Events

This workshop is jointly organised by the Migration Research Cluster, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences; the Asian Migration Research Cluster, Asia Research Institute; Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore.

New virtual spaces offer a great array of new opportunities and connectivities that increasingly influence and reconfigure the cultural, social, political, and economic environment we live in. The scale and speed of change triggered by new information and communication technologies (ICT) are unprecedented, and involve not only new possibilities, but demand fresh capacities and flexibilities for adapting to a constantly evolving environment. For mobile subjects, i.e. internal or international, translocal or transnational, short- or long-term or circular migrants, new media have a special relevance. Through new media platforms’ multifarious affordances, migrants can sustain multiple networks, access news on their home countries and adopted domiciles, and empower themselves with potentially life-changing information, in a manner not hitherto witnessed.

This workshop explores how migrants’ lives, practices, communication, networks, movements, and economic ventures are influenced by new media. It considers how migrants actively participate in and shape various virtual spaces, further questioning how their online interactions alter the contours of their everyday activities, societal integration, individual identities, and emotional bonds to the cities they migrate to or pass through. The papers of the workshop will shed light on the role of ICT use by migrants from various cultural, educational, professional, and socio-economic backgrounds, with differential levels of ICT access, and varying migration motivations and intentions, aspirations, and expectations.

At the same time, this workshop will bring together scholars who have analyzed the interlinkages between ICTs and migration in fast-growing cities. Marketing a city as a “connected city”, as “virtual”, “smart”, or “digital” has become part of the globalisation mantra, and the holy grail of “worlding” cities that many urban governments pursue. Through their diverse perspectives, background, needs, and experiences, migrants contribute to new debates on the city and to the construction of notions and images of the city. This workshop considers the influence that ICTs and their virtual spheres have on this physical space. It also interrogates whether there is a difference in terms of the relevancy and use of ICTs by migrant groups based on their origins or the cities that they move to, and through.

This workshop offers a multi-disciplinary perspective on the topic by showcasing research by communication and media scholars, geographers, sociologists, and anthropologists, all working in the field of mobility, media, and the city. More specifically, this workshop seeks to address the following questions:

1. How do new media (the internet and mobile communications) influence the inclination and decision to migrate, as well as the expectations, aspirations, imaginations, and constructions of the arrival/ transit city by mobile subjects?

2. What is the match/mismatch between the imaginative constructions of the arrival/ transit cities and the subjective “realities” that mobile subjects experience?

3. How are notions and images of the arrival/ transit city constructed in various virtual spaces that mobile subjects participate in, such as chat forums, blogs and microblogs, social networks etc.?

4. How do ICTs influence their bonding to, identification with, integration, adaptation, and identity building in the various cities they move from, through, and to?

5. How do ICTs influence the everyday practices of mobile subjects in the arrival/transit city and the creation of new translocal or transnational spaces?

6. How do new ICT devices and technological developments influence the above-mentioned issues?

REGISTRATION

All are welcome. NUS Staff and Students, please click HERE to register.
All other RSVPs and queries may be directed to fassmigration@nus.edu.sg by 30 Aug 2014.

ORGANISING COMMITTEE

Convenors

Dr Tabea BORK-HÜFFER
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
E| aritbh@nus.edu.sg

Assoc Prof Sun Sun LIM
Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore
E| sunlim@nus.edu.sg

Prof Brenda YEOH
Asia Research Institute, and Department of Geography, National University of Singapore
E| geoysa@nus.edu.sg

Secretariat

Ms Amy TAN 
Research Division, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore
E| fastxr@nus.edu.sg