Digital skills of and for lives marked by vulnerability: Being young, refugee, and connected in Europe

Abstract

This article examines how teenage refugees in Europe develop digital skills in and through conditions of vulnerability. We argue that recognising vulnerability as a productive force, rather than merely as context, is crucial if we are to fully understand the emergence, limits and lack of skills among young people experiencing perpetual marginality. Drawing on 96 interviews and five creative workshops with teenage refugees in the cities of Athens, Brussels and London, we discuss three ways in which vulnerability and digital skills become entangled: (i) (dis-)connection, especially in conditions of scarce, interrupted and unsafe digital connectivity; (ii) learning, especially in contexts where digital and transnational literacies co-exist, compete or compensate for educational inequalities; and (iii) digital bordering, especially as this relates to restrictive regimes of mobility control that prolong risks for young refugees’ wellbeing and even life itself.