My PhD topic explores the role that smartphones now play in the everyday lives of asylum seekers in the UK. Primarily, I look at how everyday smartphone practices (this means anything from using social media, contacting family, watching popular media to completing tasks directly related to the process of asylum) mediate the spatial-temporal experience of waiting within the asylum system. Mobilizing an intersectional feminist approach to research within digital geographies, I aim to explore the everyday, intimate, and affective digtial encounters with the state (and beyond) that asylum seekers now expereince through the smartphone screen.
Working closely with local organizations in the North East of England, I am conducting ethnographic research with asylum seekers in their everyday experiences of the asylum system and digital technologies. This project also involves participatory elements to research design: where myself and the organization I am working with are co-organising an event to run in Refugee Week 2023 as part of this research dissemination.
I am also a PGR representative for the RGS Digital Geographies Research Group. We run a ‘Digital Shorts’ YouTube channel where ECRs and PGRs can get there work out there in a visual, interactive format. For any enquiries about contributions just send me an email. You can see the channel and its current contributions here: https://youtube.com/channel/UCfw3yN5P7dduwDJ7z7KH5CA
