Transnational connectivity and the affective paradoxes of digital care labour: Exploring how young refugees technologically mediate co-presence

Abstract

Digital migration scholarship has foregrounded how migrants (refugees, forced migrants, expatriates among others) use smartphones and social media to technologically mediate co-presence with loved ones and friends abroad. Aural, visual and haptic affordances give shape to feelings of co-presence, triggering various affects. Affectivity refers here to bodily sensations like joy which can be circulated among migrant families and friendship groups, through digital networks. Paradoxically, maintaining bonds as well as keeping face can be felt as emotionally taxing, triggering negative affective intensities such as fear, anxiety, shame and guilt. Still, the young refugees I have interviewed feel strongly compelled to transnationally connect because they strongly care. Therefore, this research note proposes the notion of digital care labour to attend to the emotional, digital labour involved in maintaining transnational connections between people living at distance, in starkly diverging material conditions.

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

“…In keeping in contact through social media, informants actively seek out the affordances of platforms to avoiding context collapse and to negotiate the experiences and activities they share across different groups of contacts. Most informants express feeling ashamed sharing their everyday mundane experiences revolving around school, work, entertainment, food, or leisure with loved ones in Syria who are living through hardship of the ongoing civil war (Leurs, 2019). However, for others avoiding context collapse between different intended audiences is necessary to avoid As such, informants illustrate practices of code switching between various segments of one's personal network across geographies and contexts to paradoxically negotiate how these "tools of connectivity generate socio-cultural complications to the point of rupturing" (Lingel et al, 2014(Lingel et al, , p. 1502).…”

Mobile communication and refugees: An analytical review of academic literature

“…Specifically focusing on the paradoxical roles of mobile technologies in the context of transnational family relationships, different studies highlighted that mediated practices of doing family require time and emotional labor from resettled refugees (Awad & Tossell, 2019; Leurs, 2019; Smets, 2019). Similar to findings from studies in prolonged displacement settings (Witteborn, 2015), Syrian refugees also felt obliged to be constantly available to call their family, especially considering “the excellent coverage and stability of mobile connectivity in the Netherlands” (Awad & Tossell, 2019, p. 7).…”

“…Similar to findings from studies in prolonged displacement settings (Witteborn, 2015), Syrian refugees also felt obliged to be constantly available to call their family, especially considering “the excellent coverage and stability of mobile connectivity in the Netherlands” (Awad & Tossell, 2019, p. 7). Syrians emphasized their desire to be disconnected from family and friends who stayed in Syria to avoid distress, as they constantly heard stories of despair and suffering from their loved ones and felt powerless for being unable to help (Awad & Tossell, 2019; Leurs, 2019). Scholars describe that Syrians develop specific strategies, such as communicating through text instead of phone or video calls (Awad & Tossell, 2019), or specific “ritualistic practices of emotional labor ” such as “keeping up appearances” (Leurs, 2019, p. 5) to manage their feelings of frustration resulting from prolonged family separation.…”

“…Syrians emphasized their desire to be disconnected from family and friends who stayed in Syria to avoid distress, as they constantly heard stories of despair and suffering from their loved ones and felt powerless for being unable to help (Awad & Tossell, 2019; Leurs, 2019). Scholars describe that Syrians develop specific strategies, such as communicating through text instead of phone or video calls (Awad & Tossell, 2019), or specific “ritualistic practices of emotional labor ” such as “keeping up appearances” (Leurs, 2019, p. 5) to manage their feelings of frustration resulting from prolonged family separation. In the case of LGBTQ refugees living in Belgium, they need to negotiate their (sexual) identities to adapt their online social presence to entirely different social groups.…”

Emotionale Landschaften der Migration: Von unsichtbaren Grenzen, Nicht-Ankommen und dem Tod in Stanišićs Herkunft und Varatharajahs Vor der Zunahme der Zeichen

“…Allerdings wird bisher nur vereinzelt Emotion zusammen mit Flucht und gezwungener Migration analysiert (u.a Leurs 2019)…”