Public transportation in rural areas is difficult due to low numbers of passengers and diverse needs, also reflected in the last mile problem that points to the distance to access transportation hubs in order to connect with core networks of transportation. In this paper, we study public transportation in rural areas using a digital-enabled, demand-responsive service called Plustur. This service was recently introduced as an effort to increase mobility in underserved rural areas by creating routes ad-hoc to answer to the last mile(s). We study how passengers and drivers understand Plustur, as well as experience the role of passenger. Our findings show that Plustur is viewed as a benefit for autonomy of mobility in rural areas, however is lacking in addressing integration of modes of mobilities, flexibility and spontaneous trips. We contribute with design implications for digital multimodal mobility services.
With the rise of social media, entrepreneurs are feeling the pressure to adopt digital tools for their work. However, the upfront effort and resources needed to participate on these platforms is ever more complex, particularly in underresourced contexts. Through participatory action research over two years in Detroit's Eastside, we found that local entrepreneurs preferred to become engaged digitally through a community collective, which involved (a) resource-connecting organizations, (b) regular in-person meetings, (c) paper planning tools, and (d) practice and validation. Together, these elements combined to provide (1) awareness and willingness to use digital tools, (2) regular opportunities to build internet self-efficacy, and (3) ways to collectively overcome digital obstacles. We discuss our findings in the context of digital engagement and entrepreneurship, and outline recommendations for digital platforms seeking to better support economic mobility more broadly.
This paper brings together three distinct case studies to explore how social isolation and notions of liminality shape ontological security within communities on "the edge" of society. Each case study exemplifies the differing nature of liminality in everyday contexts and the extent to which increased digitalisation perturbs it in multiple ways. Taking an ethnographic approach, the research engaged with seafarers onboard container ships in European waters, communities in Greenland and welfare claimants in the North East of England. It posits that technological innovation must attend to the routinisation of everyday life through which people establish ontological security if such innovation is to be supportive. The paper thus moves beyond existing HCI scholarship by foregrounding the contextual and relational aspects of social isolation rather than the technological. It does so by advocating a ground-up design process that considers ontological security in relation to notions of liminality among communities on the edge.
Across Europe, refugees are required to engage with the "civic turn" -- a process of integrating refugees into the social and cultural aspects of the new land. Over a two-year period, we engaged 89 refugees settling in Sweden, to explore how accelerated and digitalised resettlement processes shape the civic turn. Framed within wider literature on transitioning and everyday insecurities, we show how this "digital turn" exacerbates existing barriers to resettlement experienced by refugees. By critically analysing these barriers, we reveal how the civic turn rests upon a series of everyday social and cultural practices and relations, which are largely ignored in digital service design. We show how this leads to a "vacuum" for our participants. We call on the HCI community to engage with this vacuum and understand resettlement as encompassing multiple digitally-mediated transitional phases of citizenry. We do so by focusing on the digitalisation processes shaping these transitions.
Rural communities often lack platforms to support civic engagement and local deliberation. Community radio is intended to facilitate such functions, yet, radio technologies can be expensive and complex to use. To tackle this challenge, low-barrier radio technologies are becoming available. We argue that technology to support civic engagement and local deliberation are important, and design of such platforms must take into consideration specific community needs. We contribute by exploring the needs of three rural European communities. Findings indicate that communities are now distributed beyond place. Platforms for deliberation must include both hyper-local and geographically dispersed populations. Rural values of accountability, reliability and maintaining social harmony are important design considerations. Community radio platforms should support geographically distributed community connections, sharing of health and emergency information, preservation of heritage and as a space for advocacy and civic action.