Connecting Places, Connecting to Place: Migrants’ Use of ICTs for Exploring Lisbon

Abstract

This chapter provides an integrated understanding of the implications of the use of ICTs by migrant individuals as they explore the Mediterranean city. ICTs have proved crucial for the maintenance of long-distance familial arrangements, for the mobilisation of migrants’ social networks, and for managing remittances, but also for shaping migration decisions and the choice of destinations. Taking a different approach, we look at the ways migrants become aware of the city’s urban resources with the help of ICTs. To this end, we relied on a pilot study comprising in-depth encounters with middling migrants established in Lisbon between 2014 and 2019. Participants were also part of a four-week-long online focus group organised on WhatsApp where they shared ICT resources in “real time”, engaged in discussion among themselves, and responded to questions asked by the researchers. This chapter provides evidence that digital and urban resources are intertwined: that online navigation can actually shape the offline experience of using the city; and that the ways migrants portray the places they use – by posting, commenting, sharing, and leaving reviews online – add up to an ICT-supported imaginary of the city fed by residents, migrants, and other visitors alike.