Abstract:  While the use of digital technologies has been associated with refugees’ successful integration, this perspective overlooks the digital divide growing on the existing structural inequalities. For Eritrean refugees living in the Netherlands, the digital divide cuts deep into their personal lives and endangers their relation to authorities. Based on two months of ethnographic research and five continuous months of digital participant observation (first author), our article aims to show how differences in digital knowledge and unequal digital infrastructures between Eritrean asylum seekers and Dutch society led to challenges for both refugees and street‐level bureaucrats in the Netherlands. Tackling the case study of Eritrean refugees in the Netherlands, we demonstrate how a non‐homogeneous understanding of the digital divide, organizational blind spots, and a lack of socio‐political support hinder refugees’ integration. At the same time, the case study offers novel ways to ethically assess the digital training and learning paths of street‐level bureaucracy as well as the state’s adaptation and updating of the asylum seekers’ digital assessment framework in the Netherlands.

Keywords:  bureaucracy; digital divide; digital inclusion; Eritrea; refugees; The Netherlands

Published:   Ahead of Print

Issue:   Vol 14 (2026): Digitalization and Migration: Rethinking Socio-Economic Inclusions and Exclusions (In Progress)