Interesting literature on digital tech and migration between countries in Africa, South and South-east Asia, and Latin America

We have conducted a wide-ranging literature review on the uses of digital tech by migrants between countries in Africa, South and South-east Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean to support our publications as part of the MIDEQ Hub (see Harindranath, Lorini and Unwin, 2023 forthcoming, and also our Working Papers). Full publication details, and links to the papers and chapters where available, are given below to enable other researchers readily to access them. We stress that our work deliberately did not involve a formal systematic review, because of what we see as the many problems with such reviews. However we consider that these publications do represent interesting contributions to the field. Our methodology is summarised in Harindranath, Lorini and Unwin (2023 forthcoming) and extracts from this are also provided at the end of this listing.

The WordArt image below provides an overall summary of this literature based on a compilation of the words in all of the paper abstracts:

The literature reviewed

The literature reviewed is listed in alphabetical order of first author’s surname, and is colour coded to indicate region of migration in cases where there is a clear focus for the research (Purple indicates Africa, Amber indicates Latin America and the Caribbean, Orange indicates Middle East, Green indicates South Asia, and Red indicates South-East Asia; the colour of the the dominant focus of the research is used where there is cross-regional migration; entries in black are broadly global in coverage or equally split between regions; links in the text are highlighted in blue):

Methodology

We adopted a structured approach to identifying and analysing the literature for this review, but did not aim to undertake a formal systematic review, not least because of the problems of interpretation with such reviews, especially in the social sciences (Hammersley 2019). Although we explored the possibility of reviewing in multiple languages, we ultimately focused just on English because the sample size was already quite large, and we found rather few relevant papers in French, English, German, Portuguese or Spanish.  In essence, we focused on analysing material identified in Web of Science Core (in Clarivate), supported by Google Scholar and our own knowledge of the literature.  These resources were searched online using combinations of the following terms: Africa, Asia, Caribbean, global south, ICT, digital technolog, Latin America, migra, migrant, migration, mobile, refugee, south-south, and tech.  We then reduced the total number of results to 74 that we agreed were most relevant and important.  There were two steps in the subsequent analysis: first, we categorised each publication according to a 33-point classification, and then all of the material was reviewed in detail by at least one of us.

Summary observations

Eight interesting structural observations about these 74 papers were revealed through our categorisation process:

  • First, the papers were from a rich diversity of disciplinary backgrounds, with first authors being from 37 differently styled departments (very similarly named departments were treated as the same style: thus Communication Studies was considered the same as Communication, but different from Communication and New Media) and from 36 countries (dominated by 21 researchers in Singapore, 18 in the USA, 10 in the UK and 8 in South Africa) The most frequent disciplines represented were Communication (8, with 7 further jointly named), Anthropology and Geography (each with 6).   They were also published in 40 different journals or proceedings. 
  • There was an increase in the number of publications over time, from the first in 2006 to 9 in 2020, 14 in 2021 and 9 in 2022 (first six months).
  • Research had been conducted across the world, with South-East Asia (23) and Sub-Saharan Africa (17) dominating.  Many countries were represented as places of origin and destination, with 23 studying migrants from multiple origins and 19 to multiple destinations.  The most common single origin countries were the Philippines (8) and the Syrian Arab Republic (8), whilst the most common single destinations were Singapore (15) and Jordan (8).
  • About half of the papers (39) had little clear theoretical framing, and many others were rather vague on theory, mentioning for example that the paper was an “Ethnographic study” or an “Inductive Study”.  The papers that were clearer about their theoretical framing turned to a very wide range of theories mostly relating to the different disciplines of their authors.
  • The majority (56) of papers used qualitative methods, with a further 12 claiming to be “mixed methods”.
  • Almost half (36) of the papers focused on mobile phones with a further 22 papers addressing multiple technologies (but usually mainly mobiles).
  • Seventy-one of the papers examined social aspects of the use of digital tech, whereas only 32 explored political or legal issues. Around half explored economic issues (40) and cultural or religious factors (36).
  • Finally, most (69) of the papers focused on the positive impacts and benefits of digital tech; considerably fewer (50) also addressed the negatives and disbenefits

G. ‘Hari’ Harindranath, Maria Rosa Lorini and Tim Unwin

Latest version of this page updated 13 February 2023

(First version of page created on 29 November 2022)