6. Extended Family & Digital Diaspora (Winarnita--diaspora)

Recap

Previously, we considered the "ambient co-presence" and "polymedia" concepts. Anthropologists developed these concepts in studying how migrants, in particular, use digital technologies. Migrants connect with left-behind-children and other family members use Internet-enabled communication like Skype and WhatsApp.  They also use social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to stay connected. McKay, for instance, argues that 'likes' and 'tagging' Facebook posts compensate for the time the migrant misses with her loved ones. As mentioned, we could analyze the relationship between the migrant and those she's left behind as 'ambient co-presence'. We also described polymedia as the use of various 'platforms' (applications), and the emotional and logical reasons why we chose one platform over another. In this video, Monika does a quick recap:

Diaspora

Before we get on to understanding the topic of this week--extended family and digital diaspora--we will first look at the concept of "diaspora".  The concept is closely associated with Migration Studies. But, given the No one can ever agree on a definition in Anthropology, but this looks quite acceptable:

 "Diaspora is a term used to describe the mass, often involuntary, dispersal of a population from a center (or homeland) to multiple areas, and the creation of communities and identities based on the histories and consequences of dispersal". 

The definition might be too constraining. Anthropologist Paul Burke, for example, has published a book on what he terms the "Warlpiri diaspora". The Warlpiri people number just over 1000, so their diaspora is not 'mass' when compared. The above definition mentions "often involuntary". This problematic. It's difficult to determine whether a person was forced, or free, to migrate. But the migrations we consider below (from INdonesia and the Philippines) are mostly voluntar. Nevertheless, the dispersal idea seems to work well. Visit this link for more. 

In this video, Monika explains the concept diaspora in relation to a recent journal issue she edited:

It's relevant for this section's discussion that kinship connects with diaspora. For instance, Indonesian migrants in Australia sometimes refer to the Indonesian diaspora as a keluarga besar (big family). In other words, they see their diaspora as a form of kinship (as a family). 

Digital diaspora

To explain digital diaspora, we could turn to Laguerre. According to Alonso, Laguerre defines "digital diaspora" as:

 the use of cyberspace by diasporic groups, including immigrants or descendants of an immigrant group that uses IT connectivity to participate in virtual networks of contacts for a variety of purposes, for the most part, may concern either the home culture, the host culture, or both. 

We find that in his book Diaspora, Politics, & Globalization: 

Laguerre proposes a relationship among migrants and their home society that transcends current views in migration studies. The relationship among Haitians who live outside Haiti reflects a web rather than a radial relationship with the home country; Haitian migrants communicate among themselves and the home country simultaneously. In viewing the Haitian diaspora from a global perspective, the author reveals a new theory of interconnectedness in migration, which marks a significant move away from transnationalism.

Virtual diaspora

A competing concept that emerges out of the anthropological literature on diaspora is "virtual diaspora".  Laguerre is also a proponent of this concept. Virtual diaspora occurs when migrants: 

• engage in domestic and foreign policies of the hostland, and
• participate, via the Internet, in the political affairs of the homeland

This adds a new dimension to the transnational or even global architecture of national security. An example of virtual diaspora is the Indonesian Diaspora Network. This a formal organization first set up by the Indonesian Ambassador to the US. Members of this network engage in domestic and foreign policies of the hostland through cultural diplomacy while participating via the Internet (and on the ground) in the political affairs of Indonesia. One successful campaign was their lobbying the Indonesian government to create dual citizenship laws for all Indonesians. For more on digital politics, see this blog. And click here for more on the Indonesian diaspora.

Competing terms: Digital vs Virtual

It may be difficult to evaluate these different terms. Indeed you may be thoroughly sick of them! Generally, scholars who propose a new term which they think will better explain the same phenomenon. Digital Anthropology is a comparatively new field, the things we are studying are emerging and changing quickly. Moreover, Anthropologists, being keenly attuned to these changes, attempt to find terms that best describe what they experience doing fieldwork. The result is a competing vocabulary. Laguerre himself uses You only need to be able to dissect the differences between the terms if you are writing a research report or essay on this matter.

Extended Family members in the Diaspora: Ambient co-presence

The scale of migration in the contemporary world is utterly unprecedented. People dispersing to all parts of the world for various reasons seek to maintain a kinship network. To understand this, we turn to anthropological research specifically about the extended family who are dispersed, become part of a 'diasporic' community and how they maintain contact through social media. Here we provide examples of anthropological research by La Trobe's Makiko Nishitani (2014) and Monika Winarnta and Nicholas Herriman (2018).

Makiko Nishitani: Family Dramas in the Tongan Diaspora

Famous, currently infamous, Tongan,
Israel Folau

Tens of thousands of Australians have either migrated from Tonga or claim Tongan descent.  Mostly residing in NSW, they are famous as rugby players. There is, however, a small Tongan community in Melbourne. Active on social media, Tongans maintain contact with migrants in other parts of the world and in their homeland particularly important, with their extended family. Indeed, Nishitani (2014) describes their online practices as forming a Tongan diasporic public. By this, she means an online communication that is public to a certain extent. In conducting fieldwork she lived with a Tongan family in Melbourne with extended family in Tonga and in the diaspora. The examples she provides in her 2014 article are posts on social media that were discussed in the homes and over the phone. Social media posts also caused friction amongst family members. For example, an aunt put a photo of her nephew who is not yet potty-trained as a 'joke' to be liked by the larger Tongan diasporic public. This causes embarrassment to the mother who did not appreciate being the source of the public 'joke'. Another illustration of 'friction' due to social media posts was a young adult nephew who did not provide the proper monetary 'remittances' to his extended family back in Tonga. His aunt in Melbourne was so embarrassed at the behavior of her nephew that she reprimanded him online and paid the proper 'remittances' on his behalf. Although Nishitani did not specifically describe the social media posts in this article as an example of ambient co-presence, we can see how the Tongan extended family and relatives living in the diaspora are present online and affect relationships offline.

Here we see La Trobe Uni's Makiko Nishitani. She is interviewed by Moni about her research on family drama and Tongan kinship. Nishitani explains that we have to understand digital technologies in interaction with pre-existing kinship structures.

In her latest publication 'Love, duty and burden", Nishitani (2019) explores the sense of burden and duty in intimate relationships both nearby and distant. She analyzes this in relation to culturally specific family obligations that Tongan female migrants and their second-generation daughters as experienced in the diaspora'. Thus ambient co-presence characterizes relationships not just among kin but among a larger diaspora. 

Winarnita & Herriman: Fightback through Facebook

‘YESSSS. . . . . . . .YOU BITCH’. This was one of many confronting memes posted by women in a Malay community-based in Australia. Our research (Winarnita and Herriman 2018) focuses on women marginalized for being either divorce and/or a single mother. They live in a Malay community in Australia. In response to perceived local gossip, they use Facebook to fight back against local gossip. They also use Facebook to vent and seek solidarity. This is apparent in their expletive-ridden posts; various types of religious memes; and, female empowerment memes. They receive comments and often online support by extended family members in the diaspora; either in other parts of Australia, Malaysia or other locations in Southeast Asia. Although we don't use the concept of  'polymedia' in this article,  you can observe an ambient co-presence with other local Malays as well as the extended family in the Malay diaspora. All these people, in a sense, are 'present' in these women's Facebook posts. Here we talk about our research on marginalized Malay women in our fieldwork location: "Fight back through Facebook"

Memes

For more about memes, you can have a look at a YouTube version of this discussion specifically contextualized to how memes are used in Indonesia by Jo Byrne and Monika Winarnita in digitalindonesia.co

Refugees & the Digital Diaspora

Another focus of research in digital anthropology is refugees. As distinct from migrants such as the Tongans or Malays, those displaced and forced to migrate as refugees may physically be unable to return to the country. They are fleeing to seek asylum in another country where they can begin a 'new life'. Their family members may be dispersed to other parts of the world. Digital technologies enable them to maintain a diasporic community. These technologies can also mediate this sense of 'loss' by creating online communities to belong to, reconnecting and maintaining relationships severed by the refugee experience or geographical distance and recreating an imagined online homeland.

Eva Nisa: The Rohingya Virtual Jannah

Anthropologist Eva Nisa (2019) conducted fieldwork amongst Rohingya refugees in Malaysia. Nisa observes that the refugees can connect transnationally dispersed families through social media. They also create a virtual 'Jannah' or 'heaven' through an imagined Rohingya homeland that exists as a diasporic online community. “Virtual heaven” also refers to the connected presence and to the happiness and pleasure that Rohingya Muslims experience through using various communication technologies to ease problems their families experience on their journey to permanent countries of settlement. As refugees in Malaysia, they are able to have the means and access to set up a YouTube news channel RVision with stories of atrocities experienced by the Rohingyas including getting realtime reports by citizen journalists in conflict zones.

Eva offers an expanded view of the role of polymedia, illustrating how polymedia can support a variety of communication media users as they assume different roles. She quotes Madianou and Miller’s (2013) definition of the polymedia environment as an environment where communication channels proliferate and affect interpersonal communication:

 “polymedia is not simply the environment; it is how users exploit these affordances [apps, techonologies, etc.] in order to manage their emotions and their relationships” (172). 

Mediated communication is not only about access and cost but, as Madianou argues, “the theory of polymedia represents an effort to understand media as environments and their consequences for personal communication” (2014, 667). Young Rohingya Muslims in their twenties, use a wide range of social media platforms to establish a connected presence. They found an imperfect virtual metaphorical “heaven” (Jannah) by embracing the freedom to raise their voices through a wide variety of communication technologies. They have used social media to facilitate both the “doing” of family (Morgan 2011), as well as to speak out about humanitarian issues in both the virtual and nonvirtual public spheres.

Manipulated Digital Photos (Gifford and Wilding)

Other creative ways that refugees use digital technology is described in the work of La Trobe Sociologist Raelene Wilding and Sandra Gifford (2018). These authors describe how refugees use edited and manipulated digital photos of themselves. They superimpose the photos on to refugee camps and add missing family members. These images are circulated online. They do this as a way of telling their refugee story and their longing for missing family members and the home they can no longer return to. In other words, they recreate their refugee narrative. They may not yet feel they belong to a community in Melbourne but the technologies enable them to feel as though they belong to a larger Hazaran diasporic community. 

Wilding and Gifford also co-authored an earlier article with Zoe Robertson about young refugees in Melbourne who use digital media in response to the absence of their family members. They argue that new media help most transnational families to maintain a connected presence and “mediated co-presence,” but that “refugee transnational families are a clear exception, with both physical and mediated contact between kin living in refugee camps or in transit remaining limited, if not impossible”. Robertson, Wilding, and Gifford (2016) also discuss how digital media assist young refugees in Melbourne “to construct a family imaginary that serves to sustain a sense of family-hood in the context of ongoing separation”.

Anh Nguyen: Facebook photos of Vietnamese refugees

Similarly, Anh Nguyen, in her PhD work at the University of Melbourne did online and offline research with members of a Vietnamese diasporic Facebook group who uses photos and other multimedia posts to 'construct' a narrative of their refugee experience after the Vietnam war. She argues that this Facebook group has become an online space for a 'museum curation' of the Vietnamese diaspora with photos, locations of refugee camps and their experiences cataloged and archived online. Members of this Vietnamese diaspora Facebook group in Melbourne also did an offline exhibition of the photos and story that they had put up online, which Anh (2019) curated and published for an academic journal special issue creative section of 'Multimedia, Mobility and the Digital Southeast Asian Family's Polymedia Experiences.' 

So what?

Why is all this research significant? First, prior to the widespread use of the Internet, communications were:

1. cumbersome: you needed a telephone
2. expensive: You might have to save up for it.
3. intermittent
4. special: Planned for birthdays etc. 

Nick remembers how communications used to be:

I was an Honours student at Murdoch uni at the time, I think it was about 1997. But I lived near UWA. One of the public phones at UWA started working for free. I don't how or why this happened. In any case, word spread around Perth. I heard about it and went to try and call friends oversease. Howevever there was a long queu of migrants and I got tired of waiting. For a couple of months, whether night or day, you could a find a queu of migrants apparently calling international numbers to connect to loved ones there for free.

International communications are no longer like this. You can have people around you all the time; you are virtually present in each others' lives. Migrants and refugees can maintain almost constant contact with their loved ones and relations who may even be dispersed around the world. This seems to have emotional implications--it might reduce a sense of missing them or loneliness. Relationships are important to us--particularly kinship--can be maintained more easily. But maybe the technologies make us more lonely. Maybe they enable unwelcome surveillance.

Again, so what? Well, there is an economic implication. Let's say you're a mother with the possibility of emigrating for work for 5 years. That's potentially five years without seeing your growing children. You might say, "OK I'll relinquish my caring role for my kids to my sister, who will be with the kids every day. But at least I'll have a connection with them. So I will go." This hope enables Filipinas to emigrate to Canada; Guatemalans to emigrate to the US; Hungarians to emigrate to the UK etc.. There are huge economic implications for both the destination country and the home country.

And again so what? So now families are no longer physically proximate in the way they used to be. In the past, when we studied kinship we looked at families who often 'lived under the same roof'. Now families may be dispersed around the world yet virtually present in each other's daily lives.

Main reading

Winarnita, M & Herriman, N 2012. 'Caring & Family: Marriage Migration to the Malay Muslim community of Home Island (Cocos Keeling Islands)', Indonesia and the Malay world, vol. 40, no. 118, pp. 372–387.

Secondary Readings

Wilding, R. & Gifford, S. (2018) Social Media and the Refugee Experience: Young People Negotiating Displacement in an Age of Connectivity, In Transnational Migrations in the Asia-Pacific: Transformative Experiences in the Age of Digital Media Eds Gomes, C. and Yeoh, B., Rowman and Littlefield, 159-176. 

Wilding, R. (2012) “Mediating Culture in Transnational Spaces: an Example of Young People from Refugee Backgrounds” Continuum 26 (3): 501–511. 

Nishitani, M. (2014) “Kinship, Gender, and Communication Technologies: Family Dramas in the Tongan Diaspora”, Australian Journal of Anthropology 25(2): 207–222. 

Nishitani (2019) 'Love, duty and burden: Mothers' and daughters' engagements with familial obligations', Emotion, Space and Society, August 2019, Vol.32 

Anh Nguyen “Photo Essay: “Vietnamese Here Contemporary Art and Reflections” Art Exhibition, Melbourne, Australia, May 2017” Migration, Mobility, & Displacement 4 (1): 133-139 

Robertson, Zoe, Raelene Wilding, and Sandra Gifford. 2016. “Mediating the Family Imaginary: Young People Negotiating Absence in Transnational Refugee Families.” Global Networks 16 (2): 219–36. 

Mckay DCC. (2019). Ambient surveillance: how care-for-control emerges across diasporic social media. Ethnos. 

Eva F. Nisa, (2019) “Rohingya Muslims in Malaysia: Finding (Imperfect) Heaven in Polymedia” Migration, Mobility, & Displacement 4 (1): 85- 103

Laguerre, M.S.. (2010). Digital diaspora: Definition and models. 49-64

Alonso, A.(2010). Diasporas in the New Media Age: Identity, Politics, and Community. Reno: University of Nevada Press