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As increasing numbers of women migrate to and within Europe – to be reunited with their families, to work, or to flee war zones – migration is becoming feminised. The use of communication technologies such as smartphones can play a vital role in their lives. They enable migrants to reach across borders, overcome language barriers and connect to new markets.

“These technologies seem able to erase boundaries between nations, and transcend divides of race and gender,” says - Digital Crossings in Europe: Gender, Diaspora and Belonging project coordinator Prof. Sandra Ponzanesi (Gender and Postcolonial Studies). 

Exclusion and marginalisation

“But while we all might embrace this idea of a globally connected citizen in a world free of borders, the recent migrant crisis of 2015 onwards has shown that our society also works very hard to keep people ‘in place’. We strengthen borders, patrol our coastlines and monitor the seas.” This disconnect between our conception of a digitalised, globalised world on the one hand, and the persistence of exclusion and marginalisation on the other, has been explored through the lived experience of migrants, especially women.

Feeling of separation 

“We noted how mothers with children left behind use Skype, Facetime or other extremely cheap forms of communication to stay in touch,” explains Ponzanesi. “These technologies enable them to continue participating in daily routines, which lessens the feeling of separation.”

‘Unity in Diversity’

“Migrants and migration are not a problem to be solved, but a constitutive part of what Europe is and is becoming,” notes Ponzanesi. “A new understanding of online networks and diasporas, which breaks with the myth of Fortress Europe and reinvigorates that endangered European motto: ‘Unity in Diversity’, would be a fantastic legacy.”