Negotiating digital marginalization: Immigrants, computers, and the adult learning classroom
Camille Reyes · Atlantic Journal of Communication · 2020
The discourse of the digital divide continues to shift from questions of physical access to questions of empowerment and equality. Implicit in this shift is the need to make sense of technology use within marginalized communities, prompting the central question of this study: What happens to marginalized individuals after they gain digital access, and importantly, training? To explore this question, I observed and assisted a group of 18 mostly transnational, Latina individuals during a five-month long computer class in Newark, New Jersey. The study positions computers as a kind of “boundary object” existing as a material thing embedded within associated systems, local meanings, and practices as interpreted by the researcher. The voices and experiences of the classroom participants are examined through cross-disciplinary theoretical frameworks drawn primarily from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and a specific transnational study. Thus, the article makes a contribution to the field of Communication by bringing these theoretical concepts into conversation with pedagogical ethnography and Internet Communication Technologies (ICT).