Socially isolated and digitally excluded. A qualitative exploratory study of the lives of Roma teenage mothers during the COVID-19 lockdown

Abstract

This paper explores the interlinks between multiple layers of exclusion and deprivation of Roma adolescents mothers in the context of COVID-19 pandemic, in order to understand: a) how different types of exclusion (e.g., digital, social, educational) overlap and how are those types of exclusion lived and perceived by teenage mothers; and b) whether and how the COVID-19 pandemic changed existing inequalities in their situation. In our paper, we refer to teenage mothers to describe mothers who gave birth before the age of 18.The study has a qualitative exploratory approach and relies on ten interviews conducted with Roma teenage mothers in peripheral urban areas in Romania during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in the Spring of 2020. As a theoretical framework, the study employs the Relative Digital Deprivation Theory, (Helsper, 2016) which touches upon three dimensions of digital divides while revealing different markers of agency that young mothers manifest. In our understanding, “agency” is not limited to active agency, but encompasses the “tacit or hidden agency” as well (Sniekers, 2018). Moreover, we relied on Maheshwari’s work (2019) that developed the concept of positioning to understand how individuals’ identities are shaped by different competing discourses (e.g. victimhood and agency).Although from an absolute‑objective perspective the results showed these young women as being digitally and socially excluded, from their subjective-relative perspective, with their lives gravitating around their new babies and partners, their exclusion is not perceived as unfair or illogical, but in line with the usual expectations and values of their communities.Unexpectedly, the lockdown period did not have too much of a disturbing effect on their already secluded and hugely marginalized lives (online or offline), although in some cases some changes occurred. Being already socially excluded, they continued living in their micro-universes of their homes in remote, already separated areas, only marginally connected to few parts of the rest of the world via digital technologies, many times restricted in their functionality and usage (i.e., by poor devices, poor connection, financially poor for data services, poor skills).We anticipate the study to have high stakes with regards to policies of social and digital inclusion of (Roma) adolescent mothers, not only by showing the picture of the digital exclusion of a population that is usually missing from digital research, but also by understanding their point of view on their state and by understanding the importance of a valid referent (e.g., more digitally included), which would represent a positive example to motivate them towards making a change.