The Digital Archive of Diaspora

Blogging (Post)Migration

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21747396
AutoresLinda Maeding (0000-0003-0791-0747, autor de correspondencia)
Año2022
Volumen13
Número2
Fecha de publicación2022-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaTransit (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1551-9627 • E-ISSN: 1551-9627
EditorialCalifornia Digital Library (CDL) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5070/t713258824
OpenAlexW4295233334
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas8

Transnational diaspora groups make intensive use of community media when communicating and connecting in cyberspace. In particular, I argue that blogs constitute a new kind of (post)migrant archive that compiles shared histories and experiences of diaspora. The principal role of the digital archive has become defined, not so much by storage, as by circulation and transfer, in what media theorist Wolfgang Ernst (2002) calls the paradigm shift in the reconceptualization of the archive in the digital age. Indeed, circulation and transfer are also essential dimensions of the digital diaspora. Regarding the modes of interactions of diaspora communities on the web, I will analyse how (post)migrants’ online self-representation and their struggle to gain visibility shape new understandings of the digital archive of diaspora. My focus targets blogs as one of the most popular genres in cyberspace. The samples I analyse are written by (post)migrants and are often intended to decenter the German “Mehrheitsgesellschaft” [“mainstream society”] and diversify its artistic-intellectual scene. It has been shown that these new media settings also give rise to new forms of writing; for example, authorship is often collaborative. My thesis is that this very heterogeneous virtual collaboration often has the effect of transcending the contours of stable “Turkish”, “Arab” and/or “German” identities and of thus also contradicting dominant parameters of identity politics. This is the case with the collective blog “migrantenstadl” that is the subject of my analysis; “migriert, migriert, sonst sind wir verloren” [“migrate, migrate, otherwise we are lost”] is the motto of this often provocative project and an invitation to its readers. “Migration” is movement and mobility, whereas “Archive” is preservation, so how to construct an archive of migration on moving ground? While my primary interest is to explore and connect the concepts of digital diaspora and digital archive, I will try to give concrete form to my theoretical findings on this nexus by analysing the above-mentioned blog, which is a cultural and political initiative directed by Tunay Önder and Imad Mustafa that was founded in 2011

Aesthetics · Art · Cyberspace · Diaspora · Digital media · German · Linguistics · Mainstream · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Sociology · The Internet · Turkish · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · History · Law · Media Studies and Communication