MIGTECH AS AN EMERGING CHALLENGE IN THE MIGRATION CONTEXT: A CRITICAL EXPLORATION OF “REFUGEE APPS”

This dissertation provides a study of digital technology, namely mobile applications and digital platforms, aimed at refugees and migrants’ integration in Europe, and Germany in particular, through the theoretical lenses of Science and Technology Studies (STS). Drawing on qualitative fieldwork conducted in Germany during 2019-2020, this study examines the role of digital technology in the process of the social inclusion and integration of refugees and migrants. Strongly mediatized narratives of the so-called refugee crisis 2015-2016 fuelled the development of the “refugee apps” phenomenon. In this study, such phenomenon is referred to as an actor-network that consists of people, their practices of use/non-use, supporting human actors and app infrastructure, held together by an integration narrative. By employing actor-network theory, this study tries to alter the normative understanding of the digital technology aimed at refugees/migrants but showcasing that reality rather multiple (Mol, 2002). This allows us to portray not only how the integration narratives embedded in “refugee apps” but also shed light on how different words of developers, implementors and users of these artifacts interact and coexist. It is these tensions and frictions that this dissertation focuses on, and it is where the actor-network theory is especially useful to understand the digital making of the “refugee apps”. Put differently, this is an investigation into how different practices and actors’ positions interact in the making and maintenance of the digital artifacts for refugees/migrants. In such manner, this study furthers work on digital technologies in migration governance and suggests looking beyond the established practices of investigation of the use patterns of different digital artifacts by refugees/migrants. Instead, it tries to bring attention to the information infrastructure of “refugee apps” and dynamics of actor-network interrelations as it can unveil not only practices of the “successful” implementation, but also practices of non-use of such artifacts.