Digital disparities beyond the stably housed: Researching global homelessness and mobile media

Abstract

As the study of mobile media and communication matures, an important expansion in focus is to explore the experiences of people and communities living on the peripheries of social and economic power. In this special issue, we ask what happens when the stability of the “home” is pulled out from under our assumptions of mobile media and communication, as well as what happens when we shift our attention to the Global South. Additionally, mobility has a special relation to homelessness and, in turn, to media that is mobile. It enters both as a resource and a liability for the unstably housed in contexts around the globe. Tackling this combination of mobility, media, and homelessness, this special issue asks: What kind of opportunity is a mobile device for those who lack stable shelter? How do different experiences and drivers of homelessness interact with the possibilities of mobile media? What are communities and institutions doing to provide assistance to those at risk of, or experiencing, homelessness through mobile technologies? The articles gathered in this issue draw attention to homelessness as a set of diverse experiences with significant consequences for well-being and unique connections to mobile media. The authors challenge the taken-for-granted focus on the stably housed by studying those without access to the same basic need. We take an international perspective on contemporary homelessness to foreground its global existence and diverse expressions across a range of national contexts, and to challenge the predominant focus on North America and Western Europe in existing literature.