Design With Rural-To-Urban Migrant Women: Opportunities and Challenges in Designing within a Precarious Marriage Context in South China

This study elucidates the challenges faced by married migrant women (MMW) in South China in relation to design. Through 2-year ethnographic fieldwork and semi-structured interviews with 15 participants, I aim to understand the context and intricacies of their systemic marital problems that form the backdrop against which mobile technology design could occur. I discuss how they tactically appropriate cellphones to negotiate love, sex, and marriage while remaining stuck in gendered patterns of technological use. The marital issues raised by the participants concerning the place of technology could provide HCI researchers with valuable guidance. “Design with” implies avoiding an elite perspective, eschewing a top-down approach, and steering clear of a condescending attitude in technical design. Designers should act as collaborators, assisting MMW in uncovering and nurturing their values, collective traits, and life experiences, which could ultimately nourish the future development of MMW and the migrant community. Potential considerations include a better understanding of national history and local ecosystems, recognizing MMW's agency and initiative in technology design and decision-making, valuing and learning from their “alternative” experiences of using technologies, and design beyond individual users for a more equal and safer environment.