ABSTRACT
Drawing on research carried out in Haiti from 2010 to 2013, this chapter considers how mobile communication infrastructures and locational technologies are enrolled into uneven global assemblages of power that may have more, or less, democratizing effects depending on how they are performed. The takeoff of digital humanitarianism using platforms such as OpenStreetMaps (OSM) was built upon idealistic beliefs in the power of open data and locational media. However, the sharing of such locational technologies relies on material and social infrastructures that can be easily co-opted into neoliberal governance through participatory logics. This analysis of locational technologies in post-earthquake Haiti considers how humanitarian aid and development processes using OSM might be improved, first by recognizing the uneven topologies of accessibility within post-disaster communications infrastructures, and second by building on local appropriation of connectivity within everyday life to envision and enact more performative participatory processes across diverse communication platforms.
