From Refugee to Resident in the Digital Age: Refugees’ Strategies for Navigating in and Negotiating Beyond Uncertainty During Reception and Settlement in The Netherlands

Abstract

This article examines digital tactics adopted by refugees and asylum-seekers in the Netherlands to cope with spatial and temporal dimensions of uncertainty during different stages of their arrival. It draws attention to how particular modes of Dutch asylum and refugee reception governance, such as dispersal and housing allocation policies, give rise to spatial and temporal uncertainties. Based on participant observations and 23 qualitative interviews with recognized refugees in the cities of Utrecht and Houten, the article offers insight into how refugees used digital tactics and mobile connectivity to ‘navigate in’ and ‘negotiate beyond uncertainty’. The article seeks to contribute to this conceptual differentiation between ‘navigating in’ and ‘negotiating beyond’ uncertainty, engaging with work on migrant agency that acknowledges their acts of resilience, reworking and resistance. Lastly, I discuss this understanding of digital tactics to cope with uncertainty in light of recent critiques in forced migration studies of essentialist understandings of uncertainty and utilitarian narratives of digitally connected migrants.