Network innovation in humanitarian affairs

This paper strives to understand the dynamics and complexity underlying the attempts to establish collaborative ordering between the traditional, formal humanitarian and the non-traditional volunteer networks (VTC). While such collaborative processes are commonly understood in ‘informational’ and ‘technologist’ terms, this paper introduces a perspective on collaboration as a process of network innovation that is attentive to broader collaborative issues such as trust production, willingness to engage, power relationships and commitment. More specifically, the paper explores and attempts to understand the practices through which the two networks attempt to integrate and co-adapt, and develop collaborative ‘interfaceing’ in order to mitigate the fundamental differences in their organisational and governing ‘structurings’.