Cultural Identity Preservation Through Social Media

Abstract

This chapter explores cultural identity negotiation on social media for a specific refugee group. Previous research indicates the importance of a sense of community and cultural preservation in regards to establishing and maintaining a cultural identity for this specific group. The group, Meskhetian Turks, is an example of ethnic identity and an established ethnicity through shared history and struggle. This chapter focuses on the virtual implications of the group's identity in social media. More specifically, it explores how social media platforms serve as a cultural unifier, where cultural identity is maintained and perpetuated in the face of an unattainable physical homeland.

Digital Resilience Tactics of Syrian Refugees in the Netherlands: Social Media for Social Support, Health, and Identity

“…The ways in which informants do digital identity reveals how they “disrupt becomings” and negotiate “existential journeys” (Gough & Gough, 2019, p. 1): they actively digitally negotiate between various ties, obligations, and expectations in the Netherlands and in Syria, which are oftentimes contradictory. Whereas Nurhayat Bilge (2018) in her study attests that for refugees “social media serve as a cultural unifier, where cultural identity is maintained and perpetuated” (p. 1), the digital self-identification informants tactically assemble as resilience resources are not straightforward but reveal a complex and multi-faceted engagement with intersecting and conflicting norms of nationality, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and class, among others.…”