Contribution short abstract:

This paper examines digital commons in migrant solidarity practices in European borderlands. Drawing on ethnography among Afghans on the move in Southeastern Europe, it explores the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in the everyday use of digital technologies.

Contribution long abstract:

Over the past decade, digital technologies have become deeply embedded in EU border regimes. Tools such as smartphones, social media, and messaging platforms play an important role among people on the move, providing access to resources and knowledge for navigating perilous, illegalised, journeys. The nature of these journeys and the reliance on digital technologies are increasingly shaped by the growing barriers to legal mobility faced by people in search of international protection.

This paper draws on multisited ethnographic research conducted between 2021 and 2023 among Afghans on the move and grassroots solidarity networks in Southeastern Europe. Focusing on border regions in Bosnia-and-Herzegovina and Serbia, where online communication often served as the primary connection between dispersed people on the move and solidarians, it investigates the dynamics of digital infrastructures' inclusion and exclusion within the constraints of EU migration regimes. To theorize these dynamics, the paper engages with the concept of the digital commons and practices of digital commoning, framing digital spaces and materialities as important sites for solidarity practices but also exploitation to emerge. Then, how do dynamics of inclusion and exclusion play out on digital media among people on the move in relation to the EU border regimes? How can the concepts of digital commons help us understand practices of solidarity and exploitation in borderlands?

Through ethnographic vignettes presenting interactions between and among people on the move and grassroots workers, I examine how resources and knowledge are shared and how people navigate the tensions between exclusion and inclusion.