Rakhine Skies: Remote Sensing, Human Rights, and the Rohingya Crisis

Abstract

The role of remote sensing (RS) in the investigation of major human rights violations has begun to significantly increase. Although geographers have focused on expanding the technical application of RS in documenting such horrors, there has been limited interest in exploring the complex ways RS is being used by international human rights (IHR) actors in the field. This article argues that the ongoing crisis in Rakhine State, Myanmar, has become a watershed moment for the IHR community as it begins to fully embrace the use of RS across multiple levels of intergovernmental and nongovernmental investigative processes. As such, the application of an inherently geographic process in the coconstruction of rights-based narratives regarding the Rohingya people needs to be explored in terms of how RS is understood by IHR actors, the ways in which it is being used, and the geopolitical impact it is having.