Regaining normalcy after war: ICT-enabled ‘transition resilience’ in veterans and refugees

Abstract

Our research focuses broadly on the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enabled practices that people develop in response to disruption—an emergent phenomenon dubbed transition resilience. In our larger project, we seek to understand the ICT choices that people make, how ICT use changes, and how ICTs enable people to create a new sense of normalcy when undergoing periods of chronic disruption. Here, we explore the transition experiences of United States (US) veterans reintegrating into civil society and refugees integrating into the US social system. Veterans experience multiple transitions at once and institutional support to help them regain normalcy is often poor. Refugees also undergo multiple transitions when integrating into a new civil society. Both groups face unique identity crises in their respective transitions. Our work contributes to the development of new ICT-enabled tools to help people recover and regain normalcy in their lives.