My project focuses on working towards an understanding of factors affecting, current mitigations, and future developments in supporting trans people at risk or in digital poverty in Wales. I build upon initial findings from my master’s dissertation (Clifford 2023) where I worked with Trans Tech Tent, a community organisation focused on tech repair and digital pedagogy based in Cardiff, but with a wider reach online. Following semi-structured interviews with service users and practitioners (n = 5) and subsequent reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2022), I believe a large factor affecting access to technology for trans people is financial inequality, often referred to as digital poverty in wider literature (see e.g., Yates et al. 2023; Lucas et al. 2021; Anoush and Tyler 2019). I wish to further research digital poverty in this context.
In my first year, I am building an advisory network of community organisations that support trans people across Wales to establish current gaps in knowledge in this area, and identify research priorities. As well as a scoping literature review, I am also going to undertake a critical review of relevant devolved and national policy to understand what support is available for community organisations, and what the current strategy is for the Senedd / Westminster.
On factors, I will be using a mixed methods approach to understand how trans people in or at risk of digital poverty have been impacted by digital poverty, and what support or policy implications this may produce. I will use a similar qualitative methodology for my master’s project for undertaking scoping work to build a larger scale quantitative instrument to add statistical power to my findings (exact methodology TBC).

References:
Anoush, Simon, and Alyson Tyler. 2019. ‘Universal Credit and Public Libraries in Wales: A Scoping Study into Digital Inclusion and Digital by Default’. Aberystwyth University. https://pure.aber.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/42353714/UC_public_libraries_Wales_Dec2019_report_as_publisehd_on_AT_website.pdf.
Braun, Virginia, and Victoria Clarke. 2022. Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide. London ; Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE.
Clifford, Genevieve. 2023. ‘Trans-Forming Technology: Exploring Transgender Technologies in South Wales’. Master’s Dissertation, Swansea, Wales: Swansea University.
Lucas, Patricia J, Rosa Robinson, and Lizzy Treacy. 2021. ‘Data Poverty in Scotland and Wales’, April. https://media.nesta.org.uk/documents/01-FS_NEST_DPENG_Book_Ho3AqpW.pdf.
Yates, Simeon, Katherine Hill, Chloe Blackwell, Emma Stone, Gianfranco Polizzi, Rebecca Harris, Jeanette D’Arcy, et al. 2023. ‘Towards a Welsh Minimum Digital Living Standard: Final Report’. Cardiff, Wales: Welsh Government. https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2023-02/towards-a-welsh-minimum-digital-living-standard-final-report_0.pdf.