Abstract
Although migration has long been an imperative topic in social sciences, there are still needs of study on migrants’ unique and dynamic transnational identity, which heavily influences the social integration in the host society. In Online Social Network (OSN), where the contemporary migrants actively communicate and share their stories the most, different challenges against migrants’ belonging and identity and how they cope or reconcile may evidently exist. This paper aims to scrutinise how migrants are manifesting their belonging and identity via different technological types of online social networks, to understand the relations between online social networks and migrants’ multi-faceted transnational identity. The research introduces a comparative case study on an online social movement led by Koreans in Germany via their online communities, triggered by a German TV advertisement considered as stereotyping East Asians given by white supremacy’s point of view. Starting with virtual ethnography on three OSNs representing each of internet generations (Web 1.0 ~ Web 3.0), two-step Qualitative Data Analysis is carried out to examine how Korean migrants manifest their belonging and identity via their views on “who we are” and “who are others”. The analysis reveals how Korean migrants’ transnational identities differ by their expectation on the audience and the members in each online social network, which indicates that the distinctive features of the online platform may encourage or discourage them in shaping transnational identity as a group identity. The paper concludes with the two main emphases: first, current OSNs comprising different generational technologies play a significant role in understanding the migrants’ dynamic social values, and particularly, transnational identities. Second, the dynamics of migrants’ transnational identity engages diverse social and situational contexts. (keywords: transnational identity, migrants’ online social networks, stereotyping migrants, technological evolution of online social network).
Highlights
Problem statements In migration studies, “transnationalism” has long been a widely used concept to explain the globalised social phenomenon taking place beyond the nation-state border (Vertovec 2007, 2009; Blommaert 2013)
This paper investigates how a migrant group can manifest their transnational identity in diverse ways by looking at a recent social issue alleged by a group of South Koreans in Germany via an online petition, which catalysed them to express their feelings of belonging, especially concerning the stereotyped image of East Asian migrants in Germany
The analysis of sentiments reveals the different bonds of the relationship among the community members, especially in consideration of the degree of emotions expressed in each Online Social Network (OSN)
Summary
Problem statements In migration studies, “transnationalism” has long been a widely used concept to explain the globalised social phenomenon taking place beyond the nation-state border (Vertovec 2007, 2009; Blommaert 2013). Taking a closer look into the everyday lives of immigrants in destination society, migrants face numerous challenges extended by those existing frames and strive to settle and shape their own identity in the way they can cope with the society where they (hope to) belong (Grzymala-Kazlowska 2016). In this process, migrants reflect their desires and agree with the given views from the people in destination society (Blommaert and Varis 2011). The fundamental reasons of such conflicts are mainly from the narrow and conflated understanding of migrants’ background through the typical images formed by ‘others’, who are the majority groups of the host society (Sarangi 1996, p. 7; Vieten 2014)
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