From Empathy to Shame: The Use of Virtual Reality by Humanitarian Organisations

Abstract

AbstractSince the UNHCR’s movie Clouds over Sidra, filmed in 2015 in the Zaatari refugee camp, the use of Virtual Reality (VR) has increased among humanitarian organisations for raising funds or awareness. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), among others, have relied on 3D and 360-degree images to enhance emotional resonance among audiences, including diplomats, military groups or decision-makers. Marketed as the ‘ultimate empathy machine’, VR operates through immersive reality. Yet the necessity to see and feel reality ‘as it is’ is not unprecedented in the visual history of humanitarianism. Therefore, this chapter first critically examines the immersive experience of humanitarian VR movies and their performative and affective potential. Indeed, VR claims to erase the distance and to elicit empathetic connections do not prevent this innovative technology from adopting a voyeuristic or aesthetic gaze, long associated in humanitarian imagery with self-centeredness rather than other centeredness. Then, building on recent VR movies who draw on outrage and indignation, such as The Right Choice (ICRC, 2018) or Not A Target (MSF Switzerland, 2016), this chapter opens new lines of inquiry in the capacity of immersive technologies to mobilise shame rather than empathy.