UNHCR's Territorial Depoliticization of Forced Displacement Through the Governance Mechanisms of Participatory Geographical Information Systems

Abstract

One of the greatest information communication technology revolutions impacting the lives of forcibly displaced persons is rooted in the geographical information systems (GIS) of United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) operations. By involving forcibly displaced persons in the production of geographical knowledge regarding the regional territorial conditions of their own displacement, via participatory forms of GIS, UNHCR aims to contribute to their political empowerment. However, the manners in which PGIS is instituted by UNHCR encourages the displaced to govern and territorialize themselves as subjects abstracted from their experiences of persecution and flight. Effectively, UNHCR involves displaced persons as participants in the erasure of the geopolitical conditions of their displacement, neglecting what could be communicated about the politics of their movements. PGIS could be used to learn from displaced persons about the international political geographies that produce displacement as a possibility, but this requires a political will apparently lacking in UNHCR's approach to mapping displacement.