Digital Diasporas: Postcoloniality, Media and Affect

Abstract

This essay revisits the notion of diaspora in connection with recent advancements in communication technologies, which have led to the formation of 'digital diasporas'. The focus is on digital migrants as 'connected users', and therefore as participants in social media platforms. Though there is no consensus on what digital diaspora means exactly because it depends on its many disciplinary takes and media-specific variations, such as 'e-diasporas', 'digital diasporas', 'net-diasporas' and 'web-diasporas', there is consensus on the profound ways in which digital connectivity has transformed privileged terms of spatiality, belonging and self-identification. Digital diasporas provide new possible cartographies to map the self in relation to increasingly complex patterns of globalization and localization, while avoiding closures and the negative effects of identity politics. Furthermore, it allows different scripts to be envisioned for the politics of emotion that is essential to the understanding of the motives, nature and impact of the migrant experience, as well as the possibility for negotiating multiple belongings. The essay reviews some of the disciplinary or media-specific takes that have emerged from science and technology studies, media, communication studies and migration studies, anthropology

Use Of Social Media Potential By The International Students

“…This phenomenon is strengthen by the role of social networks as a tool for disseminating social justice strategies and involving young people in various social and civil projects (Nicholas, 2010), the high demand for social networks for small groups different from the main community (Carolyn et al, 2018;Guadalupe et al, 2015;Lauckner et al, 2018), their high value for maintaining a healthy psychological state of a person is mentioned and in this aspect we also point the important role of network diasporas, which provide new opportunities for emotional well-being, (Porat et al, 2018;Simoes et al, 2018) sharing experience and social circle expanding (Ponzanesi, 2020). All of the above leads us to the concept of digital social capital, which is formed in social communities and allows a person to expand their social capabilities.…”

“…At the same time, these methods of studying digital space are not suitable for understanding motives (reasons for treatment). Therefore, to study the qualitative aspects of working in social networking, various types of surveys are used, interviews (Guadalupe et al, 2015;Lauckner et al, 2018;Lin et al, 2017;Nicholas, 2010;Ponzanesi, 2020;Simoes et al, 2018).…”

“…It can be clearly shown in the phenomenon of "network diasporas". Researches even propose the concept of network migration (Ponzanesi, 2020). This phenomenon is interesting and poorly studied.…”

Articulating Persian identities between Iran and Israel: On nationality, diasporas, and lived ethnicities in online media

“…Diasporas are considered ethno‐national groups “whose members reside out of their home country … which plays a significant role in their lives in both a symbolic and normative sense” (Morawska, 2011, p. 1030). Thus, a transnational diaspora is seen as a group that shares a geographic detachment from its original locality—a (physical or imagined) homeland—and a collective memory and myth about its homeland in terms of its location and history (this is in comparison with nontransnational diasporas or diasporas that do not cross borders, see Ponzanesi, 2020). In this context, the homeland continues to play a key feature in defining the group's identity in its new localities, with a strong self‐identified ethnic consciousness that is presented through a sense of distinctive common history and common fate.…”

“…Through online spaces and practices, diaspora groups can recontextualize and reterritorialize themselves, visit homelands online, and form meaningful bonds with other community members (Bernal, 2010). However, given that diaspora is a convoluted concept, Ponzanesi (2020) suggests that we should not understand “digital diaspora” as a catch‐all term, but rather as a relational one that enables us to explore the specific characteristics of different forms of negotiating existing identities, unfolding new identities, and maintaining and building communities.…”