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 to reconstruct images of life there‐and‐now. Since images of the homeland are chronotopic in nature, we argue that the reconstruction of these images can be understood as rechronotopization. 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.

How Exile Shapes Online Opposition: Evidence from Venezuela

“…Second, exiles should focus less on local domestic grievances and activism, both in response to their new position as brokers between the host and home country and because their knowledge of certain aspects of local politics may be less relevant (McKeever 2020; Yeh 2007). Although we expect this to be true even as online tools facilitate transnational connections (Karimzad and Catedral 2018), the extent may vary based on exiles’ perceived likelihood of return as well as the degree of censorship in their home country. For example, China heavily censors discussions of collective action but allows for the expression of grievances more generally (King, Pan, and Roberts 2013).…”

“…As McKeever (2020, 11) describes, “from their sanctuary, activists find they retain limited access to the closed political opportunity structure of their sending country but are offered a range of opportunities by their new host country.” Exiles are not able to engage in the forms of dissent that they may have done domestically, such as organizing marches against the regime or participating in formal political processes. Particularly without the ability to visit in person, their connections to local politics and constituencies may weaken, making them less engaged with on-the-ground events—even with digital technologies available (Henry and Plantan 2022; Hussain and Howard 2013; Karimzad and Catedral 2018; Kuran 1991; Pierskalla 2010). By leaving the country, their relative advantage in activism shifts to serving as “bridge figures” (Zuckerman 2013) between the host and home country, broadcasting messages to an international audience and brokering between previously unconnected actors and entities inside and outside of the home country (Andén-Papadopoulos and Pantti 2013; Koinova 2021; Moss 2021; Shain 1999).…”

The value of the homeland: Land in Duhok, Kurdistan‐Iraq, as territory, resource, and landscape

“…The notion of the “homeland” has typically been discussed as part of a binary, together with its opposite, “diaspora” (e.g., Berg 2009; Falzon 2003; Karimzad and Catedral 2018; Winland 2002). Such a perspective pays close attention to transnational dynamics, focusing on practices of home(land) making from a distance and thus attending especially to the first part of the term, “home.” The significance of the term's second half, “land,” has been much less central to the debate.…”

Uncertain Times: Linguistic Anthropology in 2019

“…The simultaneous development of new routes of migration and digital communications continues to draw attention. Drawing on Dick's (2010; see also 2018) discussion of migration discourse, Karimzad and Catedral (2018) think through the shifting chronotopic images of home for migrant Iranians and Uzbekis in the United States, and what they call the “re‐chronotopization” of those images as such migrants respond to digitally mediated communication. While Karimzad and Catedral are in essence challenging the sense of simultaneity and connection that is often claimed for diasporic populations via communicative technologies, Jacquemet (2019) points to the plurilingual interaction of such populations—or even more complex plurilingual networks of participants using digital platforms like Facebook—to continue to develop his approach to “transidiomatic fields” as part of a critique of the traditional concept of speech community.…”