Paper short abstract:

This digital ethnography of migrant communities in the UK and South Korea challenges the assumption that migrants are purely recipients of public digital inclusion efforts, and sheds light on the hidden digital inclusion work performed by migrants themselves.

Paper long abstract:

With the rise of digital government as a key development initiative for countries around the world, previous to and since the COVID-19 pandemic, governments have been increasingly concerned with the inclusion of those that have been deemed digitally marginalised, such as migrant users (Castaño-Muñoz et al., 2018; Alam et al., 2015). Many government-funded digital inclusion initiatives, like those run by the UK's Good Things Foundation, deliver millions of pounds to local and state-run digital inclusion efforts. However, as an ethnographer examining digital government from the perspective of migrant users, I was struck by how migrants, falling through gaps within public service provisions, perform much of the work of digital inclusion themselves. Data from 16 months of fieldwork in the UK and South Korea reveals a vivid account of the lived experiences of migrants as they navigate digitised public service delivery and challenges the assumption that they are purely recipients of digital inclusion efforts. This research shows how migrant users navigate digital services in spite of the barriers they face in accessing public services and highlights how much of the digital inclusion work and brokering within migrant communities is performed by migrants themselves, particularly through intergenerational relationships between older and younger members of the community. This leads to reflections on how to best support migrants in their digital inclusion and encourages the recognition of the digital inclusion work performed by migrants.