Increasingly, young people live online, with the vast majority of their social and cultural interactions conducted through means other than face-to-face conversation. How does this transition impact the ways in which young migrants understand, negotiate, and perform identity? That's the question taken up by Digital Passages: Migrant Youth 2.0, a ground-breaking analysis of the ways that youth culture online interacts with issues of diaspora, gender, and belonging. Drawing on surveys, in-depth interviews, and ethnography, Koen Leurs builds an interdisciplinary portrait of online youth culture and the spaces it opens up for migrant youth to negotiate power relations and to promote intercultural understanding.
Author(s): Koen Leurs
Series: MediaMatters
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Year: 2015
Language: English
Pages: 325
Tags: Media Studies
Cover......Page 1
Table of Contents......Page 6
Acknowledgements......Page 12
Fig. 1: “Mocro’s be like. Born Here,” tweet @Nasrdin_Dchar (March 17, 2014)......Page 14
1. Online/offline space and power relations......Page 17
Digital divides......Page 20
Internet platforms as passages......Page 22
Space invader tactics......Page 24
2. Digital identity performativity......Page 26
Micro-politics......Page 28
Intersectionality......Page 30
Digital identities: Materiality, representation & affectivity......Page 31
3. Moroccan-Dutchness in the context of the Netherlands......Page 34
Deconstructing labels......Page 36
4. The transnational habitus of second-generation migrant youth: From roots to routes......Page 43
5. Hypertextual selves: Digital conviviality......Page 48
6. Structure of the book......Page 49
1. Methodological trajectory......Page 52
Table 1: Time frame of different fieldwork activities......Page 53
Constructing the survey......Page 56
The power of definition......Page 60
Survey sampling and access......Page 61
Conducting the survey......Page 64
Descriptive survey data about digital practices of Moroccan-Dutch youth......Page 65
1.3 In-depth interviews......Page 71
Interview sampling......Page 72
Doing interviews using participatory techniques......Page 76
Reflexivity and power relations......Page 81
Inside and outside school: The dynamics of interview settings......Page 85
Fig. 5: Word cloud based on all Internet applications included in the Internet maps of the informants......Page 88
1.4 Virtual ethnography......Page 89
Publicly accessible digital field sites......Page 90
Accessing closed digital field sites......Page 92
1.5 Analyzing informants’ narratives......Page 95
Politics of translation......Page 96
Coding......Page 98
Fig. 6: Four different approaches to discourse analysis (Phillips and Hardy, 2002, p. 20)......Page 99
1.6 Conclusions......Page 101
2. Voices from the margins on Internet forums......Page 104
Table 4: The importance of online discussion forums in the lives of Moroccan-Dutch youth (percentages, n = 344)......Page 106
Marokko.nl and Chaima.nl......Page 107
2.2 Theorizing Internet forums as subaltern counterpublics......Page 111
Fig. 7: “Average Moroccan boys look like this,” forum user Mocro_s contesting Moroccan-Dutch masculinity (Mocro_s, 2007a)......Page 118
Hush harbors......Page 121
The carnivalesque......Page 122
Networked power contradictions......Page 124
Fig. 8: “Average Moroccan girls look like this,” forum user Mocro_s contesting Moroccan-Dutch femininity (Mocro_s, 2007b)......Page 127
Daring to break taboos: “I just want to know what ‘the real deal’ is”......Page 129
2.5 Digital postsecularism: Performing Muslimness......Page 132
Digital reconfigurations of religious authority......Page 135
Voicing Muslimness......Page 136
2.6 Conclusions......Page 139
3. Expanding socio-cultural parameters of action using Instant messaging......Page 142
3.1 Moroccan-Dutch youth using instant messaging......Page 145
3.2 Theorizing instant messaging as a way of being in the world......Page 150
3.3 The private backstage......Page 154
Diagram 6: Topics Moroccan-Dutch youth report to discuss (graph shows percentages, n = 344)......Page 156
Boundary making......Page 157
Unstable boundaries: Risks and opportunities......Page 160
3.4 The more public onstage......Page 164
Display pictures and gender stereotypes......Page 165
Display names and bricolage......Page 166
A funky, informal writing style......Page 170
3.5 Conclusions......Page 172
Fig. 12: Hyves groups thirteen-year-old Anas linked to on his Hyves profile page (July 22, 2011)......Page 174
4.1 Moroccan-Dutch youth on Hyves and Facebook......Page 176
Diagram 7: Moroccan-Dutch youth self-reporting SNS profiling attributes (graph shows percentages, n = 344)......Page 179
Motivations......Page 180
Templates and user cultures......Page 182
Neoliberal SNS logics......Page 184
Teenager SNS logics......Page 187
Selfie ideals......Page 189
Meeting the gaze: Objectification and/or representation......Page 193
Victimization and cautionary measures......Page 194
In-betweenness......Page 197
4.4 Hypertextual selves and the micro-politics of association......Page 198
Cultural self-profiling as fandom......Page 201
Differential networking......Page 208
Table 7: Self-profiling cultural affiliations (n = 344 Moroccan-Dutch and 448 ethnic-majority Dutch respondents)......Page 209
4.5 Conclusions......Page 213
5. Affective geographies on YouTube......Page 216
Table 8: The importance of YouTube in the lives of Moroccan-Dutch youth (percentages, n = 344)......Page 218
The Ummah......Page 219
Fitna......Page 221
5.2 Theorizing the politics of YouTube......Page 224
5.3 Theorizing affective geographies and YouTube use......Page 227
5.4 Rooted belongings: Transnational affectivity......Page 231
5.5 Routed affective belongings across geographies......Page 237
5.6 Conclusions......Page 242
Conclusions......Page 244
1. Transdisciplinary dialogues......Page 246
2. Methodological considerations......Page 250
3. Digital inequality and spatial hierarchies......Page 252
4. Space invader tactics and digital belonging......Page 254
Bibliography......Page 262
Appendix 1: Meet the informants......Page 288
Index......Page 316
List of figures......Page 9
Fig. 2: Geweigerd.nl website top banner (March 6, 2005).......Page 16
Fig. 3: Google.nl search for “Marokkanen” (June 28, 2012)......Page 18
Fig. 4: Internet map made by Soesie, a thirteen-year-old girl......Page 80
Fig. 9: Forum user Mocro_s contesting Moroccan-Dutch religiosity (Mocro_s, 2007b)......Page 133
Fig. 10: Cartoon Overvaren (in English: Sailing Across) (Rafje.nl, 2011)......Page 137
Fig. 11: Screenshot of an MSN Messenger conversation with twelve-year-old Soufian (July 22, 2011)......Page 147
Fig. 13: Facebook advertisements (advertisements appeared on October 16, 2011, and January 11, 2012)......Page 186
Fig. 14: Still from Bezems 2010.!! uploaded by user Bezemswalla on YouTube (February 8, 2010)......Page 196
Fig. 15: Hyves groups Midia linked to on her Hyves profile page (April 15, 2009)......Page 199
Fig. 16: “I’m a Berber Soldier,” archived from http://imazighen.hyves.nl (September 19, 2009)......Page 203
Fig. 17: “Error,” archived from http://trotsopmarokko.hyves.nl (October 23, 2009)......Page 206
Fig. 18: “100% Marokaan,” archived from http://trotsopmarokko.hyves.nl (October 23, 2009)......Page 207
Fig. 19: Still from Kop of Munt, YouTube video uploaded by MUNT (October 20, 2009)......Page 223
Fig. 20: Still from Marrakech, Morocco City Drive, YouTube video uploaded by eMoroccan (October 8, 2010)......Page 232
List of tables......Page 10
Table 2: Frequency of non-Internet media use among Moroccan-Dutch youth (percentages, n = 344)......Page 67
Table 3: The interviewees; names are pseudonyms suggested by the informants......Page 73
Table 5: The importance of instant messaging in the lives of Moroccan-Dutch youth (percentages, n = 344)......Page 146
Table 6: The importance of social networking sites in the lives of Moroccan-Dutch youth (percentages, n = 344)......Page 177
List of diagrams......Page 11
Diagram 1: Subcultural affiliations as expressed by the Moroccan-Dutch survey respondents (percentages, multiple answers possible, n = 344)......Page 66
Diagram 2: Locations where Moroccan-Dutch youth connect to the Internet (percentages, n = 344)......Page 68
Diagram 3: Internet application user frequencies of Moroccan-Dutch youth (means, 5-point scale, n = 344)......Page 69
Diagram 4: The attachment of Moroccan-Dutch youth to various Internet applications (means, 3-point scale, n = 344)......Page 70
Diagram 5: Attention for major news events on nl.politiek and Marokko.nl (adapted from Van Stekelenburg, Oegema & Klandermans, 2011, p. 263)......Page 115
Diagram 8: Reasons for participating in self-profiling on SNSs (multiple answers possible, graph shows percentages, n = 344)......Page 181
Diagram 9: Selfie ideals reported by Moroccan-Dutch youth (multiple answers possible, percentages, n = 344)......Page 190
Diagram 10: Moroccan-Dutch youth cultural self-profiling on SNSs (multiple answers possible, graph shows percentages, n = 344)......Page 205
Diagram 11: Geographical locations of music artists interviewees look up on YouTube (percentages, multiple answers possible, n = 43)......Page 238
Diagram 12: Geographical locations of artists interviewees combine in their YouTube viewing practices (percentages, n = 43)......Page 240
