Humanitarian Modulations : Doing 'Free' (Media and Communication) Infrastructures in Times of Forced Migration

Abstract

In the wake of increased forced migration towards Europe, journalistic as well as scholarly attention has turned towards the role that media technologies play for refugees and asylum seekers. While some accounts highlight their significance for migration processes, integration and everyday struggle, they are followed by a strong media discourse that frame devices such as smartphones as mere luxury. In response, German NGOs and individuals with backgrounds in different hacker organizations have come to advocate for greater accessibility of media technologies for newly arrived refugees. Particularly in the context of institutionalized refugee management and humanitarian care, the free wireless hacker initiative Freifunk has become a prominent voice striving for greater access to media and communication infrastructures for refugees. Based on a case study of the local Freifunk initiative in Bremen, Germany, the thesis asks how the practices of a doinga free wireless networks interfere and reconfigure Internet infrastructure within refugee accommodations, given that they are driven by a vision of more equitable access. Through narrative accounts of two Freifunk installations that involved activists, managers, and policy makers, the study focuses on the key actors, objects, and practices that make such infrastructural interventions possible. Consequently, the thesis asks how the critical potential stemming from the lived reality of Freifunka s a recursive publica (Kelty 2008) expands via conflictual infrastructuring practices (Niewöhner 2015) and at times allows to jointly problematize contemporary questions of digital access and rights for refugees. It also discusses possible changes to these hacker practices itself, as they increasingly interlock with the logics of humanitarianism and travel across the established boundaries of public, private, and institutional refugee management.