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

Abstract

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.

Operationalizing digital self-determination

“…These asymmetries are often further exacerbated by a lack of digital literacy, limiting migrants' ability to use digital tools to achieve self-determination. For example, with little to no agency over the use of their data, migrant populations are often exploited as test subjects for new technologies, rather than benefiting from these rapid developments (Molnar, 2019;Martin et al, 2022). In addition, in many use cases, there exists a very weak framework for how data are collected, stored, and generally used, leading to ample scope for abuses.…”

Initiating a New Model in Compatible Human Resource Management in the Era of the Industrial Revolution 4.0

“…His value in ethics, however, derives more from his ability to approach the issue independently of theology and quasi-theological or quasi-Aristotelian perspectives that regard the universe as created for the benefit of other humans. He brought ethics into the modern era with this accomplishment (Martin et al, 2022).…”

On the sociopolitical configurations of digital identity principles

“…Interestingly, almost all the examples of real-world identity systems quoted in the document (BankID in Sweden, NADRA in Pakistan, UNHCR’s refugee ID, Aadhaar in India) are ones which can be seen primarily as initiatives that are of value to issuing institutions/owners of the identity database. For example, Aadhaar was promoted as addressing leakages in various social welfare schemes (Bhatia and Bhabha, 2017), the work of UNHCR seeks to manage refugee populations on behalf of nation states (Martin et al, 2022).…”