Mobile Phone Use in Disaster, Conflict and Displacement

Introduction

Mobile device usage has steadily increased with around 95% of the global population having mobile coverage. For marginalised individuals, mobile technologies help ensure more equitable resilience to disaster situations. Marginalised people encompass people with disabilities who are four times more likely to perish in disaster settings and women who are more vulnerable to disaster-ridden environments. In low-income countries, women are 10% less likely to own a mobile phone due to availability along with cultural, social, religious and attitude's towards women's rights. This exclusion from the digital world negatively affects women rescue opportunities in dangerous situations.

Humanitarian Crisis

In emergency humanitarian conditions, mobile phones can be used to inform and educate the public about the emergency and to disseminate information. Communities living in harsh living conditions can use their mobile phone apps or platforms for multiple uses including:

• access up-to date information
• stay in touch with eachother
• report on life-threatening condition that requires emergency help
• connect with humanitarian facilities

Mobile phones become essential tools for refugees for identifying resources that can help navigate their journey and orient themselves to their resettlement complexities.

Refugees

For refugees fleeing their country, modern communiation can provide some level of emotional support. Mobile phones can not only keep them in touch with their family at home but can help provide logistical information during the dangerous and stressful journey. Specific logistical guidance is needed regarding borders to cross, distance to cover, food, transportation and accommodations.In addition to information and communication, mobile phone use can help provide refugees with information, surveillance, entertainment and diverson along their jouney.. Refugees prioritise mobile ownership and connectivity as crucial for their safety.

Communication

Mobile access allows refugees to keep their friends and families updated about their journey. Being able to text or call their loved ones provides emotional support through this perilous journey. Some refugees postpone communication until they reach their final destination. In this case, the mobile phone might be used to document memories of their experiences to share at a later date.

Social Network

Social media communication can connect migrants to fellow refugees in host countries providing them with logistical information about routes, transportation arrangements and accommodations. In addition these networks provide general information to help refugees navigate the following settlement issues:

• appropriate behaviours
• stype of dress
• rights
• citizenship
• supports services
• employment
• language learning programmes
• community housing

Social Inclusion

For refugees experiencing resettlement, the use mobile technologies has been correlated with social inclusion and opportunities to gain access to applicable information that support their daily lives.Being able to connect with loved ones at home while establishing new relationships in their host communities develops a sense of belonging. The use of the phone acts as a virtual space to develop transcultural connections bridging the cultural gap between the local culture and refugees.

Health

In the context of refugee health, mobile technologies can be used as an integrative part of face-to-face interventions. Considering the affordability and accessibility of mobile phones, scholars demonstrated that mental health apps and short messaging service (SMS) became complementary methods for monitoring mental health conditions among refugees.

Mobile technologies can have an impact on not only educational but also health inclusion. Refugees connect with online platforms using their mobile phones to access health information and health care from host communities (Pottie et al., Citation2020). Also, refugees relied on social media and text messaging for health care integration, that is, to communicate with health care providers (Danielson, Citation2013). In addition, mobile phones facilitate online self-help and access to online health support groups that provide therapeutic support and collaborative relationships among refugees (Pottie et al., Citation2020; Siapera & Veikou, Citation2013).

Issues

to protect their identities online and information accessed and shared about intended routes and destinations. Many said they engaged in closed Facebook groups, or used avatars and pseudonyms on Facebook to avoid surveillance from the government of their home country and other hostile groups.

Other studies have shed light on the barriers to the use of mobile phones that limits the social inclusion of refugees into the society. Refugees access to reliable and stable mobile connectivity is usually restricted by limited financial resource, the difficulty of getting a sim-card due to their uncertain legal status and local communication infrastructure in their host communities (Fiedler, Citation2019; Maitland & Xu, Citation2015; Witteborn, Citation2015; Wall et al., Citation2017). Other barriers include language skills, limited digital literacy skills and refugees’ sense of insecurity and fear of being surveilled by the government when using their mobile phones (Mancini et al., Citation2019; Opas & McMurray, Citation2015; Wall et al., Citation2017).

Issues

Despite increasing Internet penetration and mobile device proliferation in the lives of displaced people (Gillespie et al., 2016), the use of smartphones by refugees in exile may be constrained by problems related to limited connectivity and the issues of surveillance Alencar et al. 833 and information quality and credibility (Dekker et al., 2018). First, refugees’ connectivity while on the move is subject to fragile and unpredictable access to Internet via Wi-Fi, SIM-cards and battery charging resources. When facing conditions of ‘information precarity’ (Wall et al., 2017), mainly regarding the challenges of access to online information, Gillespie et al. (2018: 5) highlight that refugees also tend to make complementary use of analog sources of information, such as leaflets at refugee camps and hand-drawn maps. Second, the use of smartphones also enables new forms of digital surveillance of (irregular) migration by both state and non-state actors (Dekker et al., 2018: 3). Studies revealed that refugees have developed strategies to reduce this risk and protect their digital identities and access to any information about routes, smugglers, for example, through the use of avatars and pseudonyms (Gillespie et al., 2016), as well as communicating with smugglers and/or other travellers through closed Facebook groups and encrypted platforms such as WhatsApp (Gillespie et al., 2018: 5). On the other contrary, the fact that refugees can access a wide range of sources through their smartphones does not imply that all the information that is available online is trustworthy (Wall et al., 2017; Zijlstra and Van Liempt, 2017). Many report struggling to identify which information can be trusted, who the sources of information are and the reasons behind the sharing of this information (e.g. false promises by smugglers and government deterrence) (Dekker et al., 2018: 3).

Learning

The role of mobile phones for fostering learning and skills development that allows for a faster integration into their host communities was also considered in the literature. Refugees use e-learning platforms through mobile apps to learn the languages of their host communities during their first phase of resettlement (AbuJarour & Krasnova, Citation2018). Mobile phones used in the education context provide refugees the opportunities to experiment, socialise, learn and grow (Mancini et al., Citation2019). Dahya and Dryden-Peterson’s (Citation2017) study shows that mobile phones enabled access to social networks which allowed refugee women to engage in transnational conversation with other women studying in higher education and this, in turn, contributed to creating a new pathway for refugee education.

Politics

Politically, mobile phones have provided refugees the possibility to exercise their right to express and engage in political discussions in both their host societies and their home of origin (Leurs, Citation2017). Refugees connect to social network to voice out their opinions, engage in both online and offline activism, influence politics and policy, and advocate for refugees rights (Alhayek, Citation2016; Godin & Doná, Citation2016; Pottie et al., Citation2020). According to Siapera and Veikou (Citation2013), refugee youths use their mobile phones to contribute to discussions on social media aimed to bring about their empowerment and action from short postings, storytelling and movements.

Issues

Some migrants highlighted how the mobile allowed them to avoid carrying many objects such as torches, maps, cash money, dictionaries and even documents. An interviewee described the hasty escape preparations as an attempt to digitize and store in the mobile as much as possible of his previous life, in an attempt to preserve it. Many considered their mobile phone as a “travelling light” which was important to escape controls in starting nations. Refugees’ ability to send details of their location to coastguards, friends, or family members while on the move was a matter of necessity and enabled the “distant proximities” t prospect of losing or damaging their own mobile phone raised a deep existential and physical insecurity in refugees Having access to electricity to recharge the phone, and access to the Internet, often became a question of life or death in the refugee journey. Most of the respondents reported that they continually “swap, change and share batteries”. Refugees risked being disconnected without battery and remaining without connection even for a short time meant failing to meet or deliver money to a smuggler on time, getting lost, or being separated from companion veral risks associated with the MPs’ use. As illustrated by Beduschi [10], through the use of GPS applications migrants can be tracked and discovered by border guards, traffickers, smugglers, and common criminals. The study by Gillespie et al. [4] pointed out that using MPs is at once a lifeline and a risk, making specific survival strategies necessary. S

This means that modern devices, such as mobile phones, bring both risks and opportunities migrants; therefore, MPs seem both favouring and threatening asylum seekers’ and refugees’ human rights.

Summary

n. Therefore, mobile phones seem to create opportunities to strengthen and develop digital, linguistic, social and educational skills both for migrants and the people left behind in the countries of origin. Moreover, it is arguable that mobile devices promoted social inclusion and the wellbeing of migrants only to the extent that they have allowed the creation or maintenance of a double bond: one with one’s own cultural heritage and one with the new society. This double bond is fostered by mobile technologies’ affordances through the development of a virtual contact zone where refugees nurtured transcultural connections. Therefore, the use of mobile phones in refugees’ experience seem to be a driving force for the increase of the transcultural social capital and the identity capital.

Issues

Nevertheless, mobile communication could also be a ubiquitous digital threat; through the same tools, refugees could become victims of human traffickers, tracked and controlled by the regimes from which they flee, intercepted or even rejected by the digital control systems of the countries to which they are directed and exploited and manipulated by mainstream media. Therefore, in the absence of clear ethical regulations, the traces left behind by mobile devices could threat migrants’ right to life and security and, consequently, the right to asylum, to citizenship and to wellbeing.

Different Apps

s the digital state-of-the-art solutions, the mentioned platforms together with messaging apps contribute to response coordination and communication between affected communities, volunteers, and aid workers to provide the integrated digital environment for transparent and timely humanitarian assistance. For instance, 4W (Who, What, Where, and When) maps were developed to provide information for the planning of humanitarian assistance, covering the critical questions, such as who is doing what, where, and when. Tracking of humanitarian responders, automated updating of their location and responsibilities were piloted for Nepal, Vanuatu, and the Philippines (Comes and de Walle 2016). Further, KoBoToolbox, developed by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, is a free suite of tools for humanitarian data collection to be used in challenging environments (KoBoToolbox 2009). TraceRx platform is positioned as a well-known humanitarian supply chain solution. In large-scale emergencies, such as the earthquake in Nepal in April 2015 and the hurricane in Haiti in October 2016, Humanitarian ID was used to perform the humanitarian contact lists management (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2015; Stewart 2015).

messaging apps actualize problems related to data protection, privacy, and security since the information environment is often contested, and misinformation, propaganda, and rumors travel swiftly (Roby 2017), particularly, in the case of armed conflicts and disasters. For humanitarians, the risks of mobile app usage are associated with submitting or providing the permission to access the personal information, such as name, location, contacts, email address, and photos. The negative side is that this allows the provider of messaging app to collect a significant information on the user, including his daily routine, personal preferences, and list of trustees.

spectrum of different technologies that could usefully be exploited for DRR (Fig. 1). In areas of poor Internet provision and/or depressed smartphone ownership, voice calls and SMS messaging are used to target broad swathes of the population; for instance, Monsoon flood alerts for certain rivers in Nepal and India, sent by each respective country’s governmental water bureaucracy (Pandeya et al., 2020). For Internet-connected smartphones, social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as messaging services like WhatsApp, while commonly associated with emergency response, also offer an important channel for official hazard warning communications, and may also augment social capital (Kaigo, 2012, Agahari et al., 2018). Similarly, Geographic Information System (GIS)-based technologies represent another (spatial) means of risk communication. Google Maps, for instance, has been used to develop a user-led disaster management system in Bangladesh (Sonwane, 2014). OpenStreetMap (OSM), an open-source and collaborative GIS platform, has also been used to develop similar systems (Rahman et al., 2012), or to allow affected communities to generate local landslide hazard, risk, and vulnerability maps dynamically (Parajuli et al., 2020). However, the most commonly utilised mobile technology in DRR are apps: they provide a user-friendly means of feeding raw data into hazard early-warning systems (EWS), the output from which can then be disseminated in visually appealing form back to users (Paul et al., 2018). They are generally highly context (i.e. country, natural hazard)-specific: two examples are MAppERS (Mobile Applications for Emergency Response and Support), which aims to reduce flood risk in Denmark by allowing users to share geospatial data such as geotagged images of flood extent with basin authorities (Frigerio et al., 2018); and MyShake, a global seismic platform that exploits users’ smartphones to detect earthquakes and record the magnitude of ground

Drones

The advanced unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), also known as a drone, is an item whose flight is controlled either autonomously by artificial intelligence, computers, or a pilot on the ground. The promising directions of drone application in humanitarian crises are the following: mapping, delivering essential items to hard-to-access locations, monitoring environmental changes, supporting damage assessments, etc. (Fondation Suisse de Déminage 2016). Humanitarian organizations have started to use UAVs, including in Haiti and the Philippines to provide real-time information and situation monitoring, public information, search and rescue, etc. (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2014). In this way, different types of drones ensure accurate and up-to-date data on demand, helping representatives of humanitarian missions to make more informed decisions. However, some issues, such as data protection, should be addressed during application of drones.

Resources

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