Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert

As a researcher, I am working on humanitarian issues, from refugee protection, Search and Rescue at sea, grassroots mobilization & volunteer aid, to new technologies - reshaping how aid is organized, but also how news, information and awareness about humanitarian crises are made. Earlier professional experience includes journalism and international organizations, including researcher stays in Egypt, Syria, the US, Sudan and South Sudan, in addition to longer parts of my life lived in France.

My research interests are cross-cutting the fields of humanitarianism, migration, security and technology. In the field of humanitarian studies, I have been interested in Europe’s humanitarian borders, and written about “citizen humanitarianism” as forms of assistance seeking to contest both state-led responses and more organized humanitarian responses. This includes an interest in understanding how citizens and volunteers mobilize in times of crises, across different crises (eg. during the European refugee reception crisis and the Covid pandemic). My long term interest in media narratives of humanitarian crises leads me at the end of 2023 and in 2024 to explore the topic of humanitarian communication as an issue in itself – reshaped by new technologies and evolving expectations. With colleagues, I have studied the emergence of humanitarian technologies and innovation, for my part in particular how accessible technologies like smart phones and social media shape responses and organization of volunteer assistance. My research is also cross-cutting with security studies and migration studies, where I have studied the EUs external border management, migration policies, border surveillance in the Mediterranean as well as state-led and NGO-led Search and Rescue efforts at sea. Since joining PRIO in 2011, I have been central in building up the Humanitarianism Research group and the Norwegian Centre for Humanitarian Studies (NCHS), which I led from 2016-2020, and have co-led since early 2021.