“Come On, Put Viber, We Can Drink Coffee Together”: Performing (Im)mobile Intimacy in Turbulent Times Among Aging Migrants

Abstract

This paper critically examines how elderly people from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse(CALD) backgrounds in Victoria, Australia use visual-based platforms in navigating the lockdown in Melbourne, Australia. Based on conducting remote interviews among 15 participants in 2020, the findings show digital practices as integral to forge and maintain cultural identities and social connectedness. Using the mobilities perspective to interrogate digital behaviours, I coin the term ‘(im)mobile intimacy’ to articulate a sense of closeness enabled, felt and negotiated through modes of movements and stasis in and with online platforms. I contend that differential mediated mobilities and immobilities are informed by social, contextual, and technological factors, revealing the textures of affective and relational dimensions of enacting mobile intimacy. In sum, by locating both movements and stasis in digital environments, this paper sheds light on the (re)production of exclusion during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Researching (im)mobile lives during a lockdown: Reconceptualizing remote interviews as field events

“…To remedy barriers in digital communication, older migrants seek the assistance of family members and peers (Worrell, 2021), such as using technologies to access a range of information (Selwyn et al, 2016). This has also been the case for older migrants who sought the support of their family members in overcoming disconnectivity due to limited technological capacities during the pandemic (Cabalquinto, 2022a(Cabalquinto, , 2022c. Nevertheless, as will be shown in this study, the possibilities and limits of remote interviews among older migrants were shaped by the influences of social and technological factors on field events.…”

“…This article underscores the application of technologically mediated research methods in the study of the digital practices of older adults from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020−2021. We investigate remote interviewing that the first author deployed to study how older adults in Victoria, Australia utilized mobile devices and online platforms to sustain their social lives while following government-directed stay-at-home orders (Cabalquinto, 2022a(Cabalquinto, , 2022c. By mapping the integral role of digital technologies in data collection, this article inquires: What is the role of digital devices and online platforms in shaping the processes and outcomes of remote interviewing?…”