Migration, Technology & Transculturation: A Global Perspective

Transnational immigrants today appear to live dual or even multiple lives across national borders, with help from a range of new technologies involving media and channels of communication such as Internet-based chat or telephony, mobile phones, and interactive online social networks. The authors explore the implications of accumulated findings on this aspect for researchers and scholars investigating the contemporary experience of global migration in relation to diasporas and their technology-enabled interconnections with home and host societies. Against the context of existing conceptual frameworks, the utility of the multi-dimensional construct of transculturalism (Ortiz, 1995 [1940]), involving the three processes of acculturation, deculturation, and neo-culturation, is considered as a guiding concept in this emerging area of study.

Communication & Social Change, 2015

The following paper intends to present the first results of the research Migration and Intercultural Communication: transnational flows, local interferences and the use of ICTs. One of the aims of this research is to study the transnational sociocultural practices through the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) of the migrants in the Federal District of Brazil. This research is based on the following questions: can we qualify the recent migration flows to Brazil as a transnational phenomenon? If yes, what is the role of the ICTs in the information exchange between migrants ? How do these technologies interfere and re-create sociocultural practices during the migrant's process of belonging ? We wish to understand how is it that ICTs make it possible for a twofold local experience: that of the daily life of those who stayed and that of the living experience of those who moved.

This article puts forward a cosmopolitan reading of international migrations, focusing on the role played by ICTs in generating new ways of living together and acting transnationally in the digital era. After underlining some of the complex dimensions of the transnational debate and the limits of methodological nationalism, I will argue that revisiting the national-transnational nexus by adopting an ‘inclusive cosmopolitan’ stance would lead to a better understanding of the dialogically ubiquitous condition of the modern migrant. An analysis of Internet use by Romanian professionals in Toronto and their transnational families will shed light on the mechanisms through which ICTs produce connected lifestyles, enhance the capacity to harness otherness, and facilitate socialization beyond borders, thus generating new transnational habitus.

Soderstrom Ola Ruedin Didier Randeria Shalini D Amato Gianni Panese Francesco, 2013

Tonight, I'm babysitting. When my wife is home alone and has to cook, for example, she turns the camera on the children and goes down to the kitchen to take care of the meal. I keep an eye on them, and if one of them starts crying, I send her a text message. (Stefan 2 , computer programmer, 43 years old) Nowadays, using a camera to look after one's children is hardly out of the ordinary-or it would not be, if the Romanian computing professional in the opening quote were in the next room. But he is in his apartment in Toronto, several thousand kilometers away from his wife and sons, who are spending a few months in their second home in Romania. This is a telling story about how the Internet and other information and communication technologies (ICTs) are changing the transnational experiences of migrants and nonmigrants, creating the feeling of living in a smaller world. 1 A previous version of this chapter was first published as "(Re)penser le transnationalisme et l'intégration à l'ère du numérique. Vers un tournant cosmopolitique dans l'étude des migrations internationales?", in Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, 26(2): 33-55. The author is grateful to REMI's editor for permission to publish it in this book. 2 Names cited have been changed.

SAGE Handbook of International Migration, 2019

Transnationalism emerged as a critique and a move away from the assimilationist paradigm to understand how migrants were changing, while they were also shaping their new countries and former homelands. While the assimilationist model was focusing on what was happening in the receiving country, the scholarship on transnationalism changed the lens towards migrants themselves and some of their simultaneous relationships in their place of residence, their former homeland as well as other places where they may have family members and friends. This chapter gives an overview of the literature; identifies different forms and scales of transnationalism and suggests future directions for transnational migration research.

2012

This article introduces transnationalism as distinct from globalization and diaspora studies. It first explores transnationalism research from a historical perspective. The next section reviews some of the critiques of transnationalism with regard to its extent, its novelty and theoretical strength. Later it elaborates on transnationalism in a network society, and suggests how the exploration of transnationalism has contributed to social enquiry. Finally it assesses the literature and discusses the possible future directions for social research.

Qualitative Research in European Migration Studies , 2018

This chapter offers reflection on doing digital migration studies. Digital migration studies is an emerging interdisciplinary field focussed on studying migration in, through and by means of the internet. As the so-called European refugee crisis demonstrates, the scale, intensities and types of transnational migration and digital networking have drastically changed in recent years. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have fundamentally transformed migration processes and vice versa. Top-down management of migration flows and border control is increasingly dependent on digital technologies and datafication, while from the bottom-up migrants use smart phones and apps to access information, maintain transnational relations, establish local connections and send remittances. In the first half of the chapter, drawing on (Candidatu et al., 2018) we distinguish between three paradigms of digital migration studies: (1) migrants in cyberspace; (2) everyday digital migrant life; (3) migrants as data. In the second half of the chapter, we offer the methodological research principles of relationality, adaptability and ethics-of-care to operationalize digital migration studies with a commitment to social justice. Challenging unjust power relations is important both when studying vulnerable groups as well as studying elites. The many experiences, obstacles and opportunities we found in the literature reveal that the future of digital migration studies lies at the intersection of big and small data, there is great urgency in triangulating quantified patterns with in-depth narrative accounts and situated experiences.

2016

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