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‘Virtual’ Intimacies? Families Communicating Across Transnational Contexts
Global Networks
Abstract
Abstract Many analyses of the uses of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) focus on factors such as gender, class and communication infrastructures in explaining how and whether people communicate across distance. In this article, I argue that such analyses fail to capture the full complexity of ICT use. I use the results of a large qualitative study of transnational families, conducted in Australia, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Iran, Singapore and New Zealand, to examine how and whether kin maintain contact across time and space. The research demonstrates that ICTs are more available for some people than for others. However, also and possibly more important in the decisions people make about using particular communication technologies are the social and cultural contexts of family life, which render some ICTs more desirable than others at specific points in time. Acknowledging this provides an important corrective to economic analyses of transnationalism, and contributes to theorizing and documenting the role of ICTs in the maintenance of transnational social networks.
... Yet, compared to non-migrants, studies have identified the lack or poor quality of digital utilization among migrants across various countries and regions (Hamel, 2009;Wilding, 2006;Wyche & Grinter, 2012), such as poor skills to utilize digital devices, the misperceptions of ICT as being unnecessary due to their low digital literacy, online misinformation and propaganda, and the danger of privacy leakage and exposure to state surveillance (Shaker, 2015;Wall et al., 2016;Wilding, 2006). Migrants' experiences of DD can be traced to their demographics of race, income or educational level, which limit their technological capacity. ...
... Yet, compared to non-migrants, studies have identified the lack or poor quality of digital utilization among migrants across various countries and regions (Hamel, 2009;Wilding, 2006;Wyche & Grinter, 2012), such as poor skills to utilize digital devices, the misperceptions of ICT as being unnecessary due to their low digital literacy, online misinformation and propaganda, and the danger of privacy leakage and exposure to state surveillance (Shaker, 2015;Wall et al., 2016;Wilding, 2006). Migrants' experiences of DD can be traced to their demographics of race, income or educational level, which limit their technological capacity. ...
Digital divide as an academic term captures the inequality involved in the access and usage of digital devices as well as real-life consequences of the imbalance. Concerning migrant women who suffer from the digital divide, there have been extensive studies focusing on the affordances and benefits of having digital access. The problematic side of digital divide and factors leading to such divide, however, are understudied. Therefore, a systematic review is conducted to investigate the digital divide items and factors from the existing literature. Studies (n = 19) were selected by searching through six social science databases of using the search words combination of “digital gap” and “digital divide,” “migrant,” “immigration” and “immigration,” and “female” and “women.” Findings suggest that concerning the access and utilization (level 1, 2 of digital divide), items such as poor network of the home country and factors such as patriarchal ICT culture hamper the access and usage of digital tools. Concerning the outcome of utilization (level 3 of digital divide), migrant service access and urban integration have been undermined. This review shows that digital divide experiences of migrant women have been understudied, and therefore we recommend that more empirical research, with multiple types of data and longitudinal design, in various immigrant-dense countries, should be conducted by adopting the theoretical lenses of lived experience and intersectionality, so that more voices of these women can be heard. In addition, needs assessment based on our identified digital divide factors should be conducted before the training programs for migrant women so as to more effectively bridge the digital divide.
... The latter is expressed in (and termed hereafter) family practices (Morgan, 2011) such as communication (e.g. Wilding, 2006), visits, specific care arrangements (Baldassar & Merla, 2014), or material or emotional support (e.g. Kornienko et al., 2018). ...
... This assumption is supported by research showing that transnational family ties are accompanied by transnational practices such as visits, frequent contact and communication (e.g. Wilding, 2006), specific cross-border care arrangements (Baldassar & Merla, 2014) including interactions with institutions in the country of origin (e.g. care institutions). ...
Previous research suggests that migrants develop binational identities – a sense of belonging to both their country of origin and of settlement. These identities, in turn, are determined by the way they are treated by the majority population of the receiving society. This article aims to contribute nuance to these understandings of binational identities and experiences of origin-based discrimination in migrants by bringing in a further perspective: transnationalism. In particular, we suggest that transnational family ties and practices increase migrants’ sense of belonging to their country of origin and additionally moderate the impact of origin-based discrimination on the sense of belonging to the country of origin and settlement. We test these hypotheses based on a representative survey among the migrant population in Germany. While findings confirm the hypothesis regarding a direct relationship between transnational family ties and practices and sense of belonging, the moderation hypothesis was not confirmed. Instead, by tendency the relationship is more pronounced among participants without transnational family ties and practices. Findings highlight the importance of the transnational perspective to further contextualize the relationship of origin-based discrimination to binational identities among migrants, thus to investigate the role of social context in binational identity formation.
... These findings are in line with those of other studies on gender, intimate relationships, and digital technologies (see, e.g., Archambault, 2013;Doron, 2012;Huang, 2018;Kraemer, 2017). We argue that the impact of digital technologies on intimate relationships is particularly strong in contexts of forced migration, which are often characterized by the loss of (extended) family ties and the desire to establish new relationships and families (see, e.g., Greene, 2019;Twigt, 2018;Wilding, 2006;Witteborn, 2018). In this paper, we argue that young Syrian refugee women in Jordan use the internet as a private space where emotions and practices regarding intimate and marital life are initiated and expressed. ...
... 52). Relatively few studies have addressed the gendered dimensions of refugee women's use of mobile phones and social media (Greene, 2019;Wilding, 2006;Witteborn, 2018). Greene (2019) studied refugee women's digital practices while they waited in camps in Greece. ...
This paper explores how young Syrian refugees in Jordan who have grown up using information and new communication technologies are using the internet as a private space where emotions and practices regarding intimate and marital life are expressed. We explore how new technologies and social media are influencing refugees’ perceptions and experiences of marriage and divorce during displacement. Based on in-depth interviews with rural Syrian women from Deraa province living in northern Jordan, our research sheds light on the multi-faceted ways these women embrace emerging technologies. Furthermore, we demonstrate how technology influences gender-specific narratives and practices around marriage and divorce
... 'Conviviality' refers to conditions created for social interaction and as a theoretical concept in migration studies, it captures social encounters and interchanges of diverse migrant groups within different contexts (Boesen et al. 2023). Different studies reference structural issues of social networking, family, and individual factors framing gendered roles (Wilding 2006;Yeoh and Ramdas 2014;Belford andLahiri-Roy 2018, 2019;Belford 2021;King and Lulle 2022) yet with less attention garnered to migrant women's emotional entanglements with migration moves, social interaction, conviviality and their wellbeing (Cory 2019;Yea 2020;Boesen et al. 2023). The opportunities for convivial engagement and gendered experiences for women relocating and rebuilding remain unexplored in the scholarship of migration as a gendered experience. ...
... From our insights on gendered aspects of migration and conviviality, this paper only offers a glimpse into how the pandemic has impacted the ways we define 'togetherness', socialise, experience conviviality in sharing our emotions and find possibilities to collaborate and pursue our academic work -a research so far area receiving little attention (Morokvasic 2014;Boesen et al. 2023). We found social interactions either in person or in a virtual space were significant for us to unpack emotional entanglements and to find support during the pandemic (Wilding 2006). The virtual space soon became an important resource for social interaction, conviviality, collaboration, and wellbeing. ...
... Regardless of the pandemic, people with mobility experiences, who are geographically distant from significant individuals in their personal or professional lives often rely on online social interactions to maintain contact (Benítez 2012;Nedelcu 2012a;Nedelcu and Wyss 2016;Ryan, Klekowski Von Koppenfels and Mulholland 2015;Wilding 2006). Thus, based on existing scholarship, we assume that "people with mobility"defined here as those who have moved houses, who regularly commute, or who possess a migration backgroundare more likely to gain advantages from online social interactions than "people without mobility," namely those who have not had these experiences. ...
... Although these interactions develop within situations that do not replace physical co-presence, from a qualitative point of view they are quite similar to those permitted by physical proximity." Thus, current ICT enable "new ways of living together" or "ordinary co-presence" (Nedelcu 2012b(Nedelcu , 1339Nedelcu and Wyss 2016, 202) or "e-families" (Benítez 2012), and migrants have picked up quickly on the developments of ICT (Wilding 2006). Accordingly, regular online contacts can reinforce the feeling of belonging to a family network despite family geographical distance, thus decreasing feelings of isolation (Nedelcu 2017;Nedelcu and Wyss 2016). ...
The effect of COVID-19 lockdowns on the shift from in-person (offline) social interactions to online interactions and its consequences on social support and stress attracted scholarly attention. However, much less is known about how individuals’ prior mobility experiences have influenced coping with this shift. In the present research, we hypothesized that people with mobility experiences should already be more familiar with, and could profit more from, online social interactions before the pandemic, which might buffer against the negative impact of the pandemic on the emotional social support they obtained and the stress they felt during these interactions. In order to investigate this issue, we collected data ( N = 875) in Germany during the lockdown between April and May 2021. We measured mobility by introducing a novel approach that encompasses the act of moving houses (both within a country and internationally), commuting patterns, and nationality (migration background). Participants also reported the frequency of their online and offline interactions (before and during the lockdown), as well as the emotional support they obtained from online and offline interactions and the stress felt during lockdown interactions (as compared to before the lockdown). Results provide quantitative evidence in support of the main hypothesis especially regarding migration background. We discuss the relevance of these findings for research on migration and mobility.
... Through social media such as Facebook, migrants have multiple options to share multimedia content (photos, videos, among others.) with relatives in their country of origin, and to be included virtually in events within the family nucleus (Kutscher & Kreβ, 2018;Wilding, 2006). However, it is important to note that although these technological means facilitate long-distance communication, they do not replace face-to-face communications. ...
... However, it is important to note that although these technological means facilitate long-distance communication, they do not replace face-to-face communications. In situations of close relationships, the exclusive use of these technologies can accentuate the sense of distance rather than reduce it (Wilding, 2006). ...
Aim. This article presents an ethnographic exploration of technology use among migrants. The main question explored is how migration processes are mediated by communication between migrants and their support network, considering the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Methods. Multi-situated and virtual ethnography have allowed researchers to access and obtain relevant discourse on the experiences, perceptions, and strategies of migrants in a non-invasive way. Results. In pre-digital contexts, support networks of friends and family provided sources of information in the development of migration projects. With the spread of technology, Facebook’s virtual communities are a means of facilitating migration strategies. Likewise, ICTs bring migrants and their families closer to the “there”, bolstering their bonding social capital and therefore their emotional well-being. Despite the language barriers, and the stereotypes and prejudices held by native-born residents, virtual social networks allow migrants to strengthen their bridging social capital, facilitating the integration of different Latin American migrant groups in the destination society. Conclusion. Today, ICTs have transformed migration strategies and expanded bonding social capital, allowing migrants to share common interests with their family setting, despite the distance. Limited interaction between migrants and native-born residents restricts bridging social capital, but the virtual sphere allows the Latin American diaspora to pursue common interests and overcome cultural barriers.
... Studien visar hur äldre män både reproducerar och gör upp med normativa ideal kring maskulinitet kopplat till familjebaserat omsorgsarbete, men att själva omsorgspraktikerna i sig skapar utrymme för omförhandlade traditionella könsoch åldersbaserade normer som annars reglerar den socio-spatiala institutionen "familjen" (ibid). På senare år har det även funnits ett växande intresse för att studera spatiala generationsmöten i form av virtuella gemenskaper (jfr virtual connectedness, Wilding, 2006) som länkar samman individer från olika generationer (Bangerter & Waldron, 2014;McClure et al., 2015;Souralova, 2019;Tarrant, 2010). Dessa studier visar hur platsbegreppet har blivit mer töjbart och dynamiskt i både ungas och äldres vardag, vilket möjliggör nya sätt att göra släktskap och intergenerationella relationer. ...
This thesis examines the production of intergenerational encounters and its
function in social life. The aim of this study is to produce knowledge about how
municipally arranged intergenerational interventions condition, enable and limit
intergenerational relations and education through the co-production of age, time
and space. The study was conducted in Gothenburg, Sweden, and combines two
research projects: Kulturmöten utan gränser (Cultural Encounters without Borders)
and Kulturhus Backaplan —“generationsdialog” i stadsutveckling (Cultural Centre Backaplan —‘an Intergenerational Dialogue’ in City Planning). Fieldwork was conducted
in formal educational and care institutions, as well as non-formal public urban
spaces. Both projects involved participants from different generations, aged
between three and eighty-four.
The theoretical framework of this thesis is influenced by critical theory and
social constructionism. It combines theoretical concepts that enable an analysis of
linguistic, material and embodied aspects of the ‘un/doings’ of age in relation to
time and space. The study’s methodological approach is designed based on multi-
sited ethnography and involves participant observation, conversational interviews,
analysis of policy documents and other textual material. The analysis is based on
Foucauldian discourse analysis and involves an abductive interaction between the
theoretical framework and the produced material.
The results highlight the following central problem representations that have
become prominent in the studied material: 1) the ‘un/doings’ of intergenerational
encounters in different institutional environments, 2) the ways in which
intergenerational encounters cut through different time regimes, and 3) the
normalisation and idealisation of ‘hyper-effective’ intergenerational encounters to
save time and money.
The main conclusion is that municipally arranged intergenerational encounters
are characterised by ambivalent messages in relation to social age, education, time
and space. On the one hand, there is a visionary political effort towards increased
age integration as a matter of societal survival. On the other hand, intergenerational
encounters appear as superfluous or ‘non-existent’ as they lack political
recognition, by being absent in the policy organisation of education and care, and
in ways in which their practical knowledge tends to be neglected rather than cared
for and used as a contribution to society.
... But demographics indicate that many are, and need to be, care providers-indeed often transnational care providers. These transnational care relationships and support are mainly negotiated via digital communication media (Baldassar et al., 2016;Palmberger, 2022;Wilding, 2006). The research project therefore focused in particular on the significance and use of new information and communication technologies in the context of refugees' multilocal care relationships. ...
In this article I introduce the digital diary method as a multimodal, participatory qualitative approach for investigating everyday digital practices within digital ethnography. This method enables participants to document their media practices and daily activities over time by creating digital diaries that incorporate written, audiovisual, and creative elements. By encouraging the recording of multimodal data—including text, images, photos, voice recordings, and videos—the method provides rich insights into participants’ experiences and emotions. These diaries are later collaboratively reviewed and reflected on with researchers, and they offer a platform for both researchers and research partners to gain fresh insights and deeper understandings of the material discussed. The participatory nature of digital diaries highlights the agency of research partners, who maintain control over what they share and its interpretation, as illustrated through examples from my own research with refugees in Vienna on their transnational care relations. Applied selectively with key research partners, the method provided valuable insights, with participants gaining a deeper understanding of their media practices and care relationships through self-reflection. The integration of online and offline practices within these diaries demonstrates the interconnectedness of digital and lived experiences, challenging the traditional dichotomy between the two. Overall, the digital diary method not only enhances ethnographic research but also serves to explore the evolving role of digital media and its integration into broader social and cultural contexts.
... Today's era of advanced technologies in communication and transportation has made transnational living arrangements possible (Birdal 2005;Wilding 2006). Yet, staying connected remains a major hurdle. ...
An increasing number of teachers encounter situations like this today. Gonzalez-Mena points out that “a program can’t educate or care for the child without taking the family into consideration” (2008, 192). Furthermore, according to a national parent survey, “parents who are single, separated, or divorced are more likely than others to identify input from professionals as a major influence on parenting” (Zero to Three 2010, 2). It is important for teachers to support families that do not live together, no matter what the reason. This article focuses on transnational families—those from another country, with some family members living in the United States while other family members remain in the homeland—and shares practical ideas for early childhood teachers.
... This is because individuals can interact, share information, and participate in discussions and debates on various topics (Marques & Maia, 2010;Rice, 2002). These virtual public spaces allow individuals from different backgrounds, geographical locations, and interests to connect and communicate without physical boundaries (Madathil et al., 2015;Wilding, 2006;Ridings & Gefen, 2004). ...
The documentary entitled "Dirty Vote" which was delivered directly by three constitutional law experts and aired during the quiet period of the 2024 presidential election has been watched 9.6 million times on the youtube channel of the Indonesian Center for Law and Policy Studies. This film attracted the attention of the Indonesian people at that time, because this film discussed the analysis of fraud by the country's political actors during the 2024 presidential campaign. However, the movie not only highlighted the problems that occurred during the election process, but also provided space to explore possible solutions to overcome these challenges. Therefore, this research aims to look at the reality, representation, and ideology as well as the signs used by the film director in packaging this movie. This research uses Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotic analysis that puts forward Reality, Representation, and Ideology in each scene analyzed. The results showed that researchers found three different scenes that were explained in detail with specific signs. Starting from the opening scene and the introduction of the main character, political campaigns and political scandals. All signs contained in this movie have their own meaning.
... Diaspora kavramıyla birlikte en fazla bağlantısı olan kavram kimliktir. Bugüne kadar yapılan diaspora çalışmalarında, diaspora bilinci veya kimliği, temel unsurlardan biri olarak öne çıkmaktadır (Safran, 1991, s. 68 (Everett, 2009;Gajjala, 2004;Hegde, 2016;Brinkerhoff, 2009;Wilding, 2006 (Brinkerhoff, 2009, s. 2). Diasporik dijital medya, küresel erişiminin yanı sıra, kendini ifade etme, kültürel eserleri sergileme ve göçmenlerle ilgili olumsuz klişelere karşı durma işlevi göre- ...
Dünyayı değiştiren araç ve nesneler üzerinden bir kategori-lendirme yapıldığında öne çıkan iletişim araçları ve bunların değişime etkisi,matbaanın icadından bu tarafa farklı boyutlarla tartışılmaktadır. Matbaanın zihinsel dünyada başlattığı deği-şimle birliktebirey ve toplumların düşünce ile eylemi birleştir-meleri, geçmişinsabitlenerek modernitenin izleklerine doğru yolculuğa çıkılmasını sağlamıştır. Böylece siyasal sistemler, dini olgular, kentler ve tüketim kalıpları başta olmak üzere insan ve topluma dair her şey yeniden inşa edilmiştir. Bu süreç aynı za-manda bireye ait her şeyin modernite adına zorunlu kalıplaş-masını öngörmüştür. Böylece modernitenin insan ve toplum hayatında meydana getirdiği değişimler,olumlu ve olumsuz özellikleriyle bireyin gündelik hayatıyla toplumun işleyişinde yer almıştır.
... Instead, migrants are increasingly mobile and transnational subjects who tend to maintain social and cultural connections with more than one place (Basch, Glick Schiller and Blanc, 1994;Appadurai, 1996;Hannerz, 1996;Ong & Nonini, 1997;Urry, 2007). In addition, the technologies of international travel and long-distance communication have become cheaper (if still unequal) and more easily accessible, allowing migrants to develop and maintain multiple ties and transnational social networks (Vertovec, 2004;Wilding, 2006). ...
... This literature devotes considerable attention to the daily lives of transnational family members, as well as drawing attention to 'kin work': in other words, to the conception, maintenance and ritual celebration of cross-border household ties (Di Leonardo 1987). This may encompass sharing productive and caring work (Wilding 2006), rituals and material culture (Zontini 2004), and emotional and moral support (Baldassar 2007;Gardner & Grillo 2002;Stock 2024 This means it is not so much about courts and formal legal procedures -although sometimes it is -but, rather, more about bureaucracies and paperwork. Law is not an external factor independently impacting transnational families, but instead part of the social space they inhabit and, as legal pluralism has long taught us, merely one of the norms that are important for them in their daily lives (Canfield, Dehm & Fassi 2021). ...
Life events such as marriage, divorce or the birth of children are not just intimate family matters but also legal matters. For transnational families, such life events are influenced by multiple overlapping nation-state orders, each with its own set of laws and institutions. This contribution builds on the concept of transnational legal space to study the social workings of law across borders from a bottom-up perspective of transnational family members’ lives. Linking two strands of literature – the literature on transnational legal space and that on transnational social space – it moves away from more top-down approaches centring on transnational processes of legal norm-making and, instead, uses a bottom-up approach focusing on family members who mobilize law in transnational social space and who thus create and apply new norms in response to the interaction – or, at times, collision – of different legal systems. The usefulness of this approach is illustrated by empirical evidence from two research projects on family law and dual citizenship. It contributes to research on transnational migration by demonstrating that, in transnational legal space, it is not the law that is transnational, given that the nation-state and national laws continue to remain highly relevant, and similarly that it is not just mobility and migration regimes but also a variety of different areas of law that impact the everyday lives of transnational families. How these families navigate transnational legal space differs, depending on the intersection of race, gender and class.
... There is growing recognition that Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) are becoming a key entity in maintaining kinship relationships, especially in the care-circulation process (Ahlin and Li 2019; Baldassar et al. 2016; van der Horst, Shadymanova, and Sato 2019; Madianou and Miller 2012;Nedelcu 2012;Wilding 2006) through co-creating intergenerational virtual spaces (Ahlin and Li 2019). Scholars working on migration and transnationalism have hailed ICTs as the "social glue of transnationalism" that "enabled death of distance" (Vertovec 2004, 219-220). ...
... Salah satu faktor utama yang mempengaruhi ketahanan keluarga PMI adalah masalah komunikasi. Meski teknologi digital telah memudahkan komunikasi antara anggota keluarga yang (Wilding, 2006). Di sisi lain, kemajuan teknologi seperti video call dan pesan instan telah membantu mengurangi rasa keterasingan yang mungkin dirasakan oleh keluarga, sehingga menjadi salah satu cara untuk memperkuat hubungan dan komunikasi emosional di tengah perpisahan. ...
Fenomena Pekerja Migran Indonesia (PMI) merupakan isu penting di banyak wilayah, termasuk Tulungagung. Perpisahan jangka panjang dengan anggota keluarga yang bekerja di luar negeri menimbulkan berbagai tantangan, seperti kesulitan komunikasi, peran pengasuhan yang berubah, serta tekanan ekonomi dan emosional. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengeksplorasi peran nilai-nilai religius dalam membangun ketahanan keluarga PMI di Tulungagung pada era digital, serta bagaimana teknologi digital mendukung komunikasi dan praktik keagamaan keluarga PMI. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah kualitatif dengan pendekatan fenomenologi, di mana delapan keluarga PMI yang memiliki anggota keluarga bekerja di luar negeri diwawancarai secara mendalam. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa nilai-nilai religius seperti kesabaran, tawakal, dan ibadah bersama menjadi fondasi utama dalam menjaga ketahanan keluarga. Selain itu, teknologi digital, seperti aplikasi pesan instan dan video call, memainkan peran penting dalam menjaga hubungan emosional dan spiritual antara anggota keluarga yang terpisah. Meskipun teknologi modern membawa beberapa tantangan, seperti keterasingan dan individualisme, integrasi nilai-nilai religius dengan teknologi telah membantu keluarga PMI menjaga stabilitas emosional dan spiritual. Studi ini menyimpulkan bahwa nilai-nilai religius tetap relevan dan mampu diadaptasi di era modern melalui penggunaan teknologi digital untuk menjaga ketahanan keluarga PMI.
... Mobile communication tools like video calls, messaging apps, and online platforms help bridge the emotional and physical gap between parents and left-behind children, transcending time and space to maintain family bonds. This sense of 'virtual co-presence' [32] fosters emotional support and solidarity [33] and eases the emotional toll of separation [34], enabling children to feel connected despite the distance [35]. Moreover, these digital platforms allow parents to actively engage in their children's education, expressing expectations and providing support. ...
Utilizing data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), this research focuses on the differences and mechanisms of intergenerational educational transmission between left-behind and non-left-behind children using structural equation modeling and multi-group path analysis. The findings indicate that significant intergenerational educational transmission effects exist in both groups, with parental educational attainment significantly impacting children’s academic performance. Further mediation analysis demonstrates that parental educational attainment influences children’s academic performance through the chain mediation effects of parental educational expectations and self-educational expectations. Multi-group path analysis reveals distinct mechanisms affecting academic performance: among non-left-behind children, parental educational attainment exerts a stronger direct influence on academic performance, while self-educational expectations are more influential for left-behind children. Additionally, the path coefficients for the effects of parental educational expectations and self-educational expectations on academic performance are higher for left-behind children than for non-left-behind children. Consequently, educational interventions should focus on enabling parents of left-behind children to effectively convey educational expectations through indirect methods (e.g., phone or online communication) and on enhancing left-behind children’s self-educational expectations through school and community support to facilitate academic achievement in the absence of direct family support.
... Table 2 lists in summary form each of the variables used to measure social networks in the analysis along with descriptive statistics. Where possible we use multiple variables per facet of social networks -size, composition, distance, frequency of contact, exchange of support, (Dekker and Engbersen, 2014;Dekker et al., 2016;Wilding, 2006), in-person contacts cannot be substituted by virtual connectedness (Hawkley et al., 2021). Respondents report daily contact with 55 per cent of their social network and weekly contact with 88 per cent. ...
While the economic benefits of internal migration are widely documented, the social costs of internal migration have received comparatively less attention. In addition, most studies focus on the impact of the last-recorded migration, ignoring the cumulative impact of successive migrations. Grounded in the life-course trajectory approach to migration and the convoy model of social networks, this paper addresses this gap by applying sequence and cluster analysis to retrospective data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) in 26 European countries to establish internal migration trajectories based on the timing, frequency, and direction of migration between NUTS-2 regions. The results reveal that differences in social networks between lifetime stayers, childhood migrants and one-time adult migrants are minimal. A more complex picture emerges for repeat migrants who account for half of the migrants and are split between return migrants, serial onward migrants, and circular migrants. Regression results show that repeat migrants-whether onward, return, or circular-display social networks less focused on family and more geographically dispersed, which results in a lower frequency of contact than lifetime stayers. However, repeat migrants report the same level of overall satisfaction with their social networks as lifetime stayers, which suggests that they start with different expectations than stayers or simply adjust their expectations in response to the social costs and benefits of migration.
... These works illustrate how ICTs of the timeincluding telephones, video cameras, mobile phones, text messaging, email, teleconferencing, and video calling tools such as Skype or MSN Messengerallow migrants to bridge the geographical gap between themselves and their distant families and cultures. This technological bridge creates a "feeling of being at home" (Bacigalupe & Lambe, 2011;Benítez, 2012;Castro & Gonzalez, 2008;Castro & Gonzalez, 2009;Gifford & Wilding, 2013;Íñiguez-Rueda et al., 2012;Nedelcu, 2012;Panagakos & Horst, 2006;Wilding, 2006). ...
Amidst a surge in migration from conflict zones across the Middle East and Africa, leading to the arrival of more than a million displaced individuals in Europe, a nascent research field, primarily explored by European scholars, examines how information and communication technologies (ICTs) reshape refugees’ experiences during and after migration. This emerging inquiry explores how ICTs can empower displaced migrants, enhancing their resilience and enabling survival, family connection, adaptation, inclusion, and rights advocacy. Concurrently, recent studies in the area of border and surveillance underscore technology’s pivotal role in shaping security-oriented agendas within migration and mobility regimes across the US, EU, and other nations. This study systematically and critically reviews digital migration literature from 2006 to 2021 with metadata obtained and synthesized from Scopus and Dimensions databases, investigating the interplay between forced migrants’ use of digital technologies to navigate restrictive migration systems and their interaction with surveillance technologies. It seeks to identify the ambivalent positions in digital migration studies and assess migrants’ potential empowerment through ICTs.
Orta Doğu ve Afrika'daki çatışma bölgelerinden gelen göç akışı, neredeyse bir milyondan fazla yerinden edilmiş insanın Avrupa'ya varmasıyla sonuçlanınca, özellikle 2015'ten itibaren Avrupalı akademisyenlerin ön ayak olduğu yeni bir araştırma alanı ortaya çıktı. Bilgi ve iletişim teknolojilerinin (BİT) mültecilerin göç süreçlerindeki ve sonrasındaki deneyimlerini nasıl dönüştürdüğünü inceleyen bu araştırma gündemi, bir yandan yerinden edilmiş göçmenlerin BİT'leri hayatta kalma mekanizmalarını güçlendirecek şekilde nasıl kullandıklarını incelemekte; öte yandan bu araçların aile bağları, uyum ve hak arama gibi alanlarda onlara nasıl destek sağladığını ele almaktadır. Aynı zamanda, sınır ve gözetim çalışmalarındaki son gelişmeler, göç rejimlerindeki güvenlik odaklı hedeflerin şekillenmesinde teknolojinin kritik rolünü vurgulamaktadır. Bu çalışma, Scopus ve Dimensions veritabanlarından elde edilen ve sentezlenen meta verilerle 2006-2021 arasındaki dijital göç literatürünü sistematik ve eleştirel bir şekilde gözden geçirerek, zorunlu göçmenlerin kısıtlayıcı göç sistemleriyle başa çıkmak için dijital teknolojileri nasıl kullandıklarını ve gözetim teknolojileri ile girdikleri etkileşimleri incelemektedir. Böylece, dijital göç çalışmalarına hâkim bu ikircikli pozisyonların teşhis edilmesini ve BİT'lerin göçmenleri güçlendirme olasılığı konusunda bir çıkarıma varmayı amaçlamaktadır.
... However, this paper also underscores a critical take on mediated belonging. It achieves this by inquiring how everyday practices of belongingness in mediated environments are shaped by differentiation and racialisation (Colic-Peisker and Farquharson 2011) as well as digital constraints (Wilding 2006;Baldassar et al. 2020). In Australia, the politics of belongingness has been unravelled by paying attention to the exclusionary and marginalising consequences of multiculturalism (Ang 2005;Harris 2010;Colic-Peisker and Farquharson 2011). ...
... Distance was a substantial barrier to communication at one time, and now mobile devices serve to break down that barrier. (Wilding, 2006). P002 echoed the same thought: sending the child to another country was more manageable as she was accessible on mobile, and they could see her during the video calls. ...
The extensive adoption of mobile devices in India has revolutionized family communication patterns, presenting new dynamics and challenges. This study investigates the role of mobile communication in various aspects of family relationships, including parent-child interactions, marital relationships, and intergenerational dynamics. The aim is to see the evolving landscape of family relations in the digital era on family communication patterns, psychological well-being, and social connectedness. Mobile devices facilitate frequent and convenient communication, allowing family members to stay connected despite physical distances. It has also been observed to increase monitoring and supervision by parents, which may positively influence parent-child relationships. However, excessive mobile usage and dependency may lead to neglect of face-to-face interactions, resulting in reduced family interactions and communication. It is essential to explore the potential consequences of excessive mobile usage and identify strategies to promote healthy mobile communication practices within Indian families. The researcher conducted ten semi-structured interviews in a suburban housing society in Mumbai suburbs with similar socioeconomic strata. The aim was to know more about how mobile phones affect family communications. Qualitative grounded theory analysis was used to find themes and interpret results. (Creswell, 2013) The study explores the role of mobile communication in family relationships, emphasizing the need for effective management of mobile device usage within households. Setting time limits, boosting digital literacy, and encouraging family activities offline are among tactics that could help lessen the detrimental effects of mobile communication on family dynamics. Furthermore, understanding the cultural context of Indian families is crucial, as it can influence the adoption and interpretation of mobile technology within familial relationships. The research concludes that the role of mobile communication and usage in Indian family relations is a complex and multifaceted process. While mobile devices offer convenience and connectivity, their impact on family dynamics must be considered. This research abstract highlights the need for further investigation into the effects of mobile communication on different aspects of family relationships in the Indian context.
... Instead, migrants are increasingly mobile and transnational subjects who tend to maintain social and cultural connections with more than one place (Basch, Glick Schiller and Blanc, 1994;Appadurai, 1996;Hannerz, 1996;Ong & Nonini, 1997;Urry, 2007). In addition, the technologies of international travel and long-distance communication have become cheaper (if still unequal) and more easily accessible, allowing migrants to develop and maintain multiple ties and transnational social networks (Vertovec, 2004;Wilding, 2006). ...
Stuart Hall (1999) raised the important question of ‘whose heritage’ when discussing cultural tradition in Britain. He criticised the mainstream conception of culture that prioritises the preservation of a national past that is authorised as valuable, and called for the construction of a multicultural identity by bringing the heritage of migrant communities from the margin to the centre of British society. Building upon Hall’s thesis, and through a case study of the Chinese New Year Celebration in London, this chapter proposes ‘glocal heritage discourses’ as a new framework to re-conceputalise heritage-making of migrants in the UK and beyond. The research shows that it is no longer adequate to examine the heritage practice of migrants within the framework of nation-states in the 21st century. Instead, diasporic heritage-making is better conceptualised as ‘double heritagisation’, a highly dynamic and complex process involving negotiation with official heritage discourse in the host and home countries simultaneously. In addition, instead of being marginalised subjects, as described in earlier literature, migrants play an agentive role in creating new cultural traditions, at the intersection of the local and global, that empower migrants and contribute to the building of a more inclusive society.
... The second conceptual characteristic is that global families enact family life through familial ties, sharing common goals ('family aspirations'; Herrero-Arias, Hollekim and Haukanes, 2020) and having long-term commitments to one another (Cho and Allen, 2019). Activities that define global family life include connecting with and taking care of each other through financial resources (Stark and Lucas, 1988;Wilding and Baldassar, 2009), modalities of care (Gammage, 2021;Yeoh et al., 2020), and maintaining communication ties (Parreñas, 2001;Poeze, 2019;Wilding, 2006). These families experience various contexts in which their mobility unfolds; they may engage, for example, in high-status expatriation or skilled migration where all family members relocate together (Al Ariss and Syed 2011;Haslberger and Brewster, 2008;Legrand, Al Ariss and Bozionelos 2019), or in low-status expatriation/unskilled worker migration (people that are commonly referred to as 'migrant workers'; Alberti, Holgate and Tapia 2013;Kitching, 2018;Ozçelik et al., 2019) whose families remain behind in the home country. ...
... Dekker and Engbersen (2014) also found that some of their interviewees have maintained closer relationships with those from whom they are geographically separated rather than with the acquaintances near the place where they live. These results seem to integrate with other studies that have highlighted how the introduction of long-distance communication technologies facilitates a virtual co-presence that increases the degree of access and probability of migration (Bacigalupe & Cámara, 2012;Madianou, 2012;Parreñas, 2005;Vertovec, 2004;Wilding, 2006). Furthermore, the Internet can be complementary to information from official sources and an integral part of the migration process, especially for irregular migrants who cannot go to regular immigration offices to ask for information or help in finding labour or housing, due to their status. ...
This report provides an overview of existing theoretical and empirical findings regarding the drivers of international migration and how they operate differently across contexts, interacting with each other. The study of the migration drivers is intended as one of the elements of the formulation of FUME’s future international migration narratives and the basis for the evidence-based population projections. The aim of the report is to support the formulation of better-informed migration scenarios through the integration of knowledge regarding the factors at micro, meso and macro levels that shape international migration processes.
... 15,19,20 These interactions frequently occur in person or in virtual space, as information technology has made it easier for immigrant communities to maintain close ties with sending countries. 15,[21][22][23][24] Figure 1 illustrates individuals operating between two contexts, representing how they may operate in two ecological systems and how behaviors and practices are influenced by social networks that span borders. 20,25 Furthermore, they are actively engaged in communities that are influenced by broader societal norms in both sending and receiving countries. ...
Background:
Elements of charrette planning were employed to develop and examine the relationship between transnationalism, culture and health.
Objective:
This paper describes the partnership, the first two stages of the planning charrette and lessons learned.
Methods:
During charrette planning phase 1 we collected data through social network interviews (n = 58), cultural conversations (n = 88), and photovoice (n = 9). In the second phase we performed five charrette planning meetings. Data were synthesized by the planning team.
Lessons learned:
The issue centered focus facilitated trust among partners. The holistic, iterative process to planning and interpreting preliminary data provided a deeper understanding of the issues under investigation. Community partners at the table held us accountable to the communities we were studying and infused an undercurrent of social justice in our work.
Conclusions:
There are advantages in employing a community engaged transdisciplinary team-based approach to the study of transnationalism, culture and health.
Home surveillance cameras provide new ways for Chinese migrant mothers to provide such care. Existing research on migrant women’s motherhood focuses mainly on two-way communication technologies represented by mobile text messages and phone calls, without discussing individual surveillance technologies and their compatibility and contradictions with long-distance motherhood. This study will define visibility based on home cameras as mediated one-dimensional visibility and ask what role home cameras, as a surveillance technology, have played in the remote performance of mothering by female migrant workers in China and what kind of mothering practices they have given rise to. The findings show that the one-dimensional visibility provided by home cameras alleviates the anxieties of migrant mothers regarding the lack of intimacy and supervised education due to the features of being able to watch at any time without having to answer and secretive gazing. With this one-dimensional visibility, migrant mothers can watch their children from a distance and provide behavioral interventions and control. However, these interventions can both promote and diminish intimacy. When the two are in conflict, migrant mothers prioritize maintaining intimate relationships, which can have an impact on their children’s growth. This enriches our understanding of mediated motherhood.
This interdisciplinary volume on Family Studies, focusing on the Indian context, makes a case for why ‘family’ as an ideological construct and ‘families’ as multitudes of lived relationships should continue to be subjects of critical social scientific attention. The chapters in the volume collectively demonstrate that in political, social, and economic contexts such as found in India, family as well as families are neither simply a remnant of tradition nor a domain representing insulated ‘private’ lives. Rather, they consist of malleable yet overpowering structures, relationships, and practices. Thus, while the ‘family’ is a crucial site of ideological and imaginative investments which play a vital role in reproducing and defining contemporary selves and societies, ‘families’ are responsive to and constrained by the complex political and economic dynamics in which they are embedded and enmeshed. Family relationships thus continue to occupy a central place in the imperative of survival and security, even as policy and legislative imperatives as well as reproductive and communication technologies play a crucial role in reshaping them. While reiterating the importance of building upon the impetus provided by gender and sexuality studies for a continued interest in family/families, the volume argues that Family Studies should embrace but not be subsumed by the questions that have been signposted by such scholarship. Critically interrogating the extant approaches to and concepts in the study of family, therefore the volume brings together a set of previously unpublished essays, authored by scholars from a range of backgrounds and varied orientations to focus on issues that are central to making sense of family/families and the multiple contexts in which they are implicated in Indian society.
Transnational family research documented well the challenges that migrated adult children experience when they want to provide care to their stayed‐behind families. Yet similar results are provided by research on long‐distance carers who are not international migrants. So far, it remains unclear how challenges of providing support to family members relate to the geographical distance between them, or rather to the cross‐border character of migration, it is when the (expected) caregivers and care‐receivers live in two different nation‐states. This article thus investigates the role of geographical distance and cross‐border separation on perceived intergenerational care burden of residents in Germany who feel in responsibility or provide care to their parents. We use data from a survey with 2900 migrant and nonmigrant residents in Germany. Findings reveal that geographical distance and cross‐border separation constitute two independent, accumulating stressors for burden experienced by individuals caring for their parents. Furthermore, we can show that the link between cross‐border separation and intergenerational care burden is due to increased time and financial costs but particularly due to legal restrictions to mobility such as non‐German citizenship or visa restrictions. The study represents one of the initial attempts to elucidate the mechanisms underlying distance and cross‐border separation in transnational intergenerational care, demonstrating that general theoretical frameworks for understanding burden in intergenerational care relationships can be applied to cross‐border family constellations.
Kann Anwesenheit im Zeitalter des „always on“ noch als fraglos dem Körper zugerechneter Zustand angemessen begriffen werden? Anhand der unterschiedlichen Präsenzerfahrungen, die das Aufwachsen in monolokalen bzw. transnationalen Familien prägen, geht dieser Aufsatz der Frage nach, wie sich im Zuge der Mediatisierung des Familienalltags der ontologische Status von Anwesenheit verändert und welche begrifflichen Revisionserfordernisse daraus sowohl für die Mikrosoziologie, als auch die Medienpädagogik folgen.
This chapter explores the transnational informal and intergenerational family care arrangements among older British international retirement migrants (IRMs) in Spain. It aims to understand the ways in which these older migrants obtain care and support from their families. It draws on interviews with 34 older British migrants living in the Spanish Costa del Sol to highlight three different transnational family care arrangements that involve (1) ‘remaining’ in the country of migration and accessing virtual or proximate care from family using communication technology or short visits; (2) ‘joining’ a child or parent in Spain to receive or provide care; and (3) ‘returning’ to the home country to access care from family. The chapter explores the complex intergenerational and transnational care arrangements for older migrants and the ways in which social, economic and political resources have (re)shaped these arrangements. It highlights the complexity that migration can bring to both care giving and receiving and the importance of proximity in old age care. It also addresses the difficulties of both providing and receiving care across borders.
Sending and receiving remittances is central to the negotiation of transnational family life, and to nourishing a sense of copresence among physically distant parties. Although the lived experience of this transaction has a very intimate and personal basis, it is also subject to increasing visual and public representation, as a part of the working of dedicated migration industries. Based on an in‐depth exploration of the advertising materials on the YouTube channel of Western Union (WU), we analyse how money circulation is made visible, emplaced in migrant life circumstances and co‐produced through visual narratives that illuminate the micro‐foundations of copresence and its structural limitations. While following the rationale of a commercial product, and despite their idealized contents, WU's stories are revealing about the relational affordances for virtual copresence, its shortcomings and the social embeddedness of remittances in family life.
Increasing global migration and (im)mobilities are affecting the provision of aged care in transnational families. Such families rely on digital communication technologies like WhatsApp to manage and maintain aged care obligations across borders. This study investigates the role of WhatsApp family groups in enabling transnational families to manage transnational aged care from a distance. I draw on interviews with three transnational family constellations with members in the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe. The study finds that WhatsApp family groups create a virtual home where Zimbabwean transnational families can plan, organise and deliver care to their ageing parents. However, managing transnational aged care through WhatsApp family groups can also pose problems, especially for migrants pressured to remit. Furthermore, gendered assumptions of care and asymmetrical power relationships entrenched in families are reinforced. The study contributes to the literature on transnational care and new technologies, providing a Zimbabwean perspective on co‐presence and mediated aged care practices.
This paper explores how the accessibility to and appropriation of information and communication technologies (ICT) has enabled a group of Ecuadorian transnational families to virtualize their expressions of affection. A thematic analysis was applied to examine 41 interviews with a) Ecuadorian migrants who live in Spain, b) relatives of migrants who remain in Ecuador, and c) migrants who have returned to Ecuador while some of their family members remain in Spain. The findings suggest that ICT allows them to adopt strategies to function as connected transnational families because the connectivity that accompanies migrants in the destination country (Spain) shifts to families in the country of origin (Ecuador), thus establishing more symmetric communicational exchanges. Furthermore, migrants who have returned to Ecuador use ICT to sustain the relational continuity of affection with the members of their families in both places.
We propose ‘ageing in networks’ as an optic that shows how the social networks of older adults extend beyond their residential neighbourhoods to extra-local and transnational settings. The paper brings together literature on ageing and social networks in mobilities and migration research to identify shared thematic framings between non-migrant and migrant older adults. Our approach broadens the analytical frame to encapsulate how ageing individually and in communities takes place through local and international mobility and via digital technologies. Ageing in networks also illuminates the importance of connecting their social protection needs with those of the people in their care assemblages.
This study examines the familial ties in the social support network of refugees in Germany. It investigates whether distance to family plays a role in the provision of emotional and informational support and how this relationship is moderated by social network services (SNS). Using data from the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees (N = 5237), the paper provides evidence for a family-centred network. Increasing distance to family is generally negatively associated with receiving support. However, the strength of support from the partner and sibling is less affected by distance than support from parents. Findings indicate that emotional support can generally be conveyed across greater distances, while informational support, often entailing location-bound aid, is not as easily transmittable. This study contributes to the understanding of refugee networks as transnational families with intergenerational differences in support. It also refines the depiction of support dynamics as being multifaceted and potentially limited due to fragmented contacts.
The increasing significance of technology-mediated social interactions gives rise to optimistic expectations that digitalisation leads to various overwhelmingly positive outcomes in all walks of life. Our study relies on the European Social Survey 10th wave data (2020–22) to investigate the role of digital status in the relationship between adult children and parents in 30 countries. We found media multiplexity in adult child–parent relationships to be coupled in interesting and partly counterintuitive ways with our novel measure of digital status that captures digital skills and the outcomes of ICT use. The country-specific binary logistic regression models revealed that digital skills and the emotional benefits of ICT use have a central role in using new and old technologies, whereas a positive practical outcome of ICT use decreased the frequency of adult child–parent contact. By shaping the opportunities of doing family digitally, the skills and outcomes aspects of digital status have independent roles in a key segment of intergenerational relationships of adult family members.
Drawing on the highly mediatized arrival of migrants and refugees at the borders of Greece, this article focuses on digital technologies and smartphone use among Syrian refugees in Athens, Greece, and analyses the way family relations are experienced at a distance. It is based on ethnographic research carried out in the refugee camp of Eleonas, from July 2019 to March 2020, when the first wave of COVID-19 was confirmed in Greece. The main objective of the article is to discuss the way digital technologies help the refugees to redefine relationships among family members and experience a sense of ‘togetherness’ at a distance. In addition, it aims to describe the changes of the familial ties and the practices of an ‘imaginary family’ through smartphones and network platforms. Overcoming uncertainty, fear and ‘information precarity’ caused by the dataveillance and control of al-Assad’s governmental authorities, Syrian refugees find ways to use smartphone as ‘an essential tool’ to facilitate communication among family members and relatives in homeland or in diaspora in Europe, to share experiences, comments and pictures.
Le autrici presentano una ricerca condotta in Calabria sull'esperienza della paternità nella migrazione forzata. La questione della paternità è stata trala-sciata negli studi sulle famiglie transnazionali e comincia ad essere presente nelle analisi sulla genitorialità nelle migrazioni forzate a partire dalla crisi mi-gratoria del 2015. L'attenzione viene rivolta soprattutto alle barriere ai pro-cessi di inclusione sociale ed economica dei padri e su come queste impattino sull'esercizio della paternità. L'articolo propone di mutare la prospettiva di analisi dal contesto di arrivo, ai processi di soggettivazione dei padri mettendo in evidenza come la migrazione determini una peculiare presa di coscienza e messa in discussione della paternità, che ingenera forme ibride ed "emergenti" di genitorialità.
In the past two decades, Australia has shifted from being a settler nation that promoted state-supported permanent migration to one where the scale and relative importance of temporary migration schemes have grown significantly. In 2017 Australia was the second largest issuing country of temporary visa permits after the United States (OECD 2019), with temporary migrants applying, on average, for 3.3 temporary visas and spending 6.4 years in this multi-step visa journey to achieve permanent residency (PR) (Australian Government Productivity Commission 2016). As part of a broader research project on the social implications of temporary migration programs, we examine how Argentine temporary migrants exchange care to navigate temporary visa restrictions and the permanent temporariness in which they live. Our central argument is that transnational and local expressions, practices, and processes of care are co-constituted in particularistic temporary migrant care configurations that facilitate prolonged migration projects and continuity of care over time, despite the precarity that permanent temporariness brings. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork among Argentine temporary migrants, we illustrate the dynamics in which economic, accommodation, personal, practical, emotional and moral care is exchanged (Finch 1993). The findings reveal the central role that transnational economic and practical as well as local, including local virtual, proximity care has in the everyday lives of Argentine temporary migrants. Ironically, their fragile temporariness may be an incentive to develop local support networks or maintain strong transnational ties to survive living in limbo.
Following the economic crisis of 2008–2014, the number of Spaniards in Iceland has quintupled. This study explores how young, highly qualified Spanish migrants in Iceland adopt social media to become embedded in Iceland and to maintain relationships in Spain, and how it affects their sense of belonging. For this aim, semi-structured interviews were held in 2017–2018 with 29 Spaniards residing in Iceland, and their personal networks were analyzed. We found that migrants who felt they belonged to both Spain and Iceland had more social relationships in Iceland and used more social media platforms to sustain their local and transnational networks compared with migrants who felt they belonged nowhere or only in Spain. Not only did they extend their repertoires with new social media, they also adapted how they used platforms to the media environment in Iceland. In this way, social media facilitated a sense of local and transnational belonging.
The socio-economic and political uncertainties of Kenya in the 1990s jeopardised what many saw as the promises of modernity. An increasing number of Kenyans migrated, many to Britain, a country that felt familiar from Kenyan history. Based on extensive fieldwork in Kenya and the United Kingdom, Leslie Fesenmyer's work provides a rich, historically nuanced study of the kinship dilemmas that underlie transnational migration and explores the dynamic relationship between those who migrate and those who stay behind. Challenging a focus on changing modes of economic production, 'push-pull' factors, and globalisation as drivers of familial change, she analyses everyday trans-national family life. Relative Distance shows how quotidian interactions, exchanges, and practices transform kinship on a local and global scale. Through the prism of intergenerational care, Fesenmyer reveals that the question of who is responsible for whom is not only a familial matter but is at the heart of relations between individuals, societies, and states.
The study of the Internet challenges the anthropologist on many fronts. It demands a robust theoretical engagement with the technologies and semiotics of digital information and their relation to material and social realities. It calls for a redefinition of many core methodological touchstones such as "fieldwork" and "participant observation." Finally, the study of the Internet requires the analyst to engage self-reflexively in the study of and accountability to politics "close to home" and entailing relations of "studying up." While anthropological notions of "the field" and "culture" are being destabilized at the core of the discipline, ethnographic approaches to new domains of media, science, and technology exhibit a resilient anthropological attention to embodied contexts of practice and everyday experience. This brief statement addresses the study of the Internet from the point of view of an anthropologist engaged with the field.
For a growing cohort of Americans Internet tools have become a significant conduit of their social life and work life. The surveys of the Pew Internet & American Life Project in year 2000 show that more than 52 million Americans went online each day and there are significant differences in use between men and women, young and old, those of different races and ethnic groups, and those of different socio-economic status. A user typology can be built around two variables: the length of time a person has used the Internet and the frequency with which she or he logs on from home. We contend that use of e-mail helps people build their social networks by extending and maintaining friend and family relationships.
The aim of this research is to understand how the transformation of the communication technoscape allows for the development of particular patterns in the construction of social bonds. It provides evidence for the development of a 'connected' management of relationships, in which the (physically) absent party gains presence through the multiplication of mediated communication gestures on both sides, up to the point where copresent interactions and mediated distant exchanges seem woven into a single, seamless web. After reviewing some of the current social-science research, I rely on empirical studies of the uses of the home telephone, the mobile phone, and mobile text messaging in France to discuss how this particular repertoire of 'connected' relationships has gradually crystallized as these technologies have become widespread and as each additional communication resource has been made available to users. I also describe how such a 'connected' mode coexists with a previous way of managing 'mediated' relationships, in which communication technologies were thought to substitute or compensate for the rarity of face-to-face interactions.
This article investigates the impact of use of the Worldwide Web
on patterns of sociability. Its sets out a neofunctionalist model of
socio-technological innovation that is designed to explore prospectively
the impact of innovations in areas such as information and communications
technology, on the full range of sociable and nonsociable activities. It
uses evidence from a unique data set (a nationally representative time
diary panel study, collected in the U.K. for the period 1999-2001)
to explore this model. It concludes that Internet use, contrary to
"time-displacement" expectations, is not negatively associated with
sociability.
For a growing cohort of Americans Internet tools have become a significant conduitof their social life and work life. The surveys of the Pew Internet and American LifeProject track the diffusion of Internet technologies, revealing significant differences inuse between men and women, young and old, those of different races and ethnicgroups, and those of different socio-economic status. A user typology can be builtaround two variables: the length of time a person has used the Internet and the frequencywith which she or he logs on from home. We contend that use of email helpspeople build their social networks by extending and maintaining friend and familyrelationships
Communication mediated by various technologies (from ordinary mail to today's Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)) provides important evidence for the study of social networks. Given that networks generate the possibility of interpersonal communication, data on technology use can provide important information on sociability. However, it is also true that personal networks not only shape, but also are shaped by technological means for communication, since these entail the re-constituting of social ties and the re-drawing of social boundaries. We use material from empirical studies carried out over the last 3 years to develop our hypothesis of the way forms of relationship change with technology. In particular, we try to understand the relationship between social networks (a set of social ties possessing one or more relational dimensions), exchanges between actors (made up of a succession of embodied gestures and language acts) and the various technical means for communication available today, which enable an exchange to be completed. Each of these three poles poses constraints on interaction, and provides resources for it, and thus all three shape the form relational practices take. Empirical data show how technological means of communication allow people to re-negotiate the constraints of individual time rhythms, and of who one communicates with. They also illustrate how the relational economy (and power) is affected by the deployment of communication technologies. Tools of communication provide new resources to negotiate individual timetables and social exchanges, making it possible to adjust roles, hierarchies and forms of power in relational economies. We argue that the general change observed over the last 20 years is from established roles to mutual reachability. The traditional communication model, where tele-communication is used to connect people who are physically separated from each other, is gradually being supplanted with a new pattern of “connected presence”. In this new mode other people are telephoned, “SMSed”, seen and mailed in alternated way and small gestures or signs of attention are at least as important as the message content itself.
A key problem for critical media practice is how to assess accurately the technological impact, historical significance and cultural consequences of a particular change in a communications system. Contemporary theorising about the impact of electronic, digitally networked culture is often articulated within an eschatological narrative of apocalypse and last things. The old is cast as naive and redundant while the new appears triumphant, conquering and redemptive. Washing away the sins of the old, the new technology arrives, it seems, out of nowhere. In response to such socio-technological representations, this paper argues that the dialectic between old and new communication systems is more complex than has been assumed by contemporary media theory. Rather than a narrative of radical changes, decisive shifts and abrupt breaks, the relation between epistolary and email technology reveals certain continuities. Specifically, tropes of presence and intimacy are traced through three media sites: a "virtual community" of British nineteenth-century letter writers, the postcard correspondence of an Australian First World War soldier and a twenty first century email discussion list. Mapping these sites reveals a central paradox of technological and discursive cultural practice, namely, that material signifiers can be used to produce incorporeal presence.
This article examines the impact of the Internet on the everyday lives of U.K. citizens through the integration of quantitative longitudinal time-use data and qualitative interviews. It shows that there is little significant change in people's time use that can be associated with their acquisition of an Internet connection and demonstrates the oversimplicity of the impact model for understanding the role of the Internet in everyday life. Instead, it suggests that lifestyle and/or lifestage transitions may trigger adoption of the Internet and, simultaneously, changes in domestic time use. It also demonstrates that Internet usage is too coarse a unit for sensible analysis. Rather, researchers need to consider the patterns of usage of the various applications or services that the Internet delivers.
This is an ethnographic account of the transnational caregiving experiences and practices of Australian migrants and refugees, caring for their elderly parents in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and New Zealand. It describes how people respond to unprecedented mobility (both voluntary and forced), globalized job markets and an ageing population. © loretta Baldassar, Cora Vellekoop Baldock and Raelene Wilding 2007. All rights reserved.
Employing data from a recent national the survey of people 65 and over residing in Republic of Ireland, questioning the assumption that living alone constitutes a problem, this paper uses multiple regression analysis to explore variation in recency of contact with (1) children, (2) siblings and (3) access to aid during illness. While theoretically coherent variables explain a substantial amount of variation in recency of contact with children and to a lesser degree with siblings, only a modest amount of the variation in aid during illness is explained.
As a nation, we are supersaturated with technology and our families are truly wired. This article reviews what we know about the extent to which the newest communication technologies have become part of the family landscape and how these technologies may be altering aspects of family life. It examines who studies the effects of technology on the family; what we know and what is missing; why there may be a paucity of research on technology effects, especially empirical research; and why it is urgent we increase our focus on technologies and families. The article is divided into four sections that discuss (a) tracking the data and reports, (b) family effects of new media technologies, (c) children and media technologies, and (d) what the future holds.
Where Glick-Schiller and others have preferred to use the terms transmigrant or transnational (1992; 1995) rather than immigrant, in order to suggest that identities are multiply constituted and lived across borders, these identities may, in fact, be further complicated by the creation of an additional dimension which others have not considered—a virtual reality within which aspects of community and culture are simultaneously being defined. In the deterritorialized space of hyperspace, where time and space are compressed (cf. Harvey, 1989), and constructions are detached from any local reference (Kearney, 1995: 553), members of a small Ethiopian population, known as the Harari, are invoking a new language of nationhood in order to give shape to a now dispersed community. This is an example of how new media can provide a forum for the creation of national identity outside national borders, and how those with access to this technology are the ones most active in that discussion. This exploration of the use of new media offers insight into the ways in which transnational, and more broadly, transtemporal and transspatial processes are involved in redefining community relations and identities amongst dispersed peoples in a postmodern world. /// Glick-Schiller et d'autres ont préféré parler d'identités transmigrantes ou transnationales (1992, 1995) pour évoquer la condition immigrante dans le but d'indiquer que ces identités sont constituées de divers apports et se vivent à travers les frontières. Ces identité peuvent en fait être compliquées davantage par l'addition d'une dimension qui a été négligée — une réalité virtuelle à l'intérieur de laquelle certains aspects de la communauté et de la culture sont définis simultanément. Dans l'espace déterritorialisé de l'hyperespace, où le temps et l'espace sont comprimés (Harvey, 1989), et où les constructions sont détachées de toute référence locale (Kearney, 1995: 553), des membres d'une petite population éthiopienne, connus sous le nom de Harari, font appel à un nouveau langage de nationalité pour donner une forme à une communauté maintenant dispersée. C'est un exemple de la façon dont les nouveaux média peuvent offrir un forum pour la création d'une identité nationale hors-frontières et du fait que ceux qui ont accès à cette technologie sont ceux qui participent le plus à cette discussion. Cette exploration de l'utilisation des nouveaux média permet de voir comment les processus transnationaux, et plus généralement les processus qui transcendent l'espace et le temps, sont impliqués dans la redéfinition des relations communautaires et des identités parmi les groupes dispersés dans le monde postmoderne.
Support between kin - who gives what to whom? do families support each other more or less than in the past? contexts of kin support - economy and demography - law and social policy the proper thing to do working it out duty, responsibility, obligation - distinctive features of family life?
Part One Theoretical Developments in the Gender-Technology Relationship: Feminist Sociology and Methodology: Leaky Black Boxes in Gender/Technology Relations On Some Failures of Nerve in Constructivist and Feminist Analyses of Technology. Part Two Case Studies of the Gender- Technology Relation: Gender is Calling: Some Reflections of Past, Present and Future Uses of the Telephone The Configuration of Domestic Practices in the Designing of Household Appliances New Reproductive Technologies and "the Modern Condition" in South East England Networking Constructions of Gender and Constructing Gender Networks: Considering Definitions of Woman in the British Cervical Screening Programme Competition and Collaboration in the Male Shaping of Computing Negotiating A Software Career: Informal Work Practices And "The Lads" In a Software Installation.
During the past 30 years, new communication technology devices have become common in American homes—among them are personal computers and the Internet. Social critics and other polemicists have argued whether these devices result in either positive or negative change in the lives of families. The authors examine the literature about family use of computers and the Internet and also look at how these technologies affect families' social networks, work, and interventions with families. Finally, the authors suggest directions for future research on communication technology within the context of families.
This article examines the impact of the Internet on the everyday lives of U.K. citizens through the integration of quantitative longitudinal time-use data and qualitative interviews. It shows that there is little significant change in people's time use that can be associated with their acquisition of an Internet connection and demonstrates the oversimplicity of the impact model for understanding the role of the Internet in everyday life . Instead, it suggests that life style and/or lifestage transitions may trigger adoption of the Internet and, simultaneously, changes in domestic time use. It also demonstrates that Internet usage is too coarse a unit for sensible analysis. Rather, researchers need to consider the patterns of usage of the various applications or services that the Internet delivers.
� Abstract Information and communication,technologies,based,on the Internet have,enabled,the emergence,of new,sorts of communities,and,communicative practices—phenomena worthy,of the attention of anthropological,researchers. De- spite early assessments,of the revolutionary nature of the Internet and the enormous transformations it would bring about, the changes have been less dramatic and more embedded,in existing practices and power,relations of everyday,life. This review ex- plores researchers’ questions, approaches, and insights within anthropology and some relevant related fields, and it seeks to identify promising new directions for study. The general conclusion is that the technologies comprising the Internet, and all the text and media that exist within it, are in themselves cultural products. Anthropology is thus well suited to the further investigation of these new, and not so new, phenomena.
This paper examines social and spatial inequalities in personal usage of information technologies, drawing on data made available recently as part of Australia's national census, undertaken by the Bureau of Statistics in 2001. Data on both computer and Internet use are analysed in a number of ways: patterns of use and non-use of the technology are examined across New South Wales in relation to a number of variables, including age, place of birth, indigeneity, income and educational status. Selected results are mapped for State-wide trends and within Sydney, revealing spatial inequalities both across and among regions. Correlation and regression analysis are used to demonstrate the strength of association between computer and Internet use and other socio-economic variables. The results suggest that there is a strong class as well as spatial dimension to Australia's digital divides. Educational status and income mediate use of computers and Internet technologies, in addition to factors associated with location, indigeneity and birthplace. Such observations reinforce those made elsewhere regarding the uneven geometries of power apparent in information economies, and suggest interventions in public policy debates, particularly in the areas of telecommunications provision, resourcing of public schools, and regional economic development.
This article addresses the ways in which new media and technology contest how Greek ethnic communities in Canada are organized and structured. New technologies allow Greeks to go beyond their physical community and interface, via computer, television, or periodicals with Greeks on a global scale. I argue that current uses in media and technology signal the creation of new dimensions to Greek diasporic identity and imply stronger ties with the homeland and other diasporic communities, thus contesting traditional assimilation paradigms indicating that European ethnic groups are in the twilight of their existence. These findings suggest an increase in the application of new technologies among the first and second generations with interesting implications for our understanding of ethnic identity. I propose that the advent of high-tech forms of media in the last fifteen years has created new outlets for expressing ethnicity among those who already have some Greek ethnic consciousness. The means of acquiring social and cultural capital within diasporic communities is expanded to include these new forms of media, with implications for habitus and daily practices.
Significant changes in the nature of social life are being brought about by computer, information, and biological technologies, to the extent that-some argue-a new cultural order, ''cyberculture,'' is coming into being. This paper presents an overview of the types of anthropological analyses that are being conducted in the area of new technologies and suggests additional steps for the articulation of an anthropology of cyberculture. it builds upon science, technology, and society studies in various fields and on critical studies of modernity. The implications of technoscience for both anthropological theory and ethnographic research are explored.
The proposition is advanced that many current measures of kinship strength may paradox- ically indicate inadequate or weakened kinship structures. That is so because they rely on measures that emphasize continuous proximity. This curious paradox is a consequence of inattention to the relationship between technology, services, and proximity. This article presents nonproximity indicators of kinship contact and service delivery that can measure strength of kinship bonds, and states the principles for assessing at what distances kin can deliver which services.
How does the Internet affect social capital? Do the communication possibilities of the Internet increase, decrease, or supplement interpersonal contact, participation, and community commitment? Our evidence comes from a 1998 survey of 39,211 visitors to the National Geographic Society website, one of the first large-scale web surveys. We find that people's interaction online supplements their face-to-face and telephone communication, without increasing or decreasing it. However, Internet use is associated with increased participation in voluntary organizations and politics. Further support for this effect is the positive association between offline and online participation in volun tary organizations and politics. Internet use is associated with a sense of online community, in general and with kin. Taken together, the evidence suggests that the Internet is becoming normalized as it is incorporated into the routine practices of everyday life.
As a nation, we are supersaturated with technology and our families are truly wired. This article reviews what we know about the extent to which the newest communication technologies have become part of the family landscape and how these technologies may be altering aspects of family life. It examines who studies the effects of technology on the family; what we know and what is missing; why there may be a paucity of research on technology effects, especially empirical research; and why it is urgent we increase our focus on technologies and families. The article is divided into four sections that discuss (a) tracking the data and reports, (b) family effects of new media technologies, (c) children and media technologies, and (d) what the future holds.
Rituals such as weddings and funerals are significant for transnational family networks as events where scattered relatives meet and validate shared kinship and common origins. They are particularly important when taking place at a family ‘home’ that has been a centre of social and economic relations and locus of emotional attachment. This article analyses a wedding on a Caribbean island involving a large global family network, which occurred at a critical point in the family’s history. It became an occasion when members asserted their notions of belonging rooted in the ‘home’, not just as members of a common kin group, but as persons whose life trajectories had involved them in different social, economic and geographical contexts. Individually they had dissimilar interpretations and expectations of their place in the home, and these were played out at the wedding. The gathering allowed a display of family solidarity, but was also a site where differing views of individuals’ contribution to the global household were expressed, and rights to belong in the family home and, by implication, the island were contested.
Method
Does Email Perpetuate Gender Differences In Relational Maintenance?Discussion and Conclusions
This article discusses a widespread pattern of migratory moves that is often overlooked in contemporary research on transnational migration. Transnational theory has successfully highlighted the significance of migrants' attachments to people and places transcending the confines of nation-states. By emphasizing, a priori, the national, this theory tends to overlook the full complexity and meaning of migrants' extra-local socio-cultural relations. Through an ethnographic study of dispersed family networks of Caribbean origin, I explore the wide range of migration practices in which differing actors engage and the nature of the sociocultural systems that emerge as migrants move between places.
Abstract Although globalization has usually been associated with advanced communications technology, arguably nothing has facilitated global linkage more than the boom in ordinary, cheap international telephone calls. Low-cost calls serve as a kind of social glue connecting small-scale social formations across the globe. In this article I present recent data on the rapid growth and diffusion of telephone traffic and describe the proliferation of prepaid phonecards. Second, I outline the commercial, social and geographical ramifications of this explosion in transnational communication.
This paper describes an empirical study of the use of a mundane domestic technology—the telephone. It combines qualitative and quantitative data gathered as part of a longitudinal study of a panel of 2400 individuals distributed across 1000 UK households. It uses this data to build a rich picture of the ways in which people use the telephone in the late 1990s highlighting the way in which factors such as roles, location, life rhythms and in particular, gender, influence patterns of use and interaction for social purposes. The paper then discusses how these findings are of significance at various levels from the identification of specific design requirements to the conception of what user centred design is and can be in the consumer market.
An often-noticed feature of mobile phone calls is some form of 'geographical' locating after a greeting has been made. The author uses some singular instances of mobile phone conversations to provide an answer as to why this geolinguistic feature has emerged. In an examination of two real cases and a vignette, some light is shed on a more classical spatial topic, that of mobility. During the opening and closing statements of the paper a short critique is put forward of the 'professionalisation' of cultural studies and cultural geography and their ways of theorising ordinary activities. It is argued that a concern with theory construction effectively distances such workers from everyday affairs where ordinary actors understand in practical terms and account competently for what is going on in their worlds. This practical understanding is inherent in the intricacies of a conversational 'ordering', which is at one and the same time also an ordering of the times and spaces of these worlds. By means of an indifferent approach to the 'grand theories' of culture, some detailed understandings of social practices are offered via the alternatives of ethnomethodological and conversational investigations.
The Internet is a critically important research site for sociologists testing theories of technology diffusion and media effects, particularly because it is a medium uniquely capable of integrating modes of communication and forms of content. Current research tends to focus on the Internet’s implications in five domains: 1) inequality (the “digital divide”); 2) community and social capital; 3) political participation; 4) organizations and other economic institutions; and 5) cultural participation and cultural diversity. A recurrent theme across domains is that the Internet tends to complement rather than displace existing media and patterns of behavior. Thus in each domain, utopian claims and dystopic warnings based on extrapolations from technical possibilities have given way to more nuanced and circumscribed understandings of how Internet use adapts to existing patterns, permits certain innovations, and reinforces particular kinds of change. Moreover, in each domain the ultimate social implications of this new technology depend on economic, legal, and policy decisions that are shaping the Internet as it becomes institutionalized. Sociologists need to study the Internet more actively and, particularly, to synthesize research findings on individual user behavior with macroscopic analyses of institutional and political-economic factors that constrain that behavior.
Wilding (forthcoming) Families caring across bordersLong-distance care-giving: transnational families and the provision of aged care Caregiving of older disabledImmigrants as long-distance carers Post haste the millennium: opportunities and challenges in local studies
- L Baldassar
- C Baldock
Baldassar, L., C. Baldock and R. Wilding (forthcoming) Families caring across borders, London: Palgrave. Baldassar, L., R. Wilding and C. Baldock (2006) 'Long-distance care-giving: transnational families and the provision of aged care', in I. Paoletti (ed.) Caregiving of older disabled, New York, Nova Science. Baldock, C. V., L. Baldassar and C. Lange (2000) 'Immigrants as long-distance carers', in M. Pember (ed.) Post haste the millennium: opportunities and challenges in local studies, Proceedings of the 2nd National ALIA Local Studies Section Conference, Perth: ALIA, 213–22.
The death of distance: how the communications revolution will change our livesThe female world of cards and holidays: women, families and the work of kinship
- F Cairncross
Cairncross, F. (1997) The death of distance: how the communications revolution will change our lives, Boston: Harvard Business School Press. di Leonardo, M. (1987) 'The female world of cards and holidays: women, families and the work of kinship', Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 12, 440–53.
a multilingual anthropologist who specializes in attention to Afghan, Iranian and Iraqi refugees in Australia, conducted the relevant ethnographic interviews in Iran and Australia for this group
- Zahra Kamalkhani
Zahra Kamalkhani, a multilingual anthropologist who specializes in attention to Afghan, Iranian and Iraqi refugees in Australia, conducted the relevant ethnographic interviews in Iran and Australia for this group. See also Kamalkhani (2004).
Challenges and prospects: sociology for a new millennium
- L. Baldassar
- C. Baldock
- C. Lange
Caregiving of older disabled
- L. Baldassar
- R. Wilding
- C. Baldock
A changing people: diverse contributions to the State of Western Australia
- Z. Kamalkhani
Global Migration Perspectives
- S. Riak Akuei
Email and epistolary technologies: presence, intimacy and disembodiment. <http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue2/issue2_milne.html> (accessed April 2005)
- E. Milne
Does the Internet increase, decrease or supplement social capital? Social networks, participation and community commitment
- Wellman B.