Contact tracing apps, nationalism, and users with disability in the Global South: The faith in state and collective objective

Abstract

Contact tracing apps have magnified the potential usefulness of mobile media and communication technologies for responding to disruptive events such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Their efficacy and ethical debates have become the focus of recent studies in the Global North. Reasons for using contact tracing apps among users with disability living in the Global South, however, seem to be understudied. Through cases from Indonesia and Vietnam, this study found that nationalistic values were among the reasons for using contact tracing apps as reflected in the users’ faith in the state and inclination to support its collective objective to control the pandemic. The users believed the state would be accountable in managing the personal and mobility data the contact tracing apps collected. Using contact tracing apps represented the users’ sense of capabilities to individually partake in the existing efforts to control the pandemic.

COVID-19 now and then: Reflections on mobile communication and the pandemic

“…There are many different approaches to mobile data collection. Rohman and Pitaloka (2023), for example, conducted in-depth qualitative semi-structured interviews via diverse mobile and online platforms, such as WhatsApp, Google Meets, and Skype. However, they point out that in order to reach rural populations where internet connection is precarious, they used traditional phone calls.…”

“…One of our goals with this special issue was to decenter the analysis of the pandemic from Global North and developed nations to analyze the impacts of the pandemic in the practices of marginalized populations, especially in the Global South. In “Contact tracing apps, nationalism, and users with disability in the Global South: The faith in state and collective objective,” Rohman and Pitaloka ( 2023 ) point out that most early studies about contact-tracing apps originate in the Global North. Global South countries, however, were the most affected by the pandemic.…”

“…Although at face value this latter example might not seem to be an issue of infrastructure, it actually is an issue of infrastructural politics when it is the government which is ushering its people to use mobile applications. In the case of Vietnam and Indonesia, Rohman and Pitaloka ( 2023 ), reported that few people actually used the government-sponsored contact-tracing apps until it became the site for officially declaring vaccination statuses. Although those who did engage in this practice trusted the government's handling of their personal data, this is another example of the pervasiveness of mobile infrastructures.…”