Paper short abstract:

When infrastructures breakdown in the field of migration, ad-hoc and creative action is often taken by humanitarian grassroots movements centered on social justice. These infrastructural responses can be seen as information equity practices across care-focused organizational contexts.

Paper long abstract:

In the digital age, where access to ICTs plays a central role in various aspects of life, addressing information equity is essential for fostering inclusive societies. As pointed out by Norris and Pogge (2019), information equity involves ensuring that individuals from different socio-economic backgrounds have equal opportunities to access, contribute to, and benefit from ICTs. Taking into account the migration experience, a time when individuals interact with various new systems and tools in often unfamiliar settings, one may see various ways in which information equity may (or may not) be embodied and it is crucial to understand these occurrences from an infrastructural perspective. Infrastructures within migration encompass the physical, social, and institutional frameworks that facilitate or impede the movement of people across borders. Physical infrastructures, such as transportation networks and border control systems, shape the material conditions and pathways of migration (Madianou & Miller, 2013). Social infrastructures, including migrant support networks, community organizations, and transnational social ties, play a crucial role in providing resources, information, and emotional support for migrants during their journeys and settlement processes (Faist, 2009). Unfortunately, with so many moving pieces, infrastructures can often break. Research has shown that grassroots movements are often implemented to enact care through creative solutions. By way of a literature review, this conceptual paper discusses how these grassroots movements can be seen as forms of creative infrastructural action (Jack, Chen & Jackson, 2017) in order to create resourceful pathways for offering care and social support within the migration experience.