Networked Transnationalism: Mapping Identity in the Digital Diaspora
Abstract
This paper analyzes the transnational identity transformation in the current age of hyper connectivity, where people can interact with anyone across the borders and with the development of digital technologies across the globe. This study goes beyond the classical formulation that believed that physical mobility explains transnationalism, this study pushes back and argues that identity archetype was constructed in a mediated digital environment. Focusing on theoretical insights from Arjun Appadurai, Steven Vertovec, Manuel Castells, and Homi K. Bhabha, the paper envisions contemporary identities as mediation between continuity and fragmentation. While hyperconnectivity generates several selves that depend on context shaped by algorithm and platform logics, at the same time it maintains persistent cultural, linguistics and high emotional ties to one's homeland. By discourse analysis of the diasporic digital practices, the concept of fragmented continuity is being introduced to show the coherent identities despite their dispersed and mediated nature. The contribution of this paper to scholarship on the digital complex by illustrating how identity in the 21stcentury is not disintegrated but reshaped by networked connectivity.
Keywords- Fragmentation, continuity, identity, performance, algorithm, mediation, nostalgia
