ABSTRACT
The “humanitarian enterprise,” which has been characterized by unprecedented involvement of military power in humanitarian action and extensive flows of capital, has increasingly been making use of digital and other forms of technology to further its ends. Through discursive analysis, the authors explain how “non-profiteering,” neo-colonialist humanitarian practices, and humanitarian innovation have played out in the disaster and recovery of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Technologies such as texting, social media, and geo-spatial mapping were essential mechanisms for igniting the disaster industrial complex (DIC). The authors also discuss how outsider expertise, U.S. American exceptionalism, and the white savior industrial complex pave the way for the DIC to flourish. The authors bring needed attention to the highly contested problem of local actor participation vis-à-vis transnational recovery projects and the co-optation of sustainable community capacity building.
