Digital Participation and Civic Engagement in Migrant and Transnational Communities The panel aims to address cross-border and grassroots (Isin 2008) modes of citizenship and civic engagement and to consider whether and how technology fosters, reproduces and changes the sense of societal belonging. Ever-evolving technology expands public space and thus the political agency. (Merikoski 2021). Participation through technology, often at a distance, challenges the habitual practices by calling for heightened awareness (Appadurai 1998), attribution of social meaning (Greschke and Ott 2020), and focused attention (Licoppe 2012), but provides new opportunities for participation. Digital participation goes beyond “just” being in the information field (Madianou & Miller 2013) and encompasses community, economic, cultural, political, and social activities (Telve et al 2023) on different scales: local, national, regiona,l and global. Digital participation is particularly important for transnationals (Bach. et al 1993, Baldassar and Gabaccia 2011), but it also empowers other societal groups lacking a voice through official citizenship conceptualizations (immigrants, asylum seekers, young people, etc.).
The panel invites to think along the framework of everyday citizenship ("lived citizenship") (Kallio et al. 2020). We welcome theoretical, methodological, empirical and interdisciplinary (applied) contributions from different fields, which highlight the ways of everyday societal participation through digital me. The panel seeks for nuanced understanding on a number of questions. How does the unequal access to digital channels and the digital competencies vary for different groups of migrants? What new forms and applications does national belonging take through the use of digital technologies? What are the current and future opportunities to participate in social life from a distance? How can we contribute from afar to the well-being of a community, a city, or a country?
Language of session: English.