On Digital Crossings in Europe

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

‘On Digital Crossings in Europe’ explores the entanglements of digital media and migration beyond the national and mono-ethnic focus. We argue how borders, identity and affectivity have been destabilized and reconfigured through medium-specific technological affordances, opting for a comparative and postcolonial framework that focuses on diversity in conjunction with cosmopolitan aspirations. Internet applications make it possible to sustain new forms of diaspora and networks, which operate within and beyond Europe, making issues of ethnicity, nationality, race and class not obsolete but transformed. It is therefore important and timely to analyse how these reconfigurations take place and affect everyday life. Using a critical approach to digital tools that avoids utopian notions of connectivity and borderlessness, this article highlights the dyssimmetries and tensions produced by the ubiquitousness of digital connectivity. It further introduces the different contributions to the special issue making connections and tracing relations among themes and methods as well as sketching main patterns for further research. It also offers a panorama of other related studies and projects in the field, which partake in a critical reassessment of the enabling power of digital media and their divisive implications for new forms of surveillance, online racism and ‘economic’ inequality, which we gather under the heading of postcolonial digital humanities.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3-22
Number of pages20
JournalCrossings: Journal of Migration & Culture
Volume5
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014

Keywords

  • Europe
  • diaspora
  • border
  • digital
  • racism
  • postcolonial
  • digital humanities

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'On Digital Crossings in Europe'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this