Navigating a new life: Syrian refugees and their smartphones in Vienna

ABSTRACT

Networked technologies are a key tool for today’s refugees; not only on the move but also upon arrival in their new surroundings. Where mobile Internet access is affordable and infrastructures are stable, as in Europe’s metropoles, refugees can use smartphones to cope with everyday challenges. The paper presents findings from a qualitative interview study with Syrian refugees who recently settled in Vienna, Austria. The study implemented a three-fold methodology, combining face-to-face interviews, WhatsApp chats, and participant research. Results are presented from a localized appropriation notion (the act of making use of local specific media environment when drawing a media technology into one’s life) identifying practices in the contexts of: place-making and geographical orientation; information access and self-help; language learning and translation; and ‘doing family’. Hence, refugees are both emotionally attached to and technically dependent on their devices. The article concludes that smartphones hold an untapped potential for integration processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Forced migration
• digital migration
• mobile technology
• appropriation
• information landscape
• mobile methods

Acknowledgements

None of the text lines above would exist without the Syrian participants who contributed their stories, ideas and time to this study and let me unconditionally into their lives – above all my participant researcher Mouhamad Alhassan. Special thanks go also to my other team member, Fridolin Mallmann, for his tireless and thorough work. The manuscript highly benefitted from the detailed feedback by the anonymous reviewers. Finally, I am especially grateful for the patience and extensive support from the special issue editors Alison Harvey and Koen Leurs.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Katja Kaufmann is researcher and PhD student at the Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Studies (CMC) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Alpen-Adria-Universität in Vienna (Austria). In her research, she focuses on mobile media and mobile technology, appropriation processes, digital migration practices, and mobile methods in qualitative research.

ORCID

Katja Kaufmann http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9643-6279

Notes

1 Thompson (1995, p.174) explains the notion as ‘the appropriation of media products is always a localized phenomenon, in the sense that it always involves specific individuals who are situated in particular social-historical contexts, and who draw on the resources available to them in order to make sense of media messages and incorporate them into their lives.’

2 In both studies, we conducted the face-to-face interviews in a team of three: a Syrian participant research assistant, an Austrian student assistant who undertook the transcribing, and myself.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the Cultural Department of the City of Vienna, Austria.