Rethinking Inclusion in the Digital Age: Immigrants’ Visual Narratives of ICT-Mediated Integration

This paper presents a digitally mediated Photovoice project that examines how information and communication technologies (ICTs) shape immigrants’ professional integration in a mid-sized Canadian metropolitan area between 2021 and 2022. Photovoice is a participatory action research method in which participants produce photographs and narratives to document and analyze everyday experiences (Wang & Burris, 1997; Catalani & Minkler, 2010). In response to COVID-19 public health restrictions, the research team engaged virtually with nine immigrants at different stages of labour market integration. Participants used digital cameras to capture ICT-mediated aspects of their integration experiences and participated in facilitated group discussions via Zoom. The resulting images were later shared with settlement service providers and policymakers through in-person exhibitions. Grounded in Freirean (Freire, 1994; 2000) and feminist traditions of critical pedagogy (Fine & Torre, 2019), the project emphasized dialogical knowledge creation and redistributed epistemic authority to participants. Rather than treating immigrants as data sources, Photovoice positioned them as co-creators and co-analysts of knowledge relevant to policy and practice. Consistent with prior applications of Photovoice with migrants and refugees (Cubero et al., 2024), participants used visual language to communicate complex experiences that transcend linguistic and cultural barriers (Marzana et al., 2023). Photography and storytelling illuminated how ICTs simultaneously enable access to information, networking, and participation while also producing exclusion, frustration, or surveillance (Alencar et al., 2025). Methodologically, the paper contributes to ICT and migration research by linking (im)migrants’ digitally mediated lived experiences to institutional and policy contexts shaping professional integration. Participants’ photo-narratives revealed organizational practices, platform-based systems, and unequal access to digital supports structure integration outcomes. By sharing findings directly with service providers and policymakers, the project fostered dialogue around more equitable, context-sensitive digital integration policies. By situating ICT use within broader (im)migration histories and intersecting social positions, and by granting participants control over representation (Fine & Torre, 2019), the paper advances an ethically grounded, transferable framework for policy-relevant research on (im)migrant integration across digital and offline contexts. References: Alencar, A., Kondova, K., & Ribbens, W. (2025). Digital practices and migrant integration: Ambivalences and inequalities. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Doi.:10.1080/1369183X.2024.2372553 Catalani, C. and Minkler, M. (2010). Photovoice: A review of the literature in health and public health. Health Education & Behavior 37(3), 424–451. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198109342084 Cubero, A., Mildenberger, L., & Garrido, R. (2024). Photovoice for promoting empowerment with migrant and refugee communities: A scoping review. Action Research, 23(4), 365-386. https://doi.org/10.1177/14767503241269750 (Original work published 2025) Fine, M., & Torre, M. E. (2019). Critical participatory action research. American Journal of Community Psychology, 63(3–4), 433–444. Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. (Original work published in 1970) Freire, P. (1994). Pedagogy of Hope. New York: Continuum. Mamary, E. (2022). Photovoice as counterspeech. Health Promotion Practice, 23(2), 230–234. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248399211059129 Marzana, D., Gaboardi, M., Crapolicchio, E., Giuliani, C., & Regalia, C. (2023). Using photovoice with migrant and non-migrant youth to explore integration in local communities. Migration Letters, 20(5), 111–121. https://doi.org/10.59670/ml.v20i5.2930 Wang, C., & Burris, M. (1997). Photovoice: Concept, methodology, and use for participatory needs assessment. Health Education & Behavior, 24(3), 369–387.