Telecommunication fraud is a rapidly growing threat in the digital era, yet its effects on culturally minoritized communities remain underexplored. Chinese diaspora populations in the UK are often framed as particularly vulnerable, but existing accounts tend to emphasize individual-level deficits such as digital illiteracy or naivety. This literature-based project challenges these assumptions by investigating how scam susceptibility is structured by broader cultural, institutional, and relational contexts.


Drawing on practice theory, vulnerability is conceptualized not as a static trait but as an emergent property of routinized interactions shaped by linguistic barriers, cultural norms, and fragmented institutional trust. Through a critical synthesis of interdisciplinary literature spanning psychology, migration studies, and digital sociology, the review identifies key dynamics—such as symbolic shame, diaspora positioning, and risk communication practices—that condition responses to fraudulent contact. The resulting conceptual framework, to be completed by the time of presentation, aims to reframe scam vulnerability as culturally and socially embedded. This theoretical contribution offers implications for culturally responsive policy, preventative interventions, and future empirical design.