Information and Communications Technology in Support of Migration


Book Description

The book provides a holistic review, presenting a multi-stakeholder, multi-disciplinary, international, and evidence-based approach to Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in migration. The book brings together different views and multifaceted responses to ICT-based migration management, examining their overlap, conflict, and synergies. The book is a major addition to the field, tackling important debates concerning humanitarianism and securitization in the reception of migrants, as well as exploring the role of digital technology in aiding migrant integration. The authors explore contentious areas such as the use of new technologies deployed on borders for migration management and border security under the umbrella of smart border solutions including drones, AI algorithms, and face recognition, which are widely criticized for ignoring the fundamental human rights of migrants. The research presented will depart from the euphoric appraisals that technology has made things easier for migrants and those who assist them, to critically examine the bane and boon, benefits and afflictions, highlighting the barriers, as well as the solutions, including several under-researched aspects of digital surveillance and the digital divide. This edited volume has been developed by the MIICT project, funded under the EU Horizon 2020 Action and Innovation programme, under grant agreement No 822380. Provides a positive approach to the integration of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees using Information and Communications Technology (ICT) solutions Offers a strategic approach to providing digital services for migrants at an EU, national and local level Bridges the gap between academia and front-line practitioners’ work by providing theoretical, policy, ethical, and methodological recommendations




Refugees in International Relations


Book Description

Drawing together the work and ideas of a combination of the world's leading and emerging International Relations scholars, Refugees in International Relations considers what ideas from International Relations can offer our understanding of the international politics of forced migration. The insights draw from across the theoretical spectrum of International Relations from realism to critical theory to feminism, covering issues including international cooperation, security, and the international political economy.




Technology’s Refuge


Book Description

An investigation into the use of information communication technologies by refugees during flight, displacement and in settlement, this book examines the impact of Australia’s official policy of mandatory detention on how asylum seekers and refugees maintain links to diasporas and networks of support. Given the restricted contact with the world outside of the immigration detention centre, the book juxtaposes forms and processes of technology-mediated communication between institutionalised detention, with those of displacement and settlement. It finds that while there are obstacles to communication in situations of conflict and dislocation, asylum seekers and refugees are able to ‘make do’ with the technology options available to them in ways which were less constrained than in detention settings. The book also outlines how communication practices during the settlement process focus on learning new technologies, and repairing the disconnections with family members resulting from separation and detention.




Asylees’ ICT and Digital Media Usage


Book Description

By the time refugees flee from their home country, they likewise leave behind their former life, their relatives and acquaintances. Building a new life in their country of destination requires them to learn a foreign language and adjust to a new culture. Obviously, their information behavior as well as ICT and digital media usage adapt to these challenging circumstances. What kind of information are refugees looking for? Who do they communicate with? What ICT, social and digital media do they apply? What are their motives to use particular devices or services, from Facebook and WhatsApp to YouTube and TikTok? Are gender- as well as age-dependent differences to be observed? To answer these questions, data have been collected through an online questionnaire, interviews, as well as a content analysis of an online platform for refugees.




The SAGE Handbook of Media and Migration


Book Description

Migration moves people, ideas and things. Migration shakes up political scenes and instigates new social movements. It redraws emotional landscapes and reshapes social networks, with traditional and digital media enabling, representing, and shaping the processes, relationships and people on the move. The deep entanglement of media and migration expands across the fields of political, cultural and social life. For example, migration is increasingly digitally tracked and surveilled, and national and international policy-making draws on data on migrant movement, anticipated movement, and biometrics to maintain a sense of control over the mobilities of humans and things. Also, social imaginaries are constituted in highly mediated environments where information and emotions on migration are constantly shared on social and traditional media. Both, those migrating and those receiving them, turn to media and communicative practices to learn how to make sense of migration and to manage fears and desires associated with cross-border mobility in an increasingly porous but also controlled and divided world. The SAGE Handbook of Media and Migration offers a comprehensive overview of media and migration through new research, as well as a review of present scholarship in this expanding and promising field. It explores key interdisciplinary concepts and methodologies, and how these are challenged by new realities and the links between contemporary migration patterns and its use of mediated processes. Although primarily grounded in media and communication studies, the Handbook builds on research in the fields of sociology, anthropology, political science, urban studies, science and technology studies, human rights, development studies, and gender and sexuality studies, to bring to the forefront key theories, concepts and methodological approaches to the study of the movement of people. In seven parts, the Handbook dissects important areas of cross-disciplinary and generational discourse for graduate students, early career researcher, migration management practitioners, and academics in the fields of media and migration studies, international development, communication studies, and the wider social science discipline. Part One: Keywords and Legacies Part Two: Methodologies Part Three: Communities Part Four: Representations Part Five: Borders and Rights Part Six: Spatialities Part Seven: Conflicts




Mass Capture


Book Description

Under the terms of the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885, Canada implemented a vast protocol for acquiring detailed personal information about Chinese migrants. Among the bewildering array of state documents used in this effort were CI 9s: issued from 1885 to 1953, they included date of birth, place of residence, occupation, identifying marks, known associates, and, significantly, identification photographs. The originals were transferred to microfilm and destroyed in 1963; more than 41,000 grainy reproductions of CI 9s remain. Lily Cho explores how the CI 9s functioned as a form of surveillance and a process of mass capture that produced non-citizens, revealing the surprising dynamism of non-citizenship constantly regulated and monitored, made and remade, by an anxious state. The first mass use of identification photography in Canada, they make up the largest archive of images of Chinese migrants in the country, including people who stood no chance of being photographed otherwise. But CI 9s generated far more information than could be processed, and there is nothing straightforward about the knowledge that they purported to contain. Cho finds traces of alternate forms of kinship in the archive as well as evidence of the ways that families were separated. In attending to the particularities of these images and documents, Mass Capture uncovers the alternative story that lies in the refusals and resistances enacted by the mass captured. Illustrated with painstakingly reconstituted digital reproductions of the microfilm record, Mass Capture reclaims the CI 9s as more than documents of racist repression, suggesting the possibilities for beauty and dignity in the archive, for captivation as well as capture.




Refugee Journeys


Book Description

Refugee Journeys presents stories of how governments, the public and the media have responded to the arrival of people seeking asylum, and how these responses have impacted refugees and their lives. Mostly covering the period from 1970 to the present, the chapters provide readers with an understanding of the political, social and historical contexts that have brought us to the current day. This engaging collection of essays also considers possible ways to break existing policy deadlocks, encouraging readers to imagine a future where we carry vastly different ideas about refugees, government policies and national identities.




Information and Communication Technologies for Development. Strengthening Southern-Driven Cooperation as a Catalyst for ICT4D


Book Description

The two volumes IFIP AICT 551 and 552 constitute the refereed proceedings of the 15th IFIP WG 9.4 International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, ICT4D 2019, held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in May 2019. The 97 revised full papers and 2 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 185 submissions. The papers present a wide range of perspectives and disciplines including (but not limited to) public administration, entrepreneurship, business administration, information technology for development, information management systems, organization studies, philosophy, and management. They are organized in the following topical sections: communities, ICT-enabled networks, and development; digital platforms for development; ICT for displaced population and refugees. How it helps? How it hurts?; ICT4D for the indigenous, by the indigenous and of the indigenous; local technical papers; pushing the boundaries - new research methods, theory and philosophy in ICT4D; southern-driven human-computer interaction; sustainable ICT, informatics, education and learning in a turbulent world - "doing the safari way”.




Qualitative Research in European Migration Studies


Book Description

This open access book covers the main issues, challenges and techniques concerning the application of qualitative methodologies to the study of migration. It discusses theoretical, epistemological and empirical questions that must be considered before, during, and after undertaking qualitative research in migration studies. It also covers recent innovative developments and addresses the key issues and major challenges that qualitative migration research may face at different stages i.e. crafting the research questions, defining approaches, developing concepts and theoretical frameworks, mapping categories, selecting cases, dealing with concerns of self-reflection, collecting and processing empirical evidence through various techniques, including visual data, dealing with ethical issues, and developing policy-research dialogues. Each chapter discusses relative strengths and limitations of qualitative research. The chapters also identify the main drivers for qualitative research development in migration studies. It is a unique volume as it brings together a multidisciplinary perspective as well as illustrations of different issues derived from the research experience of the recognized authors. One additional value of this book is its geographic focus on Europe. It seeks to explore theoretical and methodological issues that are raised by distinctive features of the European context. This volume will be a useful reference source for scholars and professionals in migration studies and in social sciences as well. The publication is also addressed to graduate and post-graduate students and, more generally, to those who embark on the task of doing qualitative research for the first time in the field of migration.