PRIO's Kristin B. Sandvik was present at the 8th ICMM Workshop on Military Medical Ethics: Ethics of Military Medical Innovation, Experimentation, and Enhancement 03 – 05 May 2018. The workshop was organized by The International Committee of Military Medicine.
Sandvik's contribution was a paper on Humanitarian subject experimentation: Beneficiary bodies, technology optimism and the making of wearables in aid.
Abstract: Humanitarian subject experimentation: Beneficiary bodies, technology optimism and the making of wearables in aid.
This paper provides an initial exploration of an emergent type of humanitarian goods, namely ‘humanitarian wearables’ for tracking the health, safety and nutrition of aid recipients. The paper provides a brief account of the history of wristbands and similar, and offers an inventory of prototyped products. It then unpacks the contemporary making of humanitarian wearables at the interface of global health, population control and security agendas. Taking
Sandvik, Lindskov Jacobsen and McDonald (2017) framework of humanitarian experimentation as the point of departure, the paper explores a set of ethical questions relating to the digitization of beneficiary bodies in aid.
