Smartphones: Digital Infrastructures of the Displaced

Apps, mobilities, and migration in the Covid-19 pandemic: Covid technology and the control of migrant workers in Singapore

“…(Leurs and Smets, 2018: 4)In such digital migration, mobile media remain central – something that Leurs and Patterson note:By addressing smartphones as a component of the wider migration infrastructure, our aim is to move beyond fetishising the device and chart scholarship across the nexus of migrant-centric and non-migrant-centric scholarship and media-centric and non-media-centric approaches. (Leurs and Patterson, 2020: 584)…”

“…They discuss three ways that ‘smartphones are studied in the context of displaced migration, as part of infrastructures of (1) survival and surveillance, (2) transnational communication and emotion management, and (3) digital self-representation’ (Leurs and Patterson, 2020: 584). For our purposes here, we will pick up on the ways in which apps fit into these migration infrastructures, a term Leurs and Patterson have picked up from Biao Xiang and Johan Lindquist, who define it as ‘the systematically interlinked technologies, institutions, and actors that facilitate and condition mobility’ (Xiang and Lindquist, 2014: 124).…”

“…There are many contemporary examples of the ways in which apps are also an enabling technology for displaced migrants, conjuring with their changed temporalities (Eriksen, 2020) and encounters with new places. As Leurs and Patterson note, ‘multiple modalities of many social media apps … may increase feelings of belonging and emotional well-being among displaced migrants and their families’ (Leurs and Patterson, 2020: 588). This is a very important area of apps and migration in the Covid pandemic, however our focus will be on the area of ‘survival and surveillance’.…”

Conditions to enable Education and Participation of Young Refugees in the Context of Digitalized Educational Arrangements

“…Geflüchtete Personen -wenngleich es sich hierbei um eine Gruppe handelt, die von besonderer Diversität gekennzeichnet ist -begegnen in ihrem Alltag oftmals einer Vielzahl an strukturell hervorgebrachten sozialen, rechtlichen und politischen Barrieren, die Teilhabe erschweren können (von Unger 2018). Gleichzeitig sind Lebenswelt und Alltag geflüchteter Menschen in vielfältiger Weise durch Praktiken im Kontext digitaler Medien geprägt (Gillespie et al 2018;Leurs und Patterson, 2020;Emmer, Kunst, und Richter 2020). So zeigen explorative Studien, dass digitale Medien, insbesondere das Smartphone, eine bedeutende Orientierungsfunktion im Alltag geflüchteter Jugendlicher innehaben.…”