Digital Humanitarianism: a Critical Discourse Analysis

EasyChair Preprint 10834

Abstract

Early works in the field of Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) saw the state as central in designing and implementing development policy. Over time, this assumption has been questioned by recognition of the role played by non-state actors, private and supranational, in building and enacting development schemes. In the sub-domain of digital humanitarianism, private entities – especially, technology vendors partnering with national and supranational bodies – shape the implementation of humanitarian programmes in substantial ways. To understand the objectives informing private vendors’ action in digital humanitarianism, this paper conducts Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) on a dataset of public sources (2019-2023) from vendors of biometric technologies that moved into humanitarianism. Identifying the discourses of mapping, providing and empowering as central to vendors’ narratives, the paper illuminates how private technology vendors participate in digital humanitarianism, and provides the basis for problematising the vendors’ discourse.

Keyphrases: Biometric technology, Critical Discourse Analysis, Digital Humanitarianism, ICT4D

@booklet{EasyChair:10834,
  author    = {Silvia Masiero},
  title     = {Digital Humanitarianism: a Critical Discourse Analysis},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 10834},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2023}}