A Decade of International Migration Research in HCI: Overview, Challenges, Ethics, Impact, and Future Directions

Abstract

This article presents a thorough discussion of the trajectories of international migration research in HCI. We begin by reporting our survey findings of 282 HCI-related publications about migration from nine digital libraries between 2010–2019, summarizing how this research stream has evolved, the geographies and populations it encompasses, and the methodologies it utilizes. We then augment these findings with data from interviews with 11 skilled researchers who reflect on their working experience in this area. Our analysis reveals how the domain has evolved from the European migrant crisis to a more global agenda of migration and points towards a shifting focus from addressing immediate needs to acknowledging more complex political and emotional aspects of mobility. We also uncover the critical role of academic, local, and international politics in migration research in HCI. We discuss these findings to explore future opportunities in this area and advance HCI research discourse with the marginalized populace.

Introduction to the Minitrack on Disaster Information, Resilience, for Emergency and Crisis Technologies

“…Second, CRs involved in this study are interested in the topic of education and technology, and perceive a greater understanding of this topic to be of value for themselves and their community. Where theory/practice tensions arise in the context of research with vulnerable populations, our work supports existing research like Sabie et al (Sabie et al, 2022) who identify refugee community members do also want to learn about, and think critically through, the realities of their own environments. This is true as an exercise in knowledge building (theory) even if the practical outcomes are unclear.…”

“…iNGOs carry the power to engage research findings and use that knowledge to inform or revise their current and future programs, or not. The outcome of this dissemination channel for research cannot always be seen within the time that the project is active, as also noted by others (Sabie et al, 2022), and community members themselves. Stronger feedback loops between CRs, research project teams at Universities, and non-profit partners warrant attention as a future research agenda, as noted by others working in this field (Aal et al, 2014;Talhouk et al, 2018Talhouk et al, , 2019.…”

“…Importantly, we also needed to build trust and relationships within the team, across roughly 8,000 miles and the Atlantic Ocean between us. Trust in participatory research is described by Sabie et al (Sabie et al, 2022), Talhouk et al (Talhouk et al, 2019), Duarte et al (Duarte et al, 2018) and others as essential to the meaningful participation of community members in research. Developing a close bond of trust is crucial in this type of research and requires time and personal involvement from all parties.…”

“…In this paper, we present this study as it unfolded. Our work contributes to existing methodological reflections and calls for more sharing of research experiences in a range of fields: primarily refugee studies, information science, education; and, additionally, technology and development studies, such as Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and adjacent research fields, with a focus on refugee experiences where digital tools are both studied and used in research (Sabie et al, 2021(Sabie et al, , 2022Talhouk et al, 2018Talhouk et al, , 2019. Existing calls include the need for transparency, local partnership, trust building, and researcher reflections on their own practice (Leal et al, 2021;Talhouk et al, 2018Talhouk et al, , 2019Yerousis et al, 2015).…”