Networked gift-giving: Ethno-religious minority youths’ negotiation of status and social ties in a society of distrust

Abstract

The reciprocal exchanges of messages, likes, and pictures on social media are typical expressions of mobile youth culture. After all, it is well-established that young people’s disclosure practices support their efforts to maintain relationships, gain autonomy, and, by large, consolidate a place in the world. What is often missing, however, is an exploration of how the specific socio-cultural contexts of ethno-religious minority youths shape and are shaped by social media appropriations. Therefore, we conducted a 15-month ethnographic study among ethno-religious minority youths in which we investigated networked gift-giving practices. We stress the notion of “networked” because the results illustrate how these young people appropriate the amplified visibility of their relational maintenance behaviors on social media in order to negotiate status and social ties. We connect these findings to the concept of a “distrustful society” as the participants hold a general distrust in society due to experiences of racism and marginalization.