Refugee Aid 3.0: Seeking Infrastructure Justice

主要的人道主义组织正在使用未经测试的新数字技术向难民提供援助。我的工作考察了这些实验的社会和政治含义。我关注的是一个联合国项目，该项目使用数据库技术区块链，结合生物识别身份检查，为约旦的叙利亚难民提供食物和现金等基本需求。我使用人种学方法，这意味着花时间和人们在一起，了解他们在日常生活中是如何思考和使用技术的。在我的博士学位中，我比较了主要机构（世界粮食计划署和联合国妇女署）的决策者、难民营的援助工作者和难民自己对该项目的理解和体验。很少有人研究b区块链对真实人群的影响，尤其是那些生活贫困、受到政府监视、权利受限的叙利亚难民妇女。当人道主义机构采用区块链时，它如何影响向难民提供援助？难民妇女如何将bbb支付纳入她们的日常财务程序？推广区块链的机构和科技公司承诺，区块链将改善人道主义援助，但事实果真如此吗？在这个博士后奖学金中，我将专注于出版出版物和组织研讨会，以联系研究人员、援助行业决策者和难民权利活动家。首先，我将把我的博士论文出版成书。这本书将全面、详细地介绍参与制作和使用实验技术的地点和人员。它将解开区块链——作为一种有效的方式来削减像银行这样的中间商——实际上是如何引入新的中间商并鼓励援助私有化的。这本书将是一本关于区块链和数字不平等的通俗易懂的指南，通过我花了四年时间收集的人类故事，将其变得栩栩如生。它将对有关援助和难民以及数字技术的社会政治影响的知识作出重大贡献。其次，我将在一份顶级同行评议期刊上发表一篇文章，讲述叙利亚难民妇女与区块链的经历，以及她们对区块链的伊斯兰文化观念。通过对宗教和性别动态的分析，本文将平衡我在约旦实地工作中丰富多彩的细节，并提供强有力的理论贡献，推动对区块链的理解。b区块链被广泛误解为一种中立的社会发展工具。我将打破这个神话，并展示它是如何在约旦根深蒂固的社会经济不平等，以及难民妇女如何反对将这种不平等强加于她们艰难的生活。第三，我将组织一个系列研讨会，并发表一份面向公众的研究简报。我的工作有可能在学术界之外产生重大影响。我收集了关于b区块链对全球边缘影响的独家证据，在此过程中，我在援助行业政策制定者和从业者、民间社会活动家、难民组织以及几个学科的学者之间建立了良好的网络。研讨会将邀请非学术和学术参与者推动关于难民数字权利的研究和行动议程。从研讨会和研究简报中获得的新的联系和见解将启动我未来的职业生涯，在人道主义创新的前沿进行研究。最后，为了建立我在援助、技术和学术界的关系网，我将访问数字司法的顶级研究中心——蒂尔堡法律、技术和社会研究所，并参加数字权利的主要国际会议RightsCon。该奖学金将允许我进行战略培训，以补充我计划的活动：手稿发展课程（在线，“手稿作品”）将使我的技能基础正正化，为一个多产和有影响力的学术生涯做准备。

Major humanitarian organisations are using untested new digital technologies to deliver aid to refugees. My work examines the social and political implications of these experiments. I focus on a United Nations project using the database technology blockchain, coupled with biometric identity checks, to provide Syrian refugees in Jordan with basic needs like food and cash. I use ethnographic methods, which means spending time with people to understand how they think about and work with technology in their everyday lives. In my PhD, I compare how the project is understood and experienced by decision-makers in major institutions (the World Food Programme and UN Women), by aid workers in refugee camps, and by refugees themselves. Very little research has been done on blockchain's implications for real people, least of all Syrian refugee women living in poverty, under government surveillance, and with restricted rights. When humanitarian agencies adopt blockchain, how does it affect the delivery of aid to refugees? How do refugee women incorporate blockchain payments into their everyday financial routines? The agencies and tech companies promoting blockchain promise that it will improve humanitarian aid, but does it?In this postdoctoral fellowship, I will focus on producing publications and organising workshops to connect researchers, aid industry decision-makers, and refugee rights activists. First, I will publish my doctoral study as a book. The book will give a rounded, detailed picture of the places and people involved in making and using experimental technology. It will unpick how blockchain-promoted as an efficient way of cutting out middlemen such as banks-in fact introduces new middlemen and encourages the privatisation of aid. The book will be an accessible guide to blockchain and digital inequality, brought to life through human stories I spent four years gathering. It will be a major contribution to knowledge about aid and refugees and the socio-political implications of digital technology. Second, I will publish an article with a top-ranking, peer-reviewed journal, about Syrian refugee women's experiences with blockchain, and their Islamic cultural conceptualisation of it. With the analysis of religious and gender dynamics, the article will balance colourful detail from my Jordan fieldwork with a strong theoretical contribution that pushes forward understandings of blockchain. Blockchain is widely misconceived as a neutral social development tool. I will bust this myth and show how it is entrenching socio-economic inequality in Jordan, and refugee women are contesting its imposition on their difficult lives.Third, I will organise a workshop series, accompanied by a public-facing research brief. My work has the potential for significant impact beyond academia. I have gathered exclusive evidence on the impacts of blockchain at global margins, and in doing so I have created excellent networks among aid industry policymakers and practitioners, civil society activists, and refugee organisations, as well as academics in several disciplines. The workshops will engage non-academic and academic participants to push forward an agenda for research and action on refugees' digital rights. The new connections and insights from the workshop and research brief will kickstart my future career conducting research at the forefront of humanitarian innovation.Finally, to build on my networks in aid, tech, and academia, I will visit the top research centre on digital justice, the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society, and attend the leading international conference for digital rights, RightsCon. The fellowship will allow me to undertake strategic training to complement my planned activities: the manuscript development course (online, 'Manuscript Works') will formalise my skills base in preparation for a prolific and impactful academic career.