Amanda Alencar
Biographic Data
| ID | 292080 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Amanda Alencar |
| GIVEN NAMES | Amanda |
| FAMILY NAME | Alencar |
| SIGNATURE | ALENCAR A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Erasmus University Rotterdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6668-1035 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 56 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Exploring the impact of anxiety and depression symptoms on cognitive functions throughout aging
Objective: Examine the correlation between depressive and anxiety symptoms and cognitive performance across adulthood, with particular attention to differences observed across age groups. Methods: 154 participants (45 young adults, 61 middle-aged adults, and 48 older adults) underwent neuropsychological assessment to evaluate cognitive performance and psychopathological symptomatology. Multivariate analyses were conducted with age group as the be…
Becoming a Rotterdammer: Leveraging the positive deviance strategy to increase refugee belonging
Reorienting Collaborative–Creative Methodologies: Reflexive Devices in the Interplay of Ethnographic and Mobility Research
This Special Issue engages current debates on creative–collaborative methods (CCMs) as a means of reconfiguring qualitative knowledge production beyond conventional hierarchies. Bringing together arts-based, participatory, community-oriented, and digitally mediated approaches, the contributions foreground collaboration as an ethical and methodological orientation within ethnographic research on mobility. Central to the issue is the notion of refl…
Aspirational place-making and digital practices of refugees in the Netherlands
While much has been written about the experience of human displacement and the trauma of exile, our understanding of how refugees (re)build a sense of place is underemphasised. The literature on refugee integration has mainly focused on the outcomes of integration policies as well as on the perspectives of host societies regarding what is expected of refugees in the integration process. In this article, we propose the notion of aspirational place…
Using participatory video for co-production and collaborative research with refugees: Critical reflections from the Digital Place-makers program
This article critically reflects on the implementation of participatory video (PV) to explore the perspectives of 14 refugee participants regarding their place-making strategies in the Netherlands. The insights here derive from the experience of co-designing and implementing the Digital Place-makers program: a filmmaking course that relies on basic editing training and story-telling. PV has been strongly criticized for its attendance to researche…
Spatial Imaginaries of Digital Refugee Livelihoods
Discourses around the so-called digital economy are increasingly more present in contexts of forced displacement, with digital inclusion of refugees being framed by humanitarian agencies as a fundamental human right and an essential tool to promote access to income and skills development. While digital work can certainly bring about positive changes in forced migration settings, imaginaries around the role of the digital in refugees’ economic liv…
A tale of two cities: Digital place-making and elderly Houniao migration in China
The last four decades have seen a growing trend of Chinese ageing migrants originating from the North move to the South during winter and return during summer, resembling snowbirds. The flexibilization of the household registration system, increasing urbanisation, and infrastructure development have led to a new spatial pattern of mobility and the search for new lifestyles among elderly populations with the support of ICT, the so-called Houniao (…
Culturas digitales en las redes sociales
Los ecosistemas digitales de la actualidad, en los que las redes sociales tienen un elevado protagonismo, promueven fenómenos comunicativos de gran interés, donde creadores de contenidos diversos visibilizan experiencias individuales y colectivas. En algunos casos, estas comunidades dan origen a movimientos ciberactivistas, o se convierten en tendencia generando diálogo y debate sobre temas de interés para la sociedad. En otros casos se presentan…
Urban Refugees’ Digital Experiences and Social Connections During Covid-19 Response in Kampala, Uganda
The Covid-19 crisis and its aftermath challenged economies and societal sectors globally. Refugees in developing countries are particularly vulnerable to the socio-economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. In Uganda, refugees significantly compose the marginalized urban population, dependent largely on the informal sector, and are severely affected by the crisis amidst limited social protection interventions. This article draws on key informant …
Venezuelan Refugees in Brazil: Communication Rights and Digital Inequalities During the Covid-19 Pandemic
The article analyzes the experiences of Venezuelan refugees in the city of Boa Vista (Brazil) in exercising their communication rights in the context of social and digital inequalities aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic. This article outlines a perspective on digital inequalities from a rights-based approach, which focuses on granting the right to communicate to those who lack it rather than providing access to technology without highlighting th…
WhatsApp as a Tool for Researching the Everyday Lives of Venezuelan Refugees Settling in Brazil
In this article, we explore the role that WhatsApp can play as a research tool for investigating the experiences of settling refugees. Messaging apps can help researchers collect data about people’s everyday lives while also providing insights into processes that are difficult to study as they happen. The communicative affordances of messaging apps also facilitate spontaneous interactions in research and the flexibility needed when working with m…
Rebuilding the Yanacona Home in the City: The Role of Digital Technologies for Place-Making Practices of Displaced Indigenous Communities in Bogotá, Colombia
In the wake of globalization discourses and the so-called “spatial turn,” space and place have become central concepts in the social sciences and humanities and in migration studies in particular. Increasingly, and despite the widespread transformations in the ways we move and communicate today, place-making has gained important attention as a practice among diaspora groups, forced migrants, and refugees. To further advance insights in this field…
Mobile communication and refugees: An analytical review of academic literature
Over the past decade, an expanding literature has explored the ways in which refugees rely on mobile communication technologies to stay in touch with a wider community and to access relevant information and services in their new places. Nevertheless, challenges linked to (a lack of) digital literacy and accessibility among refugees, and associated risks of technology use can negatively affect their empowerment and participation in a “mediatized” …
Digital Resilience Tactics of Syrian Refugees in the Netherlands: Social Media for Social Support, Health, and Identity
The process of adjusting to a new country may carry important stressors for refugees. In the light of neoliberal policies, refugees are expected to become resilient in a local arrival infrastructure and perform a specific subjectivity based on gratefulness, adaptability, and digital sensitivity to successfully integrate. Drawing on a qualitative, in-depth case study with Syrians living in the Netherlands, this article explores the impact of the r…
Introduction to “Refugee Crises Disclosed: Intersections between Media, Communication and Forced Migration Processes”
This editorial serves as an introduction to the Media and Communication thematic issue on “Refugee Crises Disclosed: Intersections between Media, Communication and Forced Migration Processes”. This thematic issue presents an integrated look at forced migration through the spectrum of media studies and communication sciences. The eleven articles in this volume offer a comparative research approach on different focuses that involve cross-national, …
Prospects of Refugee Integration in the Netherlands: Social Capital, Information Practices and Digital Media
Integration is a highly contested concept within the field of migration. However, a well-established view of the concept draws from underpinning migration and refugee theories, in which integration is seen as a dynamic, multidimensional, and two-way process of adaptation to a new culture and that takes place over time. Most studies have focused on the integration perspective of host societies, in particular how governments’ understandings of belo…
From fragmentation to integration: Addressing the role of communication in refugee crises and (re)settlement processes
The smartphone as a lifeline: An exploration of refugees’ use of mobile communication technologies during their flight
Building on the results of a qualitative study with 16 male refugees (mostly from Syria) settled in the Netherlands, this article reports on an investigation that applied insights from the Uses and Gratifications (U&G) framework and refugee studies to examine the media use of refugees and to link these to the material, social and psychological needs emerging from the journey. With a focus on the smartphone, our study distinguished four significan…
Refugee integration and social media: A local and experiential perspective
The refugee crisis has spurred the rapid development of creative technology and social media applications to tackle the problem of refugee integration in Europe. In this article, a qualitative study with 18 refugees from Syria, Eritrea and Afghanistan is presented in order to investigate the uses and purposes of social media associated to the different areas of refugee integration in the Netherlands. The results indicate that social media network…
News for assimilation or integration ? Examining the functions of news in shaping acculturation experiences of immigrants in the Netherlands and Spain
This study investigates the functions of news media in shaping acculturation experiences of new economic and refugee immigrants in the Netherlands and Spain. Focus group data revealed that consumption of host country news media was mainly connected to immigrants’ deliberate strategies to assimilate the culture, politics and language of the host society, while exposure to transnational news was viewed in terms of strategies of integration in both …
Mobile communication and refugees: An analytical review of academic literature
Over the past decade, an expanding literature has explored the ways in which refugees rely on mobile communication technologies to stay in touch with a wider community and to access relevant information and services in their new places. Nevertheless, challenges linked to (a lack of) digital literacy and accessibility among refugees, and associated risks of technology use can negatively affect their empowerment and participation in a “mediatized” …
The smartphone as a lifeline: An exploration of refugees’ use of mobile communication technologies during their flight
Building on the results of a qualitative study with 16 male refugees (mostly from Syria) settled in the Netherlands, this article reports on an investigation that applied insights from the Uses and Gratifications (U&G) framework and refugee studies to examine the media use of refugees and to link these to the material, social and psychological needs emerging from the journey. With a focus on the smartphone, our study distinguished four significan…
Digital Resilience Tactics of Syrian Refugees in the Netherlands: Social Media for Social Support, Health, and Identity
The process of adjusting to a new country may carry important stressors for refugees. In the light of neoliberal policies, refugees are expected to become resilient in a local arrival infrastructure and perform a specific subjectivity based on gratefulness, adaptability, and digital sensitivity to successfully integrate. Drawing on a qualitative, in-depth case study with Syrians living in the Netherlands, this article explores the impact of the r…
A tale of two cities: Digital place-making and elderly Houniao migration in China
The last four decades have seen a growing trend of Chinese ageing migrants originating from the North move to the South during winter and return during summer, resembling snowbirds. The flexibilization of the household registration system, increasing urbanisation, and infrastructure development have led to a new spatial pattern of mobility and the search for new lifestyles among elderly populations with the support of ICT, the so-called Houniao (…
Aspirational place-making and digital practices of refugees in the Netherlands
While much has been written about the experience of human displacement and the trauma of exile, our understanding of how refugees (re)build a sense of place is underemphasised. The literature on refugee integration has mainly focused on the outcomes of integration policies as well as on the perspectives of host societies regarding what is expected of refugees in the integration process. In this article, we propose the notion of aspirational place…
Rebuilding the Yanacona Home in the City: The Role of Digital Technologies for Place-Making Practices of Displaced Indigenous Communities in Bogotá, Colombia
In the wake of globalization discourses and the so-called “spatial turn,” space and place have become central concepts in the social sciences and humanities and in migration studies in particular. Increasingly, and despite the widespread transformations in the ways we move and communicate today, place-making has gained important attention as a practice among diaspora groups, forced migrants, and refugees. To further advance insights in this field…
News for assimilation or integration ? Examining the functions of news in shaping acculturation experiences of immigrants in the Netherlands and Spain
This study investigates the functions of news media in shaping acculturation experiences of new economic and refugee immigrants in the Netherlands and Spain. Focus group data revealed that consumption of host country news media was mainly connected to immigrants’ deliberate strategies to assimilate the culture, politics and language of the host society, while exposure to transnational news was viewed in terms of strategies of integration in both …
News for assimilation or integration ? Examining the functions of news in shaping acculturation experiences of immigrants in the Netherlands and Spain
This study investigates the functions of news media in shaping acculturation experiences of new economic and refugee immigrants in the Netherlands and Spain. Focus group data revealed that consumption of host country news media was mainly connected to immigrants’ deliberate strategies to assimilate the culture, politics and language of the host society, while exposure to transnational news was viewed in terms of strategies of integration in both …
Refugee integration and social media: A local and experiential perspective
The refugee crisis has spurred the rapid development of creative technology and social media applications to tackle the problem of refugee integration in Europe. In this article, a qualitative study with 18 refugees from Syria, Eritrea and Afghanistan is presented in order to investigate the uses and purposes of social media associated to the different areas of refugee integration in the Netherlands. The results indicate that social media network…
Introduction to “Refugee Crises Disclosed: Intersections between Media, Communication and Forced Migration Processes”
This editorial serves as an introduction to the Media and Communication thematic issue on “Refugee Crises Disclosed: Intersections between Media, Communication and Forced Migration Processes”. This thematic issue presents an integrated look at forced migration through the spectrum of media studies and communication sciences. The eleven articles in this volume offer a comparative research approach on different focuses that involve cross-national, …
Prospects of Refugee Integration in the Netherlands: Social Capital, Information Practices and Digital Media
Integration is a highly contested concept within the field of migration. However, a well-established view of the concept draws from underpinning migration and refugee theories, in which integration is seen as a dynamic, multidimensional, and two-way process of adaptation to a new culture and that takes place over time. Most studies have focused on the integration perspective of host societies, in particular how governments’ understandings of belo…
From fragmentation to integration: Addressing the role of communication in refugee crises and (re)settlement processes
The smartphone as a lifeline: An exploration of refugees’ use of mobile communication technologies during their flight
Building on the results of a qualitative study with 16 male refugees (mostly from Syria) settled in the Netherlands, this article reports on an investigation that applied insights from the Uses and Gratifications (U&G) framework and refugee studies to examine the media use of refugees and to link these to the material, social and psychological needs emerging from the journey. With a focus on the smartphone, our study distinguished four significan…
Rebuilding the Yanacona Home in the City: The Role of Digital Technologies for Place-Making Practices of Displaced Indigenous Communities in Bogotá, Colombia
In the wake of globalization discourses and the so-called “spatial turn,” space and place have become central concepts in the social sciences and humanities and in migration studies in particular. Increasingly, and despite the widespread transformations in the ways we move and communicate today, place-making has gained important attention as a practice among diaspora groups, forced migrants, and refugees. To further advance insights in this field…
Mobile communication and refugees: An analytical review of academic literature
Over the past decade, an expanding literature has explored the ways in which refugees rely on mobile communication technologies to stay in touch with a wider community and to access relevant information and services in their new places. Nevertheless, challenges linked to (a lack of) digital literacy and accessibility among refugees, and associated risks of technology use can negatively affect their empowerment and participation in a “mediatized” …
Digital Resilience Tactics of Syrian Refugees in the Netherlands: Social Media for Social Support, Health, and Identity
The process of adjusting to a new country may carry important stressors for refugees. In the light of neoliberal policies, refugees are expected to become resilient in a local arrival infrastructure and perform a specific subjectivity based on gratefulness, adaptability, and digital sensitivity to successfully integrate. Drawing on a qualitative, in-depth case study with Syrians living in the Netherlands, this article explores the impact of the r…
Culturas digitales en las redes sociales
Los ecosistemas digitales de la actualidad, en los que las redes sociales tienen un elevado protagonismo, promueven fenómenos comunicativos de gran interés, donde creadores de contenidos diversos visibilizan experiencias individuales y colectivas. En algunos casos, estas comunidades dan origen a movimientos ciberactivistas, o se convierten en tendencia generando diálogo y debate sobre temas de interés para la sociedad. En otros casos se presentan…
Urban Refugees’ Digital Experiences and Social Connections During Covid-19 Response in Kampala, Uganda
The Covid-19 crisis and its aftermath challenged economies and societal sectors globally. Refugees in developing countries are particularly vulnerable to the socio-economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. In Uganda, refugees significantly compose the marginalized urban population, dependent largely on the informal sector, and are severely affected by the crisis amidst limited social protection interventions. This article draws on key informant …
Venezuelan Refugees in Brazil: Communication Rights and Digital Inequalities During the Covid-19 Pandemic
The article analyzes the experiences of Venezuelan refugees in the city of Boa Vista (Brazil) in exercising their communication rights in the context of social and digital inequalities aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic. This article outlines a perspective on digital inequalities from a rights-based approach, which focuses on granting the right to communicate to those who lack it rather than providing access to technology without highlighting th…
WhatsApp as a Tool for Researching the Everyday Lives of Venezuelan Refugees Settling in Brazil
In this article, we explore the role that WhatsApp can play as a research tool for investigating the experiences of settling refugees. Messaging apps can help researchers collect data about people’s everyday lives while also providing insights into processes that are difficult to study as they happen. The communicative affordances of messaging apps also facilitate spontaneous interactions in research and the flexibility needed when working with m…
Spatial Imaginaries of Digital Refugee Livelihoods
Discourses around the so-called digital economy are increasingly more present in contexts of forced displacement, with digital inclusion of refugees being framed by humanitarian agencies as a fundamental human right and an essential tool to promote access to income and skills development. While digital work can certainly bring about positive changes in forced migration settings, imaginaries around the role of the digital in refugees’ economic liv…
A tale of two cities: Digital place-making and elderly Houniao migration in China
The last four decades have seen a growing trend of Chinese ageing migrants originating from the North move to the South during winter and return during summer, resembling snowbirds. The flexibilization of the household registration system, increasing urbanisation, and infrastructure development have led to a new spatial pattern of mobility and the search for new lifestyles among elderly populations with the support of ICT, the so-called Houniao (…
Using participatory video for co-production and collaborative research with refugees: Critical reflections from the Digital Place-makers program
This article critically reflects on the implementation of participatory video (PV) to explore the perspectives of 14 refugee participants regarding their place-making strategies in the Netherlands. The insights here derive from the experience of co-designing and implementing the Digital Place-makers program: a filmmaking course that relies on basic editing training and story-telling. PV has been strongly criticized for its attendance to researche…
Aspirational place-making and digital practices of refugees in the Netherlands
While much has been written about the experience of human displacement and the trauma of exile, our understanding of how refugees (re)build a sense of place is underemphasised. The literature on refugee integration has mainly focused on the outcomes of integration policies as well as on the perspectives of host societies regarding what is expected of refugees in the integration process. In this article, we propose the notion of aspirational place…
Exploring the impact of anxiety and depression symptoms on cognitive functions throughout aging
Objective: Examine the correlation between depressive and anxiety symptoms and cognitive performance across adulthood, with particular attention to differences observed across age groups. Methods: 154 participants (45 young adults, 61 middle-aged adults, and 48 older adults) underwent neuropsychological assessment to evaluate cognitive performance and psychopathological symptomatology. Multivariate analyses were conducted with age group as the be…
Becoming a Rotterdammer: Leveraging the positive deviance strategy to increase refugee belonging
Reorienting Collaborative–Creative Methodologies: Reflexive Devices in the Interplay of Ethnographic and Mobility Research
This Special Issue engages current debates on creative–collaborative methods (CCMs) as a means of reconfiguring qualitative knowledge production beyond conventional hierarchies. Bringing together arts-based, participatory, community-oriented, and digitally mediated approaches, the contributions foreground collaboration as an ethical and methodological orientation within ethnographic research on mobility. Central to the issue is the notion of refl…
Sociology (16 works) · Political science (15 works) · Refugee (15 works) · Public relations (12 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (10 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Social science (7 works) · Geography (6 works) · Migration, Health and Trauma (6 works)