Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality - Chapter 22 - Humanitarian technologies

Every two weeks I am going to feature one of the chapters of our Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality which was published in spring 2024.
This week we are taking a closer look at Chapter 22 – Humanitarian technologies - contributed by Reem Talhouk.

From the introduction 
This chapter highlights the inequalities that arise as humanitarian technologies premised on notions of coloniality/modernity act upon indigenous and refugee communities’ ways of being. I refer to ways of being as the practices, values, beliefs, and knowledge that constitute peoples’ ways of existing on and with this Earth. The inequalities that this chapter will focus on are how humanitarian technologies designed for humanitarian utility and efficiency contribute to: (1) the erosion of indigenous ways of being and (2) dis-afford refugees agency to re-appropriate technologies. In Section 1, I present the construct of coloniality/modernity in relation to humanitarianism on which arguments in this chapter are built. Section 2 begins to unpack the coloniality/modernity of technologies within humanitarian contexts by providing a comparative overview between indigenous and non-digital humanitarian technologies. The section draws out the preoccupation of humanitarian technologies with achieving efficiencies through processes of standardisation – highlighting the advantages of their universalist design within acute emergency response while also juxtaposing them to the fluidity of indigenous technologies that are conducive of communities’ ways of being. In Section 3, I present an overview of prominent trends in the deployment of digital humanitarian technologies and further highlight the means through which such technologies generate and maintain a narrative of coloniality/modernity. To further elaborate, in Section 4, I delve into the use of humanitarian digital identity systems and food aid (blockchain) technologies as case studies through which we can observe how these technologies exact narratives of coloniality/modernity and in turn inequalities in the daily lives of refugees. The chapter will conclude with the revisiting of the argument built throughout the chapter and draws out how it relates to inequalities.

Note on contributor 
Reem Talhouk is a Lebanese Design Researcher and Associate Professor at Northumbria School of Design where she is the co-lead of the Design Feminisms Research Group and the lead of the Global Development Futures Hub. 
Her research is at the intersection of Design, Humanitarianism, Global Development and technologies and engages with Feminist, Decolonial and Participatory Design theories and praxis. 
She has conducted research in the ‘Middle East’, Europe and ‘Australia’ focusing on technologies, migration and revolution.

Overviews are already available for the following chapters: 
Introduction: humanitarianism and inequality – a re-orientation

Humanitarianism and colonialism

Humanitarianism and the global Cold War, 1945–1991

Humanitarianism and the new wars: humanitarianism, security, and securitisation

Humanitarianism, development and peace: a southern perspective

Localisation and the humanitarian sector

Human rights and humanitarianism

Humanitarian organisations: behemoths and butterflies

Faith actors in humanitarianism: dynamics and inequalities

Diaspora assistance  

Political solidarity movements and humanitarianism: lessons from Catalonia, Spain (1975–2020)

Subversive humanitarianism

Citizen’s groups and grassroots humanitarianism

Humanitarianism and the military

Race, racialisation, and coloniality in the humanitarian aid sector

Humanitarian organisations as gendered organisations

Sexuality and humanitarianism: colonial ‘hauntings’

Class matters in humanitarianism

Humanitarianism and disability 

Media representations of humanitarianism

Humanitarianism and pandemics 

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