The Environmental Determinant of Digital Poverty from Macro to Micro Perspectives

The previous chapter reviewed the debate concerning the link between economic and environmental poverty, highlighting contrasting findings on their causal relationship, especially due to the complexity of intersecting variables that can influence poverty conditions at multiple levels (from macro to micro levels). The identification of such interdependencies is critical for tackling poverty holistically. However, the previous chapter problematized environmental poverty as a relevant factor influencing living conditions and well-being. The definition of environmental poverty as conceptually distinct from, but also integral to, poverty helps broaden the understanding of poverty beyond economic indicators. As a result, it views poverty as multidimensional, including both economic and environmental components (Nunan, 2015). It also emphasizes the environment’s role as one of the enablers of individual “capabilities” for human development (Sen, 2001). This chapter explores the possibility of embedding the environmental component into the concept of digital poverty at the macro, meso, and micro levels, as described in Chap. 3 . In this chapter, we further emphasize the interconnections between environmental poverty and digital poverty by problematizing the need for integrating an environmental variable when exploring digital inequalities. More specifically, we integrate the revised three dimensions of the DPF (Individuals, Circumstantial, and Structural) with the environmental dimension.