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Journal of Global Diaspora & Media - Somali Diaspora and Digital Practices, Jun 2021

Somali Diaspora and Digital Practices

Somali Diaspora and Digital Practices, Jun 2021

Language: English
  • Special Issue Editorial

      • Somali diaspora and digital belonging: Introduction

        https://doi.org/10.1386/gdm_00010_2

        This editorial introduces the theoretical framework, methodological approach and comparative themes of the Special Issue on ‘Somali Diaspora and Digital Practices: Gender, Media and Belonging’. The Special Issue proposes to connect the notion of the Somali diaspora to recent advancements in communication technologies, exploring the ways in which the Somali, specifically Somali women, keep in touch locally, nationally and transnationally through different forms of everyday digital practices. In particular for Somali migrant women, the use of digital media is highly embedded in their gendered roles as mothers, daughters, reunited wives, students and professionals, who keep the ties with the homeland and diaspora communities in diversified as well as collective ways. The close analysis of empirical findings across different sites in Europe shows multi-sitedness, generation and urban belonging as central features. These issues emerge as findings from a large ethnographic fieldwork carried out across European cities (Amsterdam, London and Rome).1 Ethnography offers an essential contribution in understanding social media practices as situated in specific social, geographical and political contexts, taking into account the intersectional dynamic of factors including gender, race, ethnicity, generation, religion and sexual orientation.

  • Special Issue: ‘Somali Diaspora and Digital Practices’

      • The multi-sitedness of Somali diasporic belonging: Comparative notes on Somali migrant women’s digital practices

        https://doi.org/10.1386/gdm_00012_1

        In this comparative article we offer a critical overview of the articles included in this Special Issue, paying attention to common patterns and distinctive features. We do so by exploring the ways in which Somali migrant women living across different cities in Europe engage in everyday digital practices. The central question that underlines this comparative investigation is how transnational multi-sitedness, different generations and urban localities play a role in contemporary Somali diasporic formations and take shape through digital media. We consider the multi-sitedness of Somali diaspora in light of the emergent transnational potentials of communications technologies, while keeping in focus gendered dynamics and intersectional aspects; how generation plays into processes of diasporic cultural change and continuity; and how spatial relationships of belonging are shaped by the communicative spaces that mobile devices and software platforms afford. Our findings show that to better understand the role of digitally mediated experiences, we need to focus on everyday media environments within contexts of international mobility across continental borders marked by postcolonial traces.

    • Diasporic mothering and Somali diaspora formation in the Netherlands

      https://doi.org/10.1386/gdm_00013_1

      This article addresses how Somali women from the Netherlands participate in digital diaspora formation. It specifically takes the lens of ‘diasporic mothering’ understood as a site where difference and belonging are negotiated through work of cultural reproduction, collective identity construction and stable homemaking. I first analytically distinguish between two generations of Somali women on the basis of their arrival trajectory and their socio-economic background at the time of their living in Somalia. Second, by foregrounding Somali women’s lived experiences, I show how their participation in diaspora formation is shaped by both mothering practices, and local and national Dutch policy approaches to migration. Last, I argue that the specificities of the local and national Dutch context favours rather physical and neighbourhood-based diaspora encounters, while de-centring the role of digital media in the initial formation of diaspora networks.

    • Second-generation British Somali women: The translocal nexus of London and global diaspora

      https://doi.org/10.1386/gdm_00014_1

      Drawing upon ethnographic investigation, this article analyses the digital media practices of second-generation British Somali women who live in London. It addresses the dynamic relationships between digital media and diasporic identity formation by focusing on how second-generation women articulate their diasporic urban and transnational identities via youth-oriented online cultural spaces. It demonstrates that they use the internet and social media platforms to position themselves as urban dwellers in London and members of the global Somali diaspora at the same time. In this context, the author proposes that these young women’s digital practices create a translocal nexus that intertwines urban and transnational social fields in line with their gendered and generation-specific experiences and aspirations. Through this translocal nexus, these young women produce multilayered identities and negotiate their multiple belongings with a youth-oriented perspective and style in a digitally interconnected world.

  • Articles

      • Diaspora journalism’s coverage of migration: How the Irish diaspora press reported the refugee crisis

        https://doi.org/10.1386/gdm_00017_1

        Irish diasporas have a long history of multidirectional and multigenerational migration with large communities sustaining successful commercial diaspora news media organizations. Such complex migration patterns often result in the hybridization of identities whereby the migrant group develops cultural identities that are different from the ‘homeland’ and each other. Diaspora media operate as important cultural landmarks that mediate the representation of home and hostland identity, providing a rich set of cultural building blocks with which diaspora communities can identify. Indeed, comparative studies have shown diverse representations of Irish diasporic identities and history in Irish diaspora news media located in different parts of the world. However, to date much of the focus has been on the representations of historical events such as the Famine the 1916 Rising. What is not yet clear is how identity is represented in relation to contemporary news events. Using framing analysis this article compares how Irish diaspora news media located in different regions draw on Irish diasporic identity to represent the appropriate responses of Irish diasporans and Irish people to the Refugee crisis in 2016 finding that while there are some variances, a unifying message dominates.

    • On dependencies and opportunities: Examining networks of scholars in exile

      https://doi.org/10.1386/gdm_00018_1

      We present a qualitative network analysis (QNA) of fourteen scholars from Turkey, Syria and Yemen in exile in Germany. The QNA examined the strength and importance of the exiled scholars’ networks on their careers and modes of communication. While international mobility is typical in an academic career, an analysis of the networks of exiled scientists revealed major ruptures and changes in the networks of the investigated scholars due to their forced relocation. The analyses showed strong dependency of the researchers on the host nation, leading many to feel marginalized in their host country while having to sever relations with their home country, concurrently. Nonetheless, others were able to strengthen their position in their host nation by exploiting their previously built transnational and newly formed connections. We explore the vulnerability of the scholars’ networks in exile.

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