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This study explores how thinking infrastructures can orchestrate collective sensemaking in unstable and socially contested environments, such as large-scale humanitarian crises. In particular, drawing from recent interest in the role of artifacts and infrastructures in sensemaking processes, the study examines the evaluative underpinnings of prospective sensemaking as groups attempt to develop novel understandings about a desired but ambiguous set of future conditions. To explore these theoretical concerns, a detailed case study of the unfolding challenges of managing a large-scale humanitarian crisis response was conducted. This study offers two contributions. Firstly, it develops a theorization of the process through which performance evaluation systems can serve as thinking infrastructures in the collaborative development of new understandings in unstable environments. Secondly, this study sheds light on the practices that support prospective sensemaking through specific features of thinking infrastructures, and unpacks how prospective and retrospective forms of sensemaking may interact in such processes.

Achieving localisation (the transfer of control to local actors) has proven extremely challenging in the development sector, and the humanitarian sector appears to be facing equal challenges. This chapter seeks to engage with that struggle and examine why this lesson has been so difficult to learn. Drawing on conference workshops and 10 key informant interviews, this paper examines the obstacles and opportunities for localisation, seeking to understand what makes it so hard for those who hold disproportionate power in humanitarian encounters to hand over power. The authors found a clear sense of localisation being a process rather than an outcome; optimism that momentum is slowly gathering towards this process, and a clear sense of the steps required to fully achieve it. Examining practitioners’ perspectives in this way adds an important voice to discussions of humanitarian practice.

The humanitarian principle of impartiality requires that assistance be based on need alone. In order to ascertain needs, and later to assess whether assistance has been effective in meeting those needs, we need to gather evidence. In humanitarian crises this is generally done through assessments, monitoring and evaluation, and it generally involves seeking information from those we seek to assist. In the fast-paced environment of humanitarian crises, the question of whether the collection of this information is ethical is frequently overlooked. For research participants, the consequences can be extremely severe.

This chapter examines the ethics of research, primarily in the form of assessments, monitoring and evaluation, in humanitarian crises. The chapter first considers the question of what constitutes research in humanitarian crises, and why it is needed. It then examines the general principles of ethical research (respect, beneficence, research merit and integrity, and justice), and highlights three key considerations that require particular attention in humanitarian crises: the justificatory threshold, the vulnerability of research participants, and safety and security. The chapter also examines key components of the research process that are particularly important (and frequently overlooked) in humanitarian crises, including the privacy and confidentiality of research participants, informed consent and feedback to research participants. It concludes with the suggestion that basic instruction in the principles of ethical research should be included in the orientation and training provided to humanitarian practitioners, including to emergency response teams who are commonly involved in carrying out assessments in the early stages of a humanitarian response.

International humanitarian assistance usually arrives quickly following a catastrophic disaster, although it may be slower to remote locations. The international community has developed guidelines to reduce the social and cultural intrusiveness of the aid, assuring that local priorities are followed and the aid facilitates long-term recovery. However, the aid missions are under pressure to act quickly and withdraw because of the expense of operations, and thus, they are less sensitive to local culture and priorities than they might be. This chapter looks at the political context of international humanitarian assistance, including the Hyogo and Sendai Frameworks and humanitarian standards, and the experience in several catastrophic disaster responses in Asia. Levels of satisfaction with recovery, particularly housing recovery, were related to the affected communities’ participation in the decision-making process. Humanitarian aid standards also encourage attention to issues of security, displaced populations, equity in the distribution of aid, the safety of women and children, and other disaster impacts.