Enclaved Belonging: Ageing Migrants Staying Connected by Consuming COVID-19 Information

ABSTRACT

This paper critically examines the ways ageing migrants perceive and experience a sense of belonging in a mediascape during the pandemic. It underscores how 15 elderly people from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds in Victoria, Australia stayed connected among their networks in and beyond Australia by accessing and consuming COVID-19 information via traditional and digital channels. By analysing the data based on conducting remote interviews in 2020 and 2021, the findings highlight the paradoxical nature of mediated belonging. On the one hand, ageing migrants forged connections at a distance with their familial and social networks by circulating and consuming COVID-19 information. This practice provided ageing migrants an assurance of their safety and their networks. On the other hand, differentiation and racialisation stirred frustrating, polarising and exclusionary-mediated environments. In this case, they deployed connective strategies to negotiate connections and belonging. In sum, this paper reveals the possibilities and politics of mediated belonging fuelled by intersecting structural and technological divides.

KEYWORDS:

• Media
• belonging
• ageing migrants
• COVID-19 information
• racialisation
• socio-digital inequality

Introduction

When you cook you seem to learn from your family. You do not open a recipe book on how to cook. Many of my Australian friends still open the recipe book like they really don't get it [referring to cooking a dish] until they open so they follow the structure. I don't do that. When my friends say, “Oh your food tastes so nice, can you give me a recipe?” I don't know how to give them a recipe because all this cooking it comes from learning from family, generation to generation.

The opening quote is from Maly, a 60-year-old Cambodian-Australia. While she was studying in a University in Cambodia, she met her husband who was assigned to work at that time. They got married in Cambodia and eventually moved to Australia in 1995. Upon arriving in Australia, she enrolled at a university to enhance her English skills. She took 510 hours of English class as part of the program provided by the Australian government to newly arrived migrants. She eventually obtained a bachelor’s degree in development communication. To date, Maly, who is already retired, is an active leader of a migrant organisation for Cambodians in Victoria, Australia. She has been organising and implementing various cultural activities to better support her community. She currently lives with her daughter and husband. Through her guidance and support, three of her sisters are now based in Brisbane. Significantly, Maly has a close relationship with her family members and peers. When she’s not busy organising events for Cambodians, she hangs around with her family at home. Her daughter and her partner, who are based interstate, sometimes visit her when they are in Victoria. However, during the pandemic, face-to-face interactions and travel were prohibited. As a result, she relied heavily on diverse media channels to stay connected with her family members and peers. Importantly, she achieved this by staying informed about the ongoing health crisis affecting Australia and the rest of the world.

The opening quote particularly highlights how close-knit and intergenerational ties shape the access and use of digital technologies. Maly’s statement was a response to an interview question on what online channels she accesses to consume COVID-19 information, using the metaphor of ‘cooking’ as a cultural and domestic practice. In addition to her statement, she also underlined that ‘ … people in Cambodian community they seem to believe information through their friends, through their network rather than through the professional government website’. Here, she underscored the potency of culturally informed and informal relations in shaping the consumption of COVID-19 information, maintaining connections, and in a sense, paving the way for belonging.

This paper critically unpacks how older migrants (65 years and over) utilise a range of media channels and content to stay connected during a series of lockdowns during the pandemic. I use the term ‘media channels’ to encompass an ecology of traditional and digital technologies accessed by the participants in a mediascape (Appadurai 1996), depending on personal, familial and social needs. As part of a pilot study designed to understand the ageing migrants’ everyday digital practices, the study engaged 15 older adults from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds in Victoria, Australia for remote interviewing – Zoom and a phone call – in 2020 and 2021. This paper particularly focuses on the ways ageing migrants use and access media channels and contents in maintaining connections and generating belongingness. Importantly, it pays attention to the case of ageing migrants in Australia, a group with an increasing population. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2021), there were 1.38 million people aged 65 years and over from CALD backgrounds. This cohort of people utilises a range of media technologies and contents as part of their everyday lives in a local and transnational domain (Millard et al. 2018; Baldassar et al. 2020). Notably, limited studies have been conducted to unpack the perceptions and experiences of belongingness among ageing migrants through media use during the pandemic. This paper, therefore, addresses this lacuna, diving deep into how ageing migrants sustain connections among their distant family members and peers by consuming COVID-19 information. This focus has been guided by these research questions: What is the role of the media in shaping the performativity and experiences of belonging among ageing migrants during the pandemic? What factors shape the uptake of differing media channels? What are the positive and negative outcomes of media practices? And what do these outcomes reveal about the complexity of belongingness enacted in a mediascape?

In analysing data, the paper applies two conceptual lenses on mediated belongingness. First, I deploy the concept of digital belonging by Marlowe et al. (2016). In investigating the ways young people use social media to perform family and friendship in New Zealand, Marlowe et al. (2016) have highlighted how belongingness is shaped by one’s identity as well as broader social and technological systems. They have pointed out the multiple and multi-layered dimensions of belonging (Yuval-Davis 2011) as performed, embodied and negotiated through digital connectivity. Second, I employ the conceptual frame of ‘digital kinning’, particularly building on the digital practices of ageing migrants (Baldassar and Wilding 2019; Baldassar et al. 2020). This articulation underscores the motivations and practices of ageing migrants in accessing and using digital technologies to perform their cultural identities and enact social connectedness. Furthermore, digital kinning illuminates the role of kinship in driving the everyday digital practices of ageing migrants (Baldassar et al. 2020). Nonetheless, both conceptual lenses have foregrounded how uneven digital access and competencies may impede the enactment of mediated belongingness.

This paper also prompts the politics of belongingness, especially in the context of the pandemic. It builds on how racialisation and differentiation impact mediated practices in the context of Australia. To begin with, I situate my provocation on mediated belonging within the broader domain of multiculturalism or as Colic-Peisker and Farquharson (2011: 580) wrote ‘an ideology that recognises and discursively normalises ethnic diversity’. In this case, scholars have discussed the hierarchical and exclusionary dimensions of multiculturalism as shaped by differentiation and racialisation (Harris 2010; Ang 2011; Colic-Peisker and Farquharson 2011; Yue and Wyatt 2014). In a media context, studies have exposed how migrants (Nolan et al. 2011; Hage 2014) and asylum seekers (Haw 2022) are ‘othered’ or misrepresented through the media. During the pandemic, the politics of multiculturalism is reflected in racism against Asian or Chinese migrants across media and digital platforms (Abidin and Zeng 2020; Ang and Mansouri 2023) as well as the deficit of the government on distributing culturally appropriate COVID-19 information among Muslims (Mamalipurath and Notley 2022). These outcomes reflect socio-digital inequalities where individuals can be excluded in digital spaces based on harms and risks as a result of their socio-demographic and cultural backgrounds (Helsper 2021). Subsequently, belongingness can be shaped by the various relations through which migrants associate themselves or connect with (Noble 2011). In this vein, echoing the articulation of Levitt and Glick Schiller (2004), the connections and interactions developed and sustained with a certain group can be changed over time and context. The outcome is differing media use that often forges, sustains and even undermines multiple interactions and relations (Collin 2014). Nonetheless, building on these articulations in analysing the data, the paper uses the term ‘enclaved belonging’ to critically reflect on the performance and negotiation of belonging that occurs in a mediascape (Appadurai 1996) as informed by intertwined structural and technological exclusion.

Locating (Un)Belongingness in a Migrant’s Mediated Lifeworld

A range of media channels enable migrants to stay connected with their family members, peers and the homeland, including transnational television (Naficy 2003; Georgiou 2013) and mobile devices and social media (Uy-Tioco 2007; Madianou and Miller 2012; Leurs 2014; Parreñas 2020; Cabalquinto 2022b). During a crisis, transnational television consumption (Georgiou 2013) and staying connected via digital and online media (Svasek 2008; Cuban 2018; Peile 2018; Cabalquinto 2022b) mobilise a sense of security and inclusion among migrants and their networks. As a form of distant crisis care (Baldassar 2014), migrants access essential information to make informed decisions for their safety and their distant support networks.

This paper seeks to explore the ways ageing migrants use and access a range of media technologies and online channels to stay connected with their family members and peers by consuming COVID-19 information. Multiple media devices allow dispersed individuals to enact connected co-presence (Licoppe 2004) or feel a sense of co-presence despite the distance. For migrants, digital technologies have been relied upon to stay connected with local and transnational networks, consume critical information and generate a sense of belonging. Noting this, I interrogate mediated belonging among ageing migrants. In the first instance, I approach belonging through the concept of ‘digital belonging’ by Marlowe et al. (2016). Building on the multi-layered dimension of belonging (Yuval-Davis 2011), they have underscored how belonging is shaped by broader social relations and technological affordances. They investigated the social media use of young people from ethnic backgrounds and discovered the multi-scalar use of social media in establishing family life and friendships. Through the affordances of social media, such as particularly allowing wider reach, visibility and temporal capacities, young people use online platforms to connect with their family members and peers. In the context of ageing migrants, digital belonging is informed by enacting cultural identities, kinship and social ties. The motivations and practices behind digital practices are deeply informed by the desire to connect to one’s roots, family members and peers (Baldassar et al. 2020). For instance, ageing migrants access homeland news on Facebook to stay up-to-date with their home country (Baldassar and Wilding 2019). In some cases, ageing migrants access the internet to maintain social networks (Khvorostianov et al. 2012; Millard et al. 2018; Baldassar and Wilding 2019). Through these cases, digital belonging reflects the enactment of cultural identities and social connectedness.

However, this paper also underscores a critical take on mediated belonging. It achieves this by inquiring how everyday practices of belongingness in mediated environments are shaped by differentiation and racialisation (Colic-Peisker and Farquharson 2011) as well as digital constraints (Wilding 2006; Baldassar et al. 2020). In Australia, the politics of belongingness has been unravelled by paying attention to the exclusionary and marginalising consequences of multiculturalism (Ang 2005; Harris 2010; Colic-Peisker and Farquharson 2011). In the first instance, multiculturalism refers to the demographic reality of diverse populations in Australia, an ideology to accommodate diversity, the policies to manage cultural diversity and the everyday practice of integrating people from diverse backgrounds (Colic-Peisker and Farquharson 2011). It has been designed to recognise diversity and therefore facilitate social cohesion (Harris 2010; Yue and Wyatt 2014). However, scholars have unpacked the politics of multiculturalism, showing how racialisation and differentiation trigger exclusion among migrants and communities (Harris 2010; Ang 2011). Here, an integrationist approach is designed to recognise and welcome migrants if these migrants align with the Anglo-Australian life (Harris 2010; Hage 2014). As a result, differentiation and racialisation stir the ‘othering’ of migrants in national media (Nolan et al. 2011). During the pandemic, certain migrant groups, such as those with Asian and Chinese backgrounds, were harassed in physical and media spaces (Ang and Mansouri 2023) and social media (Abidin and Zeng 2020), which may lead to non-participation in digital environments (Helsper 2021). In some cases, misinformation was weaponised to discriminate against migrant groups (Mamalipurath and Notley 2022). For those without stable access and technological competencies, following stay-at-home orders has generated isolation (Cabalquinto and Ahlin 2021). In these outcomes, we see how belongingness can be disrupted and become exclusionary as a result of a pre-existing and intertwined structural and digital divide (Helsper 2021).

Differentiation and racialisation have been interrogated by examining institutional and governmental policies and programmes (Colic-Peisker and Farquharson 2011; Nolan et al. 2011). More recently, studies have begun exploring how belonging is undermined through differentiation among migrants’ everyday practices (Harris 2010; Collin 2014; Khorana 2014). These studies have shown the multi-layered dimension of belongingness by showing how migrants create an inclusive and exclusionary space for diverse backgrounds. For instance, Chileans use social media to forge connections with Chileans and non-Chileans in Australia (Collin 2014). However, othering might also manifest among migrant communities, such as, for instance, when assimilated Indian and fringe intellectuals deride the behaviours of non-assimilated Indian migrant students (Khorana 2014). In these cases, we see how belonging or the act of associating oneself with a group is fractured and contradictory (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004). As scholars note, such complexity is shaped by the migrant’s changing inter-relations and affinities over time (Noble 2011). In this paper, I take this point in examining the ways ageing migrants enact belongingness in a mediascape or a scape comprised media technologies and contents (Appadurai 1996) at a time when COVID-19 information is key for staying in touch and navigating the safety of oneself and one’s distant family members and peers.

It is also important to point out that mediated belonging can be undermined by the interlinking of structural and technological divide (Helsper 2021). For instance, Marlowe et al. (2016) show how young people from migrant backgrounds remain out of reach due to a lack of basic internet access. Subsequently, Hargittai (2022) show that migrants and older people in the United States of America did not have stable internet access and digital competencies to stay connected during the pandemic. This echoes a range of studies on the digital constraints confronted by ageing migrants in forging connections (Millard et al. 2018; Baldassar et al. 2020). However, to overcome digital barriers, they involve their children or grandchildren to assist them in using digital technologies and accessing content in different contexts (Selwyn et al. 2016; Worrell 2021). In this case, we see how intergenerational support emerges as shaped by familial obligations, expectations and power relations. This shows how specific cultural value systems shaping everyday practices of connections and belongingness (Sokolovsky 2020). As presented in this paper, I expose how interconnected structural and technological disadvantages produce an enclaved belonging among ageing migrants in a mediascape.

Methods of Investigation

This paper is based on a broader study that unpacks the ways ageing migrants in Victoria, Australia used digital technologies and online platforms to navigate a series of lockdowns during the pandemic. It presents the data drawn from conducting remote interviews among 15 older adults from CALD backgrounds in Victoria, Australia in 2020 and 2021. The participants were interviewed in 2020 via a phone call (9) and Zoom (6). Ten of the fifteen participants were engaged in a follow-up interview via a phone call (5) and Zoom (5) in 2021.

The focus of the paper is older CALD people, aged 65 years and over. The participants were recruited by emailing several organisations for older CALD in Victoria. Snowball sampling was also applied. The participants had diverse backgrounds, but mostly from Asian backgrounds (13). Most are educated and relatively skilled in using digital technologies and online channels, contributing to the ways remote interviewing was conducted. There were nine female participants, and the rest were male. The majority of the participants were retired, with one working full-time and three working part-time. Four were living independently, and the rest were in co-residence with family members.

The paper foregrounds the ways the participants used digital devices and online channels to stay connected with their distant family members and peers during a series of lockdowns in Victoria, Australia by consuming COVID-19 information. The participants relied on a wide range of information to navigate their safety and their local and transnational networks. I refer to the COVID-19 information including news and other health-related information accessed by the participants through a range of media channels, including television, social media, group chats, online news channels and ethnic websites. Notably, Victoria had the longest-running lockdowns in Australia, with more than 250 days. In 2020, Victorians were allowed to leave their houses for four reasons, including exercising for a limited time, shopping for essential goods, providing care support and not being able to work or study from home. Going out to receive one’s vaccination was added to the rules in 2021.

The data were drawn from the questions on the participant’s broader media access and use. It also revealed the role of support networks in shaping the access and consumption of information about the pandemic. Initially, I identified and combined the similarities and differences in the data (Bazeley 2013). Codes were used to identify the media landscape of the participants, such as ‘media channels’, ‘digital channel’, ‘contents’, ‘positive impact’ and ‘negative impact’. Additionally, I also used codes that mapped the factors that shaped the positive and negative experiences of consuming COVID-19 information, including ‘cultural value’, ‘skills’, ‘family member’, ‘racism’, ‘materiality’, ‘local networks’ and ‘transnational links’. I incorporated and coded the data in NVivo. I worked on connecting the smaller codes to a broader theme (Lindlof 2019) such as the culturally- and racially-driven belongingness in media spaces. The findings reveal how the formation of differentiated belongingness is shaped by the participants’ access, literacy, local and transnational social circles, as well as cultural values. Included in this piece are selected quotes from the participants. The project obtained ethics clearance from the Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee (DUHREC), with number HAE-20-106.

Staying in Touch and Informed

During the onset of the lockdowns in Victoria, the participants followed stay-at-home orders. While at home, they consumed a range of media channels and content, becoming increasingly integrated into the rhythms of their everyday life. The participants accessed COVID-19 information from their television, newspapers, social media, messaging applications (Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and WeChat) and an ethnic website (SBS). The COVID-19 information reported the infection and death rates in and beyond Australia as well as health and lockdown protocols.

For the participants, accessing COVID-19 information provided them with a sense of safety. For instance, Vince, a 70-year-old Hong Kong-born, was updated about COVID-19 by watching television news daily. Living with his wife during the pandemic, he was religiously watching news updates from Daniel Andrews, the former Premier of Victoria. For him and his wife, being updated with COVID-19 was key in managing their safety. He said, ‘We feel very safe. I mean it’s different we are retired now so we don’t have to go to work. So, we can stay home and not worry about going out to work and all that thing you know it’s quiet for us it’s quite okay’. He also talked about the usefulness of accessing news information,

It’s helpful especially with the restrictions […] You know with the active sites you try not to go to those places, and every day there is so many new sites. You try to avoid them and tell friends/relatives about that you know.

As information was crucial for reflecting on and enacting mobility, Vince also reiterated the performance of a ‘good citizen’. He shared:

We are quite up to date with all these restrictions. You know what to do, especially with government messages about COVID. I think we are all up to it and we are very good citizens. We sort of do everything as the government want us to do you know.

The participants accessed online information to determine and assess how COVID-19 was impacting their distant networks. An example is Maly, whom we met earlier. During the interview, she confessed that she accessed social media to stay informed about the impacts of COVID-19 in Cambodia. She explained, ‘ … Facebook becomes really a big thing in Cambodia. Even sometimes the Cambodian Government, the Prime Minister, the Education Minister they're teaching online or whatever. So, I just want to see’. I then asked Maly the reason behind this practice. She reiterated, ‘Because most migrants that live here, and they still have homes back there’. Nonetheless, Maly’s practice reflects a form of mediated belonging (Ong and Cabañes 2011; Marlowe et al. 2016; Cabalquinto 2022b) by being informed about and connected to her homeland during the pandemic.

Belonging at a Distance

The participants utilised media channels to not only access COVID-19 information. Reflecting a relational choice of online channels and contents, they also used the information to make decisions and deploy necessary actions. By accessing the COVID-19 information, the participants forged connections, developed a sense of belonging and delivered distant care crises (Baldassar 2014) during the pandemic.

The first example is Edwin, a 66-year-old Indonesian-Australian. During the pandemic, he was living with his wife. His children were spread across Melbourne, New York and London. Notably, he had family members and relatives in Indonesia. Compared to Australia, Indonesia was hit hard by the pandemic. For Edwin, accessing news information involved searching for information about the impacts of the pandemic on Indonesia. He said, ‘To find out about Indonesian media, I read Indonesian newspapers online. I use Twitter to get more trending information, if I need to look for more trending information on what’s happening’. Importantly, he also used WhatsApp to learn about the welfare of his family members in Indonesia. He said, ‘We keep regular contact. They would mention if there were issues. They were quite concerned because they are under lockdown in Jakarta, but they would let us know they’re being careful’. In response to this information, I have shown elsewhere how Edwin regularly sent remittances to some of his siblings in Indonesia as a form of support and care (Cabalquinto 2022a).

For some of the participants, Facebook was used to engage and connect with peers. This was the case for Lothika, a 70-year-old Sri Lanka-born. Before the pandemic, he would regularly go back to Sri Lanka to visit his family and peers. However, visits were curtailed during the global pandemic. To sustain ties, he used Facebook to chat with his distant friends. The conversations were often tied to topics in Sri Lanka. He said, ‘I chat to friends all the time and it's good for you communicating with others and understanding them’. Importantly, similar to other studies that expose the role of social media in providing a space for migrants to connect with their co-ethnics (Komito 2011; Collin 2014), Lothika also engaged with other Sri Lankans and felt a sense of belonging. He shared, ‘I usually would comment on national information, articles about Sri Lanka. They are not my friends, some relations who are interested in Sri Lanka. Still, that's my mother country. I belong to that country and it's very, very nice’.

A messaging application was used by the participants to access COVID-19 information and connect with peers. This was the experience of Ella, the 65-year-old Taiwan-born, who was benefitting from using WhatsApp to connect with her friends overseas. She was receiving entertaining and informative COVID-19 information via WhatsApp, making her feel, in her own words, ‘very giggly and very happy!’. During the interviews, she highlighted the consumption of educational and entertaining content, I access Taiwanese information from time to time and they have a little mascot. The mascot is a little old man because the man in the picture hasn’t got hair. So, when the issue of toilet paper came about, they’re very cute, they just say ‘You have one bum only’. Ella was focusing on the creative campaign in Taiwan encouraging people to avoid panic buying toilet paper, which was rampant in Australia during the lockdowns. Additionally, she spoke about the circulation of memes shared by her friends with her on WhatsApp. Ella explained:

For example, you have a big mask but your mask is opened horizontally in the middle so you can eat with your mask on, and that sort of gave me lots of laughs for a long time. And another one is that we saw this woman carrying three children, one on the back, one in front of the handle and another one in her pouch, a person that’s riding with three children, you know, that type of thing. Very healthy by the way.

The three examples showed how accessing COVID-19 information allowed the participants to know the welfare of their distant family members and peers. The knowledge gained through information consumption was utilised to express distant crisis care. In some cases, accessing information about one’s homeland enabled sociality in mediated spaces and stirred a sense of inclusion. However, some participants also spoke about disruptive experiences in consuming COVID-19 information influenced by intertwined structural and technological disparities. Diverse tactics were deployed to sustain ties and foster belongingness. This is reflective of an enclaved belonging.

Unsettled Belongingness

Accessing pandemic-related information triggered frustrations among the participants. I noticed that differentiation and racialisation (Colic-Peisker and Farquharson 2011; Hage 2014) shaped these experiences among the participants. Furthermore, the enactment of entrenched and evolving forms of racism (Hage 2014) contributed to polarised and exclusionary mediated environments.

Studies have shown how ‘othering’ emerged by discriminating against migrants and migrant communities in media spaces (Abidin and Zeng 2020; Goggin and Zhuang 2023). This reflects socio-digital inequality wherein an individual’s experiences of exclusion in digital spaces are informed by their socio-demographic and cultural backgrounds (Helsper 2021). In Australia alone, there has been an emergence of research works that have exposed the increased discrimination among migrants with Chinese backgrounds, either in physical or online spaces (Abidin and Zeng 2020; Florez 2020). Interestingly, this study reveals the anti-Chinese sentiments of some participants, contributing to the exclusionary nature of digital spaces and enclaved belonging. For instance, Ella, a Taiwanese-Australian, believed that COVID-19 information in Australia was, in her own words, ‘filtered’. She made this remark based on her routine of constantly searching for COVID-19 information online. She said,

 … From YouTube and from Google I do look at them. I do look at the sources directly from them. So, I think information from my country [referring to Taiwan], it’s better to be from the first source rather than the filtered source in Australia. […] Taiwan was very successful of managing its coronavirus in the early stage. It was never mentioned in Australian media, but that’s okay, we know why.

I asked Ella, ‘Why’ She responded,

Oh it's a political matter. Well Australia does not recognise Taiwan. It’s not recognised Taiwan for a long time, and anything to do to say good things about Taiwan that means it’s offensive to China. However now after eight months or whatever I think the time might reverse.

By closely analysing the statement of Ella, we can tell her frustration against the Australian government followed by a Xenophobic remark. In such a case, it echoes what Hage (2014) coins ‘egalitarian racism’ or highlighting racism based on the unequal treatment of Australia to migrant groups.

Ella also spoke about her dismay on the ways the Australian government communicated lockdown protocols to Victorians. She was particularly pointing out how other young people from migrant backgrounds were disobeying lockdown rules as a result of the government’s deficit on circulating culturally tailored communication (Mamalipurath and Notley 2022). Furthermore, she highlighted the binaries of the ‘at risk’ and ‘risky’ categories for young and old people, which have been circulating in media reports (Cook et al. 2022). She explained:

Older people got the message. We’re all hiding indoors and wearing masks. We aren’t going anywhere. We’re scared of using the lifts because we know that lift is going to have a lot of contamination, the buttons they don’t want to push. Older people get the idea or the middle-aged people, not the younger people. Why? […] where I am we have a lot of African population here. We think most of the younger people are okay with the English but when I had occasion with the African younger people, when I say younger they’re probably in their early 40s, and they’re saying “What’s all this rubbish of isolating at home?”, “How long will it take?”, “When can we come out?”, it’s like the message is not there for them, they’re doing their distance because the law says you’re going to be fined to do it, they don’t have the appreciation of this pandemic crisis. So that’s not older people, that’s younger people to me.

Differentiation and racialisation, and the ways these factors produce an unsettling and enclaved belonging, have been evident in the ways the participants accessed information from their home country and assessed the welfare and safety of their distant kins. A case in point is Maria, a 65-year-old Filipina-Australian. During the interview, Maria spoke about her frustration and fear on what she called ‘The Chinese intervention in the Philippines’. During the pandemic, she was accessing Philippine news on SBS Filipino as well as on social media. In such a practice, she learnt about the growing number of Chinese migrants in the Philippines, as reflected in the presence of Chinese Philippine Offshore gaming operators and Chinese-only restaurants (Cabanes and Fernando 2022). Historically, the Philippines has had territorial dispute with China over China’s claim of the West Philippine Sea (Dreisbach 2019), contributing to the uneasiness felt by some Filipinos on the flows of Chinese people to the country. Maria’s sentiment reflected this:

They [referring to China] will take over the Philippines and become a communist country. Like for example, I read about the Duterte [The former President of the Philippines]. They borrowed money from the Chinese, then in exchange, we’ll be taken over. […] I think because he [referring to Duterte] is pro-Chinese people now. And also, when they said, the Philippines is in the news in China and the Philippines is the province of China. […] I’m worried about the Philippines becoming a communist, and they said there are Chinese ships in the Philippines and there are so many Chinese there, and they don’t stop them. That’s what I’m worried about.

The statement of Maria reveals the anti-Chinese sentiments in the Philippines during the pandemic. Her point on the Philippines as becoming a province of China, becoming communist and being colonised by Chinese people were reflective of what Cabanes and Santiago (2022) call ‘toxic nationalism and racism’ in the Philippines. Subsequently, her Xenophobic statements clearly demonstrate a form of ‘numerological racism’ (racism based on numbers such as ‘too many’) (Hage 2014), determining individuals who are deserving to be in the Philippines.

Meanwhile, discrimination against one’s countrymen was reflected in the interviews. For instance, Sonny, a 71-year-old Indian-Australian, was accessing news about COVID through online media. During the interview, he said, ‘I admire Indian leaders’. So, when I asked about how’s the impact of the pandemic in India, he expressed his frustration on individuals who are not following government rules. He said, ‘India is becoming number two in the ranking for COVID affected, next to U.S. […] Very dangerous and the people are fearing every day. They are not going out. But the people are not cooperating’. He also added his feeling of helplessness,

Well, it’s a sad part, that so many people are affected, but then this virus was like that, it was expected. Because it’s a very crowded country, and housing is not that open, like in Australia. So, it was expected to go like wildfire, and it happened. It’s a sad thing, but I don’t think much can be done.

In these statements, Sonny was pinpointing the fault to individuals and potentially overlooking the structural inequalities (Team and Manderson 2020) that shape the lives of those who are in precarious conditions during the pandemic.

For some of the participants, individuals were blamed for their religious bias and the circulation of fake news. This was the experience of Edwin, an Indonesian-Australian. Edwin admitted that he was part of multiple group chats on WhatsApp. But he mentioned that the WhatsApp group chat for his larger family group was a source of fake news. He also noted that the WhatsApp group had members and ‘Not many of them are highly educated’. Describing ‘Fake news is curse’ in 2020, he elaborated on how fake news circulate in the WhatsApp group, ‘ … sometimes they just tend to share articles and news information which you know is not true’. In my follow-up interview with him in 2021, he pointed the increased circulation of COVID-19 health misinformation. He explained:

My larger family group are quite religious, which is Islamic and Muslims. They would sometimes post things which are purportedly by a religious leader of some sort and claiming all these things about for example COVID misinformation […] because my family group appears to be very into health type remedies. You know there are lots of supplements and other remedies. So, a lot of this fruit will cure 100 illnesses, that sort of thing, so this food or whatever. So it is a lot to do with health.

In Edwin’s statement, we learn that consuming misinformation was linked to a religious bias. Misleading information was often trusted because of the default trust on information shared by religious leaders. However, Edwin’s statement also illuminated classed differentiation. He associated the consumption of misinformation with educational levels, indicating digital illiteracy influenced by an individual’s socio-demographic backgrounds (Helsper 2021; Hargittai 2022). It is worth noting that Edwin was one of the participants who completed a Doctorate degree on Information Technology and currently working on tech-related programs to assist various villages in Indonesia. Hence, he was observant on the circulation of misleading information in digital spaces.

These cases demonstrate the ways differentiation and racialisation informed the production of frustrating, discriminatory and exclusionary digital spaces and enclaved belonging. Additionally, these examples also revealed how the participants blamed and ‘othered’ individuals while potentially eliding the broader structural inequalities (Team and Manderson 2020) that produce unsettling conditions of individuals and groups.

Handling Mediated Unbelonging

During the conduct of the study, I noticed how the participants deployed strategies to ensure a positive experience of enclaved belonging. They managed issues relating to access, competencies and government deficit on producing culturally informed COVID-19 information.

First, one of the key concerns during the pandemic was the circulation of inaccessible and unrelatable COVID-19 information by the government (Mamalipurath and Notley 2022). During the interviews, some of the participants addressed this by accessing free online tools for language translation. This was the case of Mohammed, a 77-year-old Syrian born. He said:

I prefer to read in Arabic because I’m still thinking that my English language is not good enough. […] You know sometimes medical expression is far away of the public knowledge. I need official people to explain it. […] When I am interested in a subject, I can put it in a Google search or in the translator program and it gives me the translation immediately.

Through this practice, Mohammed remained updated about COVID-19. It also allowed him to share relevant information to his wife and to his children and grandchildren via the family group chat on WhatsApp.

Second, some participants managed the circulation of fake news in group chats. For instance, Vince, the 70-year-old Hong Kong born, talked about his strategy in identifying fake news and informing others about this information. He stated,

Because you can find out a lot of things, whether they are fake or not, you can go to [name of a website] and check sites – you can check whether it’s true or not. But some of them you can tell it’s fake outright because it’s so ridiculous. So, when I get the fake news, I will tell people not to go and keep circulating it.

In some cases, pre-existing familial structures undermine the flow of fake news. Earlier we met Edwin who spoke about the pervasiveness of fake news in a family group chat. Edwin admitted that he was less passive in calling out group chat members who circulated fake news, ‘I think I have done that once [calling out someone], very rarely. I am not very vocal in that group, just more follow them’. In this case, Edwin was potentially refraining correcting someone on misinformation in WhatsApp to avoid conflict in relationships (Malhotra 2023). However, Edwin highlighted the crucial role of his sister in calling out those who share fake news. He recalled:

Lucky my sister is quite good at that. So, when she sees someone posting something, she goes, here is the link to explain that that’s a hoax, it’s not true. […] She is the matriarch in the sense. She does also like the convenor of the group if you like. She keeps the group together and so she is very active and bringing the whole larger family together. So, they do respect her, and they do pay attention to her.

In the statement of Edwin, the circulation of misinformation was addressed by the dominant role of his sister. However, in his tone, he was also reflecting on the limitation of such arrangement. He said, ‘I’m sure that some of them ignore her because afterwards they would post another one’. Hence, he reiterated the need for educating people about fake news. He pointed out,

I think education is also probably important that we make sure that the more people who understand to make sure that what you see you understand and to query it before you believe it. A lot comes back to making sure that everybody has a good understanding and be careful about these. You need to make sure that everybody is more familiar with the risk of fake news.

Lastly, intergenerational relations helped the participants to overcome barriers in accessing and using media channels and contents (Selwyn et al. 2016; Worrell 2021). For instance, Dorothy, a 70-year-old Filipina-Australian, was receiving COVID-19 information from her niece, ‘Sometimes from the Messenger when my niece – she's really very fond of posting whatever is Daniel Andrew [the former Premier of Victoria] was announcing – and sometimes on TV’. In some cases, family members installed an online channel into their older family members’ mobile devices. This was the case for Rosa, a 79-year-old Macedonia born, and Lena, the 68-year-old India born. For Rosa, her daughter put SBS to her internet browser so she can automatically access coronavirus-specific information. She normally changed the language to Macedonia when she accessed the information. Meanwhile, for Lena, the 68-year-old Indian-Australian, news information was made accessible through her iPad. Her son, who gave her the iPad and installed the sources of news. She said, ‘My son puts the news in the iPad. Any important news will come up. Once I open the iPad it will come on the top, so I click on the current news. I get the news’. Indeed, intergenerational support represents a form of informal care expression (Yu et al. 2023), allowing others to be updated about COVID and be safe. Importantly, it enables ageing migrants to feel a sense of belonging especially when their digital needs and wellbeing are attended to.

Conclusion

This paper has underlined the ways ageing migrants used diverse media channels and contents to maintain ties with their proximate and distant family members and peers by consuming COVID-19 information. However, mediated practices have been shaped by racialisation and differentiation, leading to frustrating and exclusionary environments. Notably, ageing migrants manage exclusionary and disruptive aspect of mediated belonging through technological competencies and intergenerational support and solidarities in the household and in the community. These key points are reflected in enacting an enclaved belonging, demonstrating the role of specific value systems and cultural mechanisms in influencing migrants’ enactment of connections and belonging.

Future research can explore the formation of everyday belongingness beyond pandemic times. As a start, one can further unpack the experiences of ageing migrants who have limited, or lack thereof, access and competencies on digital technologies. This can enrich a nuanced understanding of social connectedness and belongingness especially among vulnerable individuals and communities. Furthermore, future works can further interrogate belongingness in a migration context through an intersectional lens and expose the production of marginality as shaped by age, class, gender and ethnicity (Thimm and Chaudhuri 2021). Nevertheless, as we navigate the uncertain world post-pandemic, we need to rethink what it means to belong especially in highly mediated spaces amplified by entrenched structural and technological inequalities.

Acknowledgement

I would like to acknowledge the participants who shared their stories on negotiating mediated belonging during a pandemic. I also would like to thank Professor Heather Horst, Professor Greg Noble and Associate Professor Sukhmani Khorana, who provided valuable insights on the earlier draft of this paper that was presented in the seminar series of the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University. Thank you too for the reviewers of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation Research Pilot Grant: [Grant Number 618575789].