Migrancy and digital mediations of emotion

Abstract

This collection brings together key themes that integrate the scholarship on migration, digital media, and emotion. Drawing from a variety of conceptual, theoretical, and methodological traditions that cross-cut academic disciplines, the articles in this issue explore the emotional facets of digitally mediated migrant socialities in a variety of socio-cultural and geographic locales. These examinations raise important questions about how digital media ubiquity shapes global migration experiences and multicultural media publics at various scales. How are relations of intimacy and care at a distance articulated and experienced through social media? What does it mean to imagine home as a digitally mediated experience? In what unexpected ways are platforms reshaping migrant subjectivities? In this introductory article we address these and other questions, outlining how we believe the study of emotion can help us think more comprehensively about the digital mediation of migrants’ social lives in the current media age.

Becoming a Young Farmer in the Digital Age—An Island Perspective*

“…The role of communication revolution in our life was previously pronounced as “the death of distance” (Cairncross 1997) highlighting the shifts of economic activities to remote areas. A study of Alinejad and Ponzanesi (2020) suggests that digital media supports connections that enable feelings of belonging that can be sustained across distance. Thus, the incorporation of digital media into career development in remote regions opens up an interesting field of investigation for islands where career development and out‐migration decisions are strongly related.…”

Digital Citizenship Infrastructure to Foster the Reinforcement of National Identity in Indonesia

“…Without digital forums, digital citizenship infrastructure for reinforcing national identity will not materialize (Pegrum, 2010), and this is common sense in today's world. Alinejad and Ponzanesi (2020) state that emotions can have a comprehen-sive impact on digital mediation in social life. Therefore, the digital citizenship infrastructure has become one of the means of reinforcing national identity.…”

“…Mukherjee (2018) states that the digital vision has facilitated the growth of a transparent governance infrastructure. In the same sense, Alinejad and Ponzanesi (2020) claim that there is a digitally mediated experience that shapes subjectivity. Therefore, the national character value in the digital scope will be influenced by the development of the digital infrastructure.…”

Migrant Digital Space: Building an Incomplete Map to Navigate Public Online Migration

“…For instance, while in many cases researchers have focussed on practical information both to reach the country of destination as well as to facilitate a resettlement process, ICT can also provide migrants with valuable social and emotional capital (Marino 2015). Also, it is notable how practices of care develop in the digital sphere (Leurs 2019;Alinejad and Ponzanesi 2020) among individuals and communities and produce digital spaces of care (Makrygianni and Galis, forthcoming). In this context, it is interesting to observe how, while ICT is generally described in terms of potential access to information, there is a parallel interest focussing on how trust in specific information is constructed (Dekker et al 2018;Mollerup and Sandberg, forthcoming).…”