Digital Migration

"A revelation for digital researchers and a provocation for migration scholars… It introduces an insightful, inspiring, and inviting way of making sense of the messiness without losing hope of changing things."<br/> <em>- Nishant Shah, Chinese University of Hong Kong</em><br/> <br/> "A must read for everyone who is concerned with questions of human mobility, media and communications and the digital border."<br/> <em>- Myria Georgiou, LSE</em><br/> <br/> "A much-needed addition to scholarship on mobility, technology, and migration… The book is poised to become a touchstone text."<br/> <em>- C.L. Quinan University of Melbourne</em><br/> <br/> In contemporary discussions on migration, digital technology is often seen as a ′smart′ disruptive tool. Bringing efficiencies to management, and safety to migrants. But the reality is always more complex.<br/> <br/> This book is a comprehensive and impassioned account of the relationship between digital technology and migration. From ′top-down′ governmental and corporate shaping of the migrant condition, to the ′bottom-up′ of digital practices helping migrants connect, engage and resist.<br/> <br/> Taking an interdisciplinary approach, Digital Migration explores: <ul> <li>The power relations of digital <strong>infrastructures </strong>across migrant recruitment, transportation and communication. </li> <li> Migrant <strong>connections </strong>and the use of digital devices, platforms and networks. </li> <li> Dominant digital <strong>representations </strong>of migrants, and how they’re resisted. </li> <li> The <strong>affect </strong>and <strong>emotion </strong>of digital migration, from digital intimacy to transnational family life. </li> <li> How <strong>histories</strong> of pre and early-digital migration help us situate and rethink contemporary research.</li> <li> The realities of <strong>researching digital migration</strong>, including interviews with leading international researchers.</li> </ul> Critical yet hopeful, Koen Leurs opens up the unequal power relations at the heart of digital migration studies, challenging us to imagine more just alternatives. <br/> <br/> Koen Leurs is an Associate Professor in Gender, Media and Migration Studies at the Graduate Gender Program, Department of Media and Culture, Utrecht University, the Netherlands.<br/> <br/> All author royalties for this book will be donated to the Alarm Phone, a hotline for boatpeople in distress.