The Precarity of Trust: Understanding Tensions in Information Systems for Humanitarian De-Mining in Rural Colombia

We present results from an exploration of socio-technical approaches to supporting humanitarian landmine removal in rural Colombia. Initially, our study focused on information flow and technical barriers, but incremental, multi-level investigation led us to perceive trust as a critical dynamic factor that operates in interaction with people and artifacts. While the intent of the de-mining is peace-oriented, the particulars are influenced by ongoing conflict, even in the post-conflict setting. The setting is rife with organizational complexity as well as multiple threats to life and livelihood. Elevating and exploring the nature of trust can help guard against extractive approaches that prioritize efficiency over safety, reify the appearance of certainty, and flatten information and its distribution. When ground truth represents life-or-death reality, facets of the concept of trust adopted from other contexts, such as partial trust and functional distrust, can help stakeholders and researchers navigate uncertainty. System designers must respond to situational variation.