oslo.
Prof. Sandvik is a socio-legal scholar with a particular interest in the politics of innovation and technology in the humanitarian space. She holds a Candidata Juris from the University of Oslo and a doctoral degree from Harvard Law School. Prof. Sandvik is at the forefront of the thinking about the modalities and products of innovation, such as and wearables. She is currently engaged in work on digital bodies, digital dead body management, humanitarian ethics and AI experimentation.
Her books include ‘Humanitarian Extractivism’ and ‘The Good Drone’.
ABOUT HCRI
Based at University of Manchester, we are a leading global centre for the study of humanitarianism and conflict response, global health, international disaster management and peacebuilding.
Our work is driven by a desire to inform and support policy and decision makers, to optimise collaborations between partner organisations, and to foster increased understanding and debate within the field.
Bringing together disciplines from medicine to the humanities, we research questions and issues related to what the United Nations calls the ‘triple nexus’ – humanitarian response, development and peace. Our aim is to facilitate improvements in crisis response on a global scale.
https://www.hcri.manchester.ac.uk/
