The migration industry of connectivity services: A critical discourse approach to the Spanish case in a European perspective

Abstract

Abstract Contemporary societies are embedded in three interrelated processes: increasing mobility, digital connectivity and the consolidation of a service-based economy. In this context, a migration industry of connectivity (MIC) emerges as a set of private ventures offering services to migrants to enable them to keep in touch with loved ones at a distance. This article has a double purpose: first, it argues that the MIC is a powerful theoretical concept to analyse contemporary migratory processes. Second, it illustrates this empirically through ten company spokespersons’ accounts and a critical discourse analysis of eighteen corporate online texts of mobile telephony and money transfer services that target immigrants in Europe. Conclusions suggest that these discourses offer migrants alternative subjectivities across the lines of consumption, citizenship and ethnic identity, often neglected within the broader field of public discourses, such as the mass media and parliamentary debate. This situates the MIC as an emerging powerful actor in a discursive arena traditionally dominated by governmental bodies.