Digital Crossroads - Media, Migration and Diaspora in a Transnational Perspective
Uthrecht, the Netherlands | Utrecht University
The rapid development of digital technologies has radically transformed ways of keeping in touch with home cultures and diasporic networks. Moreover, the notion of migration has undergone significant shifts, coming to signify imaginaries on the move which are not necessarily linked to geographical displacement. The aim of this conference is to address the relationship between migration and digital technologies across national contexts and ethnic belonging. Migrancy embeds many of the local and global paradoxes that also pertain to digital media with their compression of space and time. However, the link between the two fields is still under-theorized and in need of more situated and comparative analysis. Drawing from approaches from the humanities and social sciences (media theory, communication studies, learning sciences, gender studies, cultural studies, postcolonial theory, migration and transnational studies, among others), the primary aim of this conference is to explore how the study of digitalization and migration challenges existing notions of diaspora, identity, nation, family, learning, literacy, social networks, youth, body, gender and ethnicity, asking for new approaches and a rethinking of traditional social and cultural categories.
The conference will consider the following questions, among others: How has the development of new digital technologies changed the experience of migration? Conversely, how has the reality of migration impacted on the use, development and distribution of new media technologies? How does the use of media differ among different migrant generations? How does media literacy impact on issues of integration and socialization in a hosting country? What are the differences in media access, diffusion and use among different migrant communities across the world? How are race, gender, age, class, ethnicity and other markers of identity recodified online? How are transnational relationships and resources arrayed in networks? How do ideas and practices move across these networks? How is the notion of home or community, which is no longer locatable with a “here” and “there” reconceptualised through digital diasporas? How do these developments impact on the spaces for learning and education, which are no longer limited to place-based classrooms and curricula? How can learning processes and networks be conceptualised when these networks expand larger geographical distances, and multiple communities are crossed? What resources of identity do migrants draw on and how are these resources hybridized in practice, and related to their learning and socialization processes? In short, how are digital crossroads created, distributed and experienced in the context of migration, diaspora and transnationalism?
The conference will explore three inter-related strands of the relationships between media and migration:
Identity and diaspora (Strand 1)
- identity and performativity
- gender, race, ethnicity, religion and online communities
- digital borders, digital diasporas
- imagined communities, transnationalism and mobility
- digital divides (generational, access, skills, user-generated content)
- cultural industry, participatory culture and social media
Migrant networks (Strand 2)
- mediated spatialities
- relations between online and offline worlds
- affinity networks and intimacy
- media literacy and migration
- comparative perspectives on digital media practices
Learning in a globalized world (Strand 3)
- informal learning in the digital space
- network approaches to learning
- immigrant learning
- globalization and learning
- learning & identity
- socialization in transnational families
Please send 300-word abstracts for papers or 500-word panel proposals for 3 to 4 presentations by 10 January 2012.
The conference comes at the end of a five-year High Potential project, entitled “Wired Up: Digital media as innovative socialization practices for migrant youth”, carried out by the Faculty of Humanities (project leader Dr. Sandra Ponzanesi) and the Faculty of Social Sciences (project leader Prof. Dr. Mariette de Haan) at Utrecht University in collaboration with Vanderbilt University, USA (Dr. Kevin Leander, Peabody College for Education). The project was funded by the Executive Board of Utrecht University to stimulate interdisciplinary research. See http://www.uu.nl/wiredup.
Organization
Dr. Sandra Ponzanesi: conference chair
Dr. Fleur Prinsen: conference committee
Dr. Fadi Hirzalla: conference coordinator
Koen Leurs, MA: conference committee
Prof. Dr. Mariette de Haan: scientific committee
Asli Ünlosoy, MSC: conference committee
Dr. Kevin Leander: scientific committee
Dr. Lisa Schwartz: conference committee