Technologies of inclusion and marginalization: Mobile phones and multiple exclusion homeless women

Abstract

Little is known about women experiencing multiple exclusion homelessness (MEH) in the UK, and even less about their use of mobile phones. MEH describes a subset of homeless people with multiple and complex needs who experience forms of deep social exclusion. Marginalized and socially excluded women often avoid social services and survive through remaining elusive and invisible. This evasion is reflected in their mobile phone practices in which both use and nonuse are expressions of their limited agency in the face of profound structural inequalities. This study explores MEH women's agency articulated through mobile phone ownership and usage in a UK coastal city. Through “deep hanging out” participant observation and interviews, it illuminates the complex ways in which MEH women access and manage mobile phones. It highlights paradoxical tensions between connection and invisibility; for example, homeless support services provide budget feature phones to MEH clients to ensure their improved safety and connectivity; however, MEH women sell these phones to meet their immediate needs. In so doing, these women reject the provision and discourse of stripped-back, financially compromised UK homeless support services. Through their mobiles, MEH women also engage with social media in uncertain ways, an activity which rather than providing connectivity and access, reaffirms social marginalization. Thus, MEH women's deep social exclusion is both mediated and reinforced by their mobile media practices.