Mobile Nomadic Digital Identity

Abstract

Discussing the concepts of nomadism and cultural identity is the threshold to understanding the dynamics of the digital world. Nomadism as a concept that refers to the common traits shared by wandering individuals who lack sense of belonging to the spaces to which they move or leave behind. For a nomad, cultivating a distinct identity is a remote possibility; the personal traits and tendencies of nomads vary whenever they move because coping with new spaces is vital. Considering cultural identity both as a term and concept, it refers to communal traits cultivated by the members of a certain community/society over long periods of time. Such traits, which are transferred from a generation to another, become the definitive characteristics stamping the members of that space. The article seeks to spot the conflicting attitudes between the concepts of nomadism and cultural identity in a digital context. In the light of the accelerating societal and geopolitical changes imposed by the dialectics of the current digital realm, Deleuze and Guattari‟s standpoint on nomadism and Hakim Bey‟s concept of temporary autonomous zone are expounded to unveil the complexity of cultivating a definite cultural identity in the modern digital era. Keywords: identity, deterritorialisation, re-territorialisatin, digital, space