Dear all,

I am writing to share my new book Digital Exiles: Refugee Work in the Global Digital Economy, which is hopefully of interest to some of you: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262052450/digital-exiles/

A deep exploration of the opportunities and risks a global digital economy poses for refugees. Digital Exiles opens a rare window into the world of refugees trying to survive and thrive in an increasingly digitalized and technological world of work. Often excluded from local employment and struggling to make ends meet, refugees are increasingly dependent on digital jobs and online work as a financial lifeline. Andreas Hackl offers a human-centered and global perspective to these struggles through his research into three of the most important refugee-hosting countries: Lebanon, Kenya, and Germany.

The pursuit of a digital livelihoodfrom attending coding schools in Berlin to training datasets for AI in crisis-stricken Lebanon to online freelancing in Kenyas refugee campsrepresents an increasingly important income opportunity for refugees. Digital work programs by aid organizations and the private sector aim to help the forcibly displaced become self-reliant and successful workers, yet, for many, it creates new forms of exclusion, precarity, and risk. Combining human stories with insights from five years of multisited research and applied work with leading organizations, the author presents an alternative vision of an inclusive world of work that can help shape the fair digital economy of the future.

Best wishes, Andreas

Dr Andreas Hackl Senior Lecturer in Anthropology of Development School of Social and Political Science University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. Is e buidheann carthannais a th ann an Oilthigh Dhn ideann, clraichte an Alba, ireamh clraidh SC005336.