scholarly journals Technocolonialism: Digital Innovation and Data Practices in the Humanitarian Response to Refugee Crises

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 205630511986314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirca Madianou
Keyword(s):  
Digital Innovation ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Humanitarian Response ◽  
Data Practices ◽  
Power Asymmetries ◽  
Humanitarian Crises ◽  
Colonial Legacies ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Innovation Practices ◽  
Social Orders

Digital innovation and data practices are increasingly central to the humanitarian response to recent refugee and migration crises. In this article, I introduce the concept of technocolonialism to capture how the convergence of digital developments with humanitarian structures and market forces reinvigorates and reshapes colonial relationships of dependency. Technocolonialism shifts the attention to the constitutive role that data and digital innovation play in entrenching power asymmetries between refugees and aid agencies and ultimately inequalities in the global context. This occurs through a number of interconnected processes: by extracting value from refugee data and innovation practices for the benefit of various stakeholders; by materializing discrimination associated with colonial legacies; by contributing to the production of social orders that entrench the “coloniality of power”; and by justifying some of these practices under the context of “emergencies.” By reproducing the power asymmetries of humanitarianism, data and innovation practices become constitutive of humanitarian crises themselves.

scholarly journals Contested borders: organized crime, governance, and bordering practices in Colombia-Venezuela borderlands

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viviana García Pinzón ◽  
Jorge Mantilla
Keyword(s):  
Organized Crime ◽  
Border Studies ◽  
Transnational Organized Crime ◽  
Spatial Category ◽  
Criminal Organizations ◽  
The Common ◽  
Migration Flows ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Social Orders ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract Based on the conceptualizations of organized crime as both an enterprise and a form of governance, borderland as a spatial category, and borders as institutions, this paper looks at the politics of bordering practices by organized crime in the Colombian-Venezuelan borderlands. It posits that contrary to the common assumptions about transnational organized crime, criminal organizations not only blur or erode the border but rather enforce it to their own benefit. In doing so, these groups set norms to regulate socio-spatial practices, informal and illegal economies, and migration flows, creating overlapping social orders and, lastly, (re)shaping the borderland. Theoretically, the analysis brings together insights from political geography, border studies, and organized crime literature, while empirically, it draws on direct observation, criminal justice data, and in-depth interviews.

Postnational Masculinities and Globalization in Junot Díaz and Juan Francisco Ferré

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo F. Vivancos-Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Junot Diaz ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Hispanic Studies ◽  
Media Spectacle ◽  
Colonial Legacies ◽  
American Author ◽  
Low Theory

Vivancos-Pérez’s chapter demonstrates how the postnational position is influencing discourses on gender. By comparing Dominican American author Junot Díaz’s This is How You Lose Her (2012) with Spanish writer Juan Francisco Ferré’s Providence (2009) and Karnaval (2012), he argues that both authors display a critique of masculinity as an essential component of a postnational approach to cultural exchange. While Ferré disidentifies with narrative strategies of the fiction of displacement in Hispanic literatures, Díaz’s particular “low theory” emphasizes diasporicity. At the same time, this chapter draws a useful parallel between Díaz’s and Ferré’s explorations of masculinity, which add a new dimension to the transnational turn in Latino/Hispanic studies. Both authors do not simply reject traditional hypermasculine myths but try to explore their specificity within a greater transnational/global context, either by focusing on transculturation, colonial legacies, displacement and marginalization, or by elucidating the dynamic and elusive relationships among global capitalism, identity, and media spectacle.

Resource Allocations for Humanitarian Response

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radmila Juric ◽  
Aladdin Shamoug
Keyword(s):  
Resource Allocation ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Smart Phones ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Mobile Wireless ◽  
Humanitarian Response ◽  
Desktop Application ◽  
Humanitarian Crises ◽  
Efficient Resource ◽  
Wireless Environments

Resource allocation is one of the most important tasks in organizing humanitarian response to humanitarian crises. It is not only that adequate and efficient resource allocation save lives and reduce damages caused by humanitarian crises, but resource allocation must be fast and efficient to save time and resources. Given that resource allocation is a type of a decision-making process, it is expected that decision on resource allocation are based on accurate and relevant information generated at various stages of humanitarian response. In this article, the authors promote Semantic Resource Allocation tools which a) collects and interprets the semantics of an environment where resource allocation is required and b) the reasons upon the semantics of that environment in order to make appropriate resource allocation. The tool is built with computations based on SWRL enabled OWL ontologies. The prototype has been implemented as a desktop application which can also run in mobile/wireless environments, including Android smart phones.

scholarly journals Interdisciplinary Approaches to Refugee and Migration Studies

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 164-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Vannini ◽  
Ricardo Gomez ◽  
Megan Carney ◽  
Katharyne Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Future Research ◽  
Migration Studies ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Personal Stories ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
The Social ◽  
Information Studies ◽  
And Migration

We reflect on the experience of a cross-disciplinary collaboration between scholars in the fields of geography, anthropology, communication, and information studies, and suggest paths for future research on sanctuary and migration studies that are based on interdisciplinary approaches. After situating sanctuary in a wider theoretical, historical, and global context, we discuss the origins and contemporary expressions of sanctuary both within and beyond faith-based organizations. We include the role of collective action, personal stories, and artistic expressions as part of the new sanctuary movement, as well as the social and political forms of outrage that lead to rekindling protest and protection of undocumented immigrants, refugees, and other minorities and vulnerable populations. We conclude with a discussion on the urgency for interdisciplinary explorations of these kinds of new, contemporary manifestations of sanctuary, and suggest paths for further research to deepen the academic dialogue on the topic.

A Queer Approach to Understanding LGBT Vulnerability during the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 1101-1109
Author(s):  
Graeme Reid ◽  
Samuel Ritholtz
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Research Note ◽  
International Policy ◽  
Humanitarian Response ◽  
Structural Forces ◽  
Humanitarian Crises ◽  
Lgbt People ◽  
National Programs ◽  
Monolithic Approach ◽  
Identity Groups

AbstractThroughout the COVID-19 pandemic, advocates have argued for the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) people in humanitarian response efforts. Yet the application of this differential focus has been mixed among international policy guidelines and national programs. This research note details a queer theoretical approach to humanitarian crises that considers the intersectional factors that produce specific vulnerabilities within LGBT communities. We take two examples from distinct LGBT communities during the COVID-19 pandemic to demonstrate the analytical risk of treating the umbrella acronym LGBT, indicating distinct identity groups, as monolithic and not differentiating within identity groups based on other factors. We contend that this monolithic approach risks obviating the way different structural forces further compound precarity during crisis. Thus, we make the case for rooting intersectional approaches in any queer analyses of crisis.

scholarly journals Social Work With Migrants and Refugees

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. i-x ◽  
Author(s):  
Marciana Popescu ◽  
Kathryn Libal
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Global Context ◽  
The Past ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
And Migration

This special issue of Advances in Social Work focuses on current challenges and best practices with migrants and refugees, in an increasingly difficult global context. Over the past decade, forced migration and displacement reached record numbers, while complex geopolitical, economic, and environmental factors contributed to escalating current challenges. International human rights and migration laws provide a framework too narrow and too limited for these recent developments. Political pressure and a growing identity crisis add to the xenophobia and climate of fear, in which security has in some cases become the primary rationale underpinning rapidly changing migration policies. Social work as a profession – in education and practice – has an important (if largely unfulfilled) role to play in advancing the human rights of migrants and refugees. In this commentary, we outline the macro contexts that shape social work practice with migrants and refugees, highlighting the great potential for social work to do much more to advance the rights and interests of those fleeing conflict, economic or natural disasters, or other upheavals.

scholarly journals Palliative Care in Humanitarian Crises

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Coghlan
Keyword(s):  
Palliative Care ◽  
Common Humanity ◽  
Humanitarian Action ◽  
Humanitarian Response ◽  
Humanitarian Crises ◽  
Care Response ◽  
Universal Application

Palliative care and humanitarian action share fundamental goals to relieve suffering and uphold dignity; and both hold an ethical root in the recognition of our common suffering in illness and dying, our compassionate action in response to suffering, and our common humanity. The parallels in goals and ethos should make universal application of palliative care in humanitarian crises a norm, but in humanitarian practice today this is not the case. There is growing consciousness of the imperative to integrate palliative care into humanitarian response. Compassionate palliative care is steeped in humanitarian history, norms and ethics. ‘Small but potent’ acts of compassion are a profound and far-reaching element of palliative care response that can be delivered no matter how scarce the resources. In addition to meeting a neglected need, the broader practice of ‘small but potent’ acts of compassionate palliative care may serve to remind humanitarian actors of the very essence of a humane response and offer a radical reclaiming of the roots of humanitarianism.

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