The Appearance of Accountability: Communication Technologies and Power Asymmetries in Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Recovery
Citations Over TimeTop 1% of 2016 papers
Abstract
New communication technologies are celebrated for their potential to improve the accountability of humanitarian agencies. The response to Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 represents the most systematic implementation of “accountability to affected people” initiatives. Drawing on a year-long ethnography of the Haiyan recovery and 139 interviews with humanitarian workers and affected people, the article reveals a narrow interpretation of accountability as feedback that is increasingly captured through mobile phones. We observe that the digitized collection of feedback is not fed back to disaster-affected communities, but is directed to donors as evidence of “impact.” Rather than improving accountability to affected people, digitized feedback mechanisms sustained humanitarianism's power asymmetries.
Related Papers
- → Strengthening the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster response capabilities(2008)9 cited
- → Building a Sound and Flexible Emergency Response System Hard Won Lessons in Disaster Management(2006)
- On Enhancing the Capabilities of Disaster Prevention and Emergency Response at Colleges(2010)
- → Disaster Emergency Management and Response(2019)
- → Strategic approaches in disaster management: Analyzing the roles of public health professionals from emergency response to post-disaster recovery(2024)