Online mediations in transnational spaces: cosmopolitan (re)formations of belonging and identity in the Turkish diaspora

Abstract

The lives of transnational groups and individuals are marked by a spatial and imaginary split: a phenomenon wherein identity, belonging and representation have become increasingly elusive concepts, and the realm of the ‘cultural’ vastly important. And, the theoretical compasses of cosmopolitanism and transnationalism are particularly relevant and illuminating in considering social space, mediated communication and belonging in relation to urban diasporic communities and gendered subjectivities. The aim of this paper is to address expressions of identity and belonging at the intersection of online communicative practice and offline spatial formations, with a focus on the specificities of gendered constructions of sociality and subjectivity in the diaspora.

Keywords:

• cosmopolitanism
• transnationalism
• space and identity
• online social media
• mediation
• Turkish diaspora

Notes

1. Akin to Axel (2004), I take diaspora to mean a globally mobile category of identification rather than a community of individuals dispersed from a homeland; and, as constituted through a complex web of everyday social practices rather than displacement.

2. Svartskalle is a derogatory Swedish word, similar to nigger in effect, literally meaning black skull in reference to the darker hair color of certain immigrant groups.

3. Turkish migrants form neighbourhoods based on where they come from in Turkey