Precarious Migrants in a Sharing Economy| #Migrantes on TikTok: Exploring Platformed Belongings

Authors

  • Daniela Jaramillo-Dent University of Huelva
  • Amanda Alencar Erasmus University Rotterdam
  • Yan Asadchy Tallinn University

Keywords:

immigration, TikTok aspirations, belonging, self-representation, governance, performativity, content analysis

Abstract

Digital media and human mobility are intrinsically connected in an era where the human and the technological converge for representation and agency. In this context, platforms such as TikTok become prime spaces for diverse creative voices. This study constitutes the first exploratory analysis of TikTok as a medium where migrants embody their belonging through aspirational, performative, and self-governance creative and platformed practices. Through a content and discourse analysis of 198 videos gathered with relevant hashtags, using a Python script, we delve into the content created by Latin American migrants in Spain and the United States. The concept of platformed belongings is theorized in their use of TikTok’s affordances and vernaculars to express aspirations to be part of certain socioeconomic, national, cultural, and digital communities. This is achieved through a range of storylines, from collective identities that align with expected values to stern challenges to oppressive norms. In this sense, we argue that platformed belongings enable migrants to reclaim their rights and negotiate existing symbolic boundaries by achieving different levels of visibility within this platform.

Author Biographies

Daniela Jaramillo-Dent, University of Huelva

Daniela Jaramillo-Dent is a Doctoral Student in the Communication Doctoral Program at the University of Huelva.  Her research explores discourse, representations and narratives about immigration on social media platforms. Her academic background includes undergraduate and graduate studies in Communication, Education and Leadership.  She currently collaborates in the Board of Management for the peer-reviewed journal Comunicar and is a member of Agora Research Group (HUM-648).

Amanda Alencar, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Amanda Alencar is a digital migration scholar specialized in the study of media and social media in Europe and Latin America, with a focus on how communication technologies are shaping mobility and sociocultural integration processes of (forced) migrants. She is Assistant Professor in the Department of Media & Communication at Erasmus University Rotterdam and Vice Chair of the Intercultural Communication Division within the International Communication Association (ICA). Amanda was a Research Fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre (Oxford University) and Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Amsterdam. She has recently guest edited two special issues in the (open-access) peer-reviewed journals International Communication Gazette and Media and Communication on the intersections between media, communication and forced migration processes.

Yan Asadchy, Tallinn University

Yan Asadchy, MA, is Junior Researcher and CUDAN PhD student, School of Humanities, Tallinn University. Asadchy’s research is part of the new CODAN program funded by the European Commission, which aims at building a new analytical approach termed “Cultural Data Analytics” that integrates quantitative and qualitative methods, including aspects of network science, complexity science, computational social science, science of science, machine learning, data science, design research, visualization, art history, cultural semiotics, digital culture studies, and creative industries’ studies to work with digitized cultural heritage as well as with born-digital data acquired from contemporary platforms.

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Published

2022-11-21

Issue

Vol. 16 (2022)

Section

Special Sections

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