Practices of radical digital care: towards autonomous queer migration

ABSTRACT

Digital connectivity of queer migrants on the move to Europe plays a crucial role in confronting border regimes, heteronormativity and racist oppression. ICTs at the disposal of queer migrants interrupt the material politics of silence and violence. However, digital technology also implies serious hazards. Queer migrants use digital space to empower themselves, to build networks, and to trace, reach and create safer spaces of care. This paper conceptualises how care is materialised in self-organised actions and horizontal relationships that question power regimes and commodification practices while introducing the notion of radical digital care. Digital spaces of (radical) care constitute safe spaces of compassion where people can be heard and believed. They act as points of reference for queer people seeking recognition and care. Moreover, queer migration constitutes constant shifting between subject and care positions that redefine the notion of home and safety and the material ordering of migration itself. Based on a qualitative study of ten semi-structured interviews with solidarians and migrants, this paper reveals how the appropriation of digital media by queer migrants re-arranges the material politics of the borderland by contesting border technologies, and through radical care, allows communities to live through hardship, fear, and abuse.

KEYWORDS:

• Queer migration
• radical digital space
• autonomy of migration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The ROMEO website, iOS app and Android app are commonly used by the male gay community to find friends, dates, love or get informed about LGBTQ+ topics. [information retrieved from Wikipedia]

2 See for example New York Times (2020). Taking Hard Line, Greece Turns Back Migrants by Abandoning Them at Sea. Retrieved on November 24, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/world/europe/greece-migrants-abandoning-sea.html

3 Kaliarda is an argot used by the homosexual community in Greece, in use since the 1940s. It uses a large number of borrowings from French, Italian and Turkish. Once a secret language to evade the hostile community, it is now widely known thanks to the media and thus not used much nowadays.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Velux Fonden: [Grant Number 16995].

Notes on contributors

Vasiliki Makrygianni

Vasiliki Makrygianni has a background in architecture and engineering, and her PhD research focuses on migrants’ emancipatory spatial practices in Athens, Greece. She has worked on various research projects on migration and spatial practices. Her primary research areas include critical urban theory, feminist methodologies, and the theory of intersectionality, while current research interests focus on digital space, feminist technoscience, and practices of solidarity and care.

Vasilis Galis

Vasilis Galis is an associate professor at the Technologies in Practice (TIP) group, IT University of Copenhagen. Galis’ research is interdisciplinary and is impregnated by a strong epistemological solidarity with social movements. Galis has published on social movements, migration and sociotechnical systems from a Science and Technology Studies perspective. He was co-investigator for the interdisciplinary project ‘DIGINAUTS: Migrants’ digital practices in/of the European border regime’. Email: [email protected].