Precariousness and Hope: Digital Everyday Life of the Undocumented Migrants Explored Through Collaborative Photography

Abstract

The article explores the digital everyday life of recently or currently undocumented migrants in times of Covid-19 in Finland. It is based on an empirical case study on a collaborative photographic exhibition and workshop including visual images, diaries, interviews, and discussions. The analysis explores the ways in which a photography exhibition and a workshop may depict meaningful moments in digital everyday life as well as open up an understanding of the various vulnerabilities that emerge in the life of the undocumented, as expressed by themselves. The study demonstrates the fundamental importance of communication rights for people in precarious life situations, expressed by themselves in visual images. The insight produced multidimensionally in images, discussions, and interviews illustrate how digital media environment exposes to coerced visibility and requires constant struggle for communicative rights. These struggles take place on the material infrastructural level of devices, chargers, and access, but also on the level of self-expression and connection on social media platforms. Finally, the article discusses the emancipatory potential of a collaborative exhibition and workshop as a way to encounter and deal with increasingly vulnerable life situations. It points out the relevance of collaborative work as a research method, in providing knowledge from experience as well as space of recognition.

Doing Digital Migration Studies:

“…Seven participants also joined a photography workshop that included the pictures they had taken documenting their everyday lives (Nikunen & Valtonen, 2022). Even though the study took place during the Covid-19 lockdown, the researchers met each participant personally.…”

Anticipation as Platform Power: The Temporal Structuring of Digital Everyday Life

“…These particular groups were chosen to provide insights on the experienced differences and similarities in a platformed everyday life, which might not have been captured by using a more homogeneous user group. The politicians and actors were chosen due to their public occupation, which becomes enacted through digital platforms in various ways, whereas the unemployed and undocumented migrants were chosen due to their life situations, which render them targets of various governance strategies and surveillance (Nikunen and Valtonen 2023). We acknowledge that a focus on various user groups may entail a risk of essentializing users as representatives of a group and treating these groups as given categories.…”

“…The diary notes were used in interviews as examples or queries to reflect upon, except for the MPs, who only participated in the interviews. The concept of a diary was not familiar to everyone, and particularly among the undocumented migrants, the diaries varied in format and content (Nikunen and Valtonen 2022). These differences in the data are themselves revealing of the distinct life situations of the participants, and on a whole, they speak to the “messiness” of researching everyday life (Law 2004; Postill and Pink 2012).…”

“…On the other end of the spectrum are the undocumented participants, who struggle to understand social media content in a new cultural context, as they often have limited linguistic skills. This increases uncertainty and sometimes results in random anticipatory practices, such as deleting an app for a day or abstaining from reacting to any social media posts (see Nikunen and Valtonen 2022).…”

Landscapes of Hope

“…There is copious literature on the benefits and harms of digitalization and social media on young people. The positive aspects include equity (Nikunen & Valtonen 2022), new opportunities for education and work (Barron et al 2014) and improved mental health and well-being (Lavis & Winter 2020). Among the negative aspects of social media and other online hangouts, the power of algorithms and threats to mental well-being are themes stressed by many researchers (Maalsen 2023).…”