Migration and Diaspora in the Age of Information and Communication Technologies

Abstract

‘Migration and the Internet: Social Networking and Diasporas’ is an interdisciplinary collection that explores new emerging media and technological networks—developed by individual and family migrants—which help to construct transnational and diasporic communities. Despite the fact that there is an increasing interest in ‘migration’ and in ‘information and communication technology’ studies, this Special Issue of JEMS goes beyond mere description of the use and impact of the technology on human mobility. It provides an in-depth analysis of a wide range of dispersed populations—including Albanians, Arabs, Basques, Croatians, Han, Hindus, Kurds, Romanians, Turks, Salvadorans, Serbians and Sikhs—and their interactions with globe-spanning instruments of information and communication. The issue brings together some of the leading specialists at the crossroads of migration and emerging technologies. The collection presents empirical and theoretical essays from the social, political and behavioural sciences, while discussing the latest Internet-based research methodologies applied to migration studies.

Keywords:

• Migration
• Diaspora
• Transnationalism
• Social Networks
• Internet
• Internet Research Methodology

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Basque Foundation for Science for funding Professor Reips’ Ikerbasque Research Chair at the University of Deusto, and the European Science Foundation COST Action IS1004 ‘WEBDATANET’ (http: webdatanet.eu) for funding part of this research project.