Digital Sweatshops in the Disaster Zone:
Local Techie Aid Workers

PROJECT TEAM

Jonathan Corpus Ong

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Pamela Combinido

De La Salle University

In the wake of Haiyan, the Philippines was deemed as an ideal country to set up laboratories gathering evidence and providing insight about how digital tools can enhance community engagement and accountability to affected people. These initiatives leveraged on language and technological skills of a highly employable (and cheap) local labor force, who were enrolled in the usual suite of capacity-building and training programs that seek to empower local communities and “build resilience” in the long term. Drawing from interviews and participant observation, our project examines how digital humanitarian projects were actually tested and implemented by local techie aid workers employed in short-term, low-paid, and “dispersed labor” arrangements by global aid agencies.

We have two journal articles accepted and forthcoming from this project:

1. Ong, J.C. & Combinido, P.* (forthcoming, 2017). “Local Aid Workers as Entrepreneurial Survivors: Aspiring for Mobility in the Digital Humanitarian Project”. Critical Asian Studies. 
2. Combinido, P.* & Ong, J.C. (forthcoming, 2017). “Silenced in the Aid Interface: Responsible Brokerage and Its Obstacles in Humanitarian Interventions”. Philippine Sociological Review.

We have presented our work in the following conferences/workshops.

1. Ong, J.C. “Local Aid Workers as Techno-Apologists”. Crisis Work and Digital Opportunities Workshop: Launch Event of Newton Tech4Dev Network, University of Leicester. Leicester, UK, November 29, 2016.
2. Ong, J.C. “Digital Sweatshops in the Disaster Zone: Precarity and Opportunity in Techie Aid Work”. Seminar Series for Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, University of Warwick. Warwick, UK, October 27, 2016.
3. Ong, J.C. “Digital Sweatshops in the Disaster Zone: Precarity and Opportunity in Techie Aid Work”. Seminar Series for Cardiff University School of Journalism, Media and Communication (JOMEC). Cardiff, UK, October 5, 2016.

Our work has been featured in The Guardian Global Development page.

We are currently developing a photo essay project on local aid workers in the Haiyan response aimed at a broader readership.

For inquiries about our project, email us at: jcong@umass.edu.

Photo by IOM/Alan Motus
 

RELATED ARTICLES

Local Aid Workers as ‘Entrepreneurial Survivors’: Aspiring for Mobility in the Digital Humanitarian Project
Silenced in the Aid Interface: Responsible Brokerage and Its Obstacles in Humanitarian Interventions
The “Great Bargain” for the Local Humanitarian
Digital Sweatshops in Disaster Zones: Who Pays the Real Price for Innovation?