Big Tech to the Rescue? An Ethnographic Study of Corporate Humanitarianism in the Refugee Crisis

Abstract

This dissertation explores the role and influence of Big Tech companies as humanitarian actors in refugee aid. Private sector companies are increasingly involved in responding to humanitarian crises, correlating with a growing willingness from for-profit companies to “do good” and engage in social causes. In what became known as “the European refugee crisis,” tech companies played a particularly active role, for example, by partnering with humanitarian agencies to develop digital solutions to help refugees. However, Big Tech companies also increasingly develop technologies that governments and border agencies use to track and exclude migrants and refugees. Moreover, these tech companies are increasingly condemned for their questionable business operations and ethics around data collection and privacy. Therefore, their growing involvement in refugee aid prompts critical questions about how and why for-profit corporations engage in humanitarianism and what kind of help they actually offer. In three separate empirical articles, this dissertation examines the corporate humanitarian engagement of tech companies in the global refugee crisis to understand how these practices have positioned tech companies as legitimate humanitarian actors. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in San Francisco, New York, and Copenhagen, the articles explore the convergence of Big Tech and refugee aid in three interlinked sites: 1)In a Tech for Good event at Google 2)In cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) between tech companies and refugee aid agencies 3)In refugee-themed volunteer hackathons