Building Digital Bridges: The Digital Divide and Humanitarian Work Psychology’s Online Networks and Communities

The Internet is central to what humanitarian work psychologists do and to who they are. This is the case because humanitarian work psychologists frequently conduct research online, communicate and collaborate online, and help to promote their field and gain new participants online. This chapter argues that humanitarian work psychologists’ use of the Internet will help to determine the success of their field. In particular, if voices from lower-income settings are not included in their online networks and communities, then the field risks not being effective and ethical, it risks losing the opportunity to broaden psychology’s global perspective, and it risks exacerbating global inequality. These claims are supported for the following three reasons: First, it is widely argued that humanitarian work is more likely to be effective when the people who are meant to benefit from that work are allowed to voice their perspectives and participate in the process (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2009). Second, psychology’s global relevance hinges upon whether it includes diverse international perspectives (Gelfand, Leslie & Fehr, 2008; Marsella, 1998) — and such perspectives would almost certainly include those from lower-income settings that traditionally receive humanitarian aid. Moreover, humanitarian work psychologists’ online networks and communities are important places for those perspectives to be included. Third, the nature of the digital divide may not only reinforce existing resource disparities between active Internet users and those who are disconnected, but it can also create new networking and informational inequalities (Van Dijk, 2005).