Collaborative Re-orderings in Humanitarian Aid Networks

This paper explores the processes underlying the ongoing endeavours to establish collaborative relationships between traditional, formal humanitarian and the non-traditional volunteer networks (VTC). In contrast with the ‘informational’ and ‘connectivist’ concerns, which dominate the crisis response literature, this paper synthesizes a perspective on multi-network/actor collaboration that is informed by STS and Practice theory studies. Thus, network-wide continuous efforts to establish ways of working between these two very different types of actors are conceptualized as complex collaborative re-orderings constituted of the inter-related practices of ‘reconfiguring’ and ‘fusing’. This perspective offers valuable insights into the dynamic processes of network transformations and changes, triggered by the co-emerging and coalescing endeavours of traditional and volunteer organisations.