HUMANITECH · Humanitarian Technology Interventions

There is growing global interest in the positive role of technology (such as mobile phones, sanitary toilets, or malaria nets) to alleviate problems associated with poverty and humanitarian crises. However, research on humanitarian technology interventions is overly technology-centric, focusing on issues of design, production, delivery, and efficiency. This research project will advance the study of humanitarian technology as an organisational phenomenon with the dual objective of advancing scholarship and informing intervention policy and practice. Specifically, the research project will explore three multi-level phenomena associated with humanitarian technology interventions: the role of rhetoric in establishing international technology standards, global organizing of interventions, and the experiences of user-beneficiaries. These will be explored through the following research methods and modes of analysis: case study design, dramatism, narrative interviews, and thematic analysis. Scholarly innovation and expertise will be realized by advancing and applying the research methodologies of dramatism and narrative interviews to study humanitarian technology interventions.