Mobile (Dis)connection: New Technology and Rechronotopized Images of the Homeland
Abstract
This paper focuses on how information accessed through new media is discursively represented by migrants. Taking an ethnographic approach to the analysis of Uzbek and Iranian migration discourse, we show how the underspecified and decontextualized information received via technology is combined with the “imagined homeland” in order toreconstructimages of lifethere‐and‐now. Since images of the homeland are chronotopic in nature, we argue that the reconstruction of these images can be understood asrechronotopization. The rechronotopized image, then, operates as a lens through which migrants socially position themselves relative to the homeland. More specifically, we show how the conflict between prior images and rechronotopized images are invoked to construct difference and discuss disconnection. Thus, while technology facilitates connection, we argue that because it reminds migrants of how things have changed since they left, it may also lead to feelings of disconnection.
Faculty Members
- Farzad Karimzad - Department of English Salisbury University
- Lydia Catedral - Department of Linguistics and Translation City University of Hong Kong
Themes
- imagined homeland
- representation through new media
- alienation and connection
- social positioning
- migration discourse
- identity reconstruction
- conflict of images
Categories
- Area, ethnic, cultural, gender, and group studies
- Cultural anthropology
- Humanities and humanistic studies
- Area studies
- Social sciences
- Humanities, other
- Humanities
- Ethnic studies
- Anthropology
- Foreign languages, literatures, and linguistics nec
- Foreign languages, literatures, and linguistics
- Anthropology nec
- Hispanic Latin American languages, literatures, and linguistics
- Theological and ministerial studies
- Sociology, general
- Sociology, demography, and population studies
- Sociology, demography, and population studies nec