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  3. Humanitarian extractivism
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    • Publisher:
      Manchester University Press
      Publication date:
      30 May 2026
      ISBN:
      9781526165831
      9781526165824
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      • Subjects:
      Sociology: General Interest, Politics and International Relations, Comparative Politics, Sociology
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    Subjects:
    Sociology: General Interest, Politics and International Relations, Comparative Politics, Sociology
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    Book description

    Offering a unique analysis of the digital transformation of the humanitarian system, Humanitarian extractivism provides an innovative perspective on how the aid sector uses technology to become fit for the challenges of the 21st century. The book focuses on how practices of data extraction shift power towards states, the private sector and humanitarians. New partnerships emerge, with a focus on data governance, marketization and surveillance. Humanitarian data is harnessed for monetary, experimental and political purposes. In conflict-ridden and fragile settings, providing data about the body is increasingly a precondition for receiving humanitarian aid, but engenders risk for individuals’ physical bodies as well as their digital bodies. Drawing on the author’s two decades of engagement with the humanitarian field as a scholar, practitioner, activist and ethics advisor, the book provides an in-depth insight into key aspects of the digital transformation. How is humanitarian work changing? How do we protect children’s digital bodies? What is the role of experimentation in humanitarian aid? Are humanitarians accountable for cyberattacks? What role will the drone airspace play in aid? While there is talk of ‘ethics-washing’, how can work on humanitarian ethics support local innovation labs? Humanitarian extractivism covers disasters, development contexts and conflict settings, and draws on examples from emergency zones globally. Written in an engaging and personal style, the story of how aid is becoming a practice of humanitarian extraction is of interest to scholars, practitioners, innovators and policymakers – and everyone else interested in how technology changes how we understand crisis and human suffering.

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