Figured Worlds in Transnational Transmodal Communications

Abstract

With consideration of the increasing diversity, globalization, and digitalization that is so significantly impacting human relations and communication, this study, through the dual lenses of figured worlds (Holland, Skinner, Lachicotte, & Cain, 1998) and transmodalities (Hawkins, 2018), investigates transnational communications among youth. Specifically, the researchers explore how youth co‐construct meanings of selves and others and understandings of different ways of being, through video making and online communication across time and space. Through analysis of data from an out‐of‐school transnational digital storytelling project for plurilingual youth, the authors identify a series of transmodal moments and critical incidents that occurred in and across different figured worlds. The article considers how these transmodal engagements (re)shaped cultural and global understandings and relations, and demonstrates how the dual frames—figured worlds and transmodalities—can serve as heuristics for understandings of transmodal representation and transnational communication in digitally mediated spaces that are increasingly common in our world.