Chinese elite migrants and formation of new communities in a changing society: An online-offline ethnography

Abstract

The online-offline distinction is increasingly observed by academics and laypersons. How are the ‘virtual’ spaces intertwined with the offline physical world? What are locally specific meanings of the online communicative practices? And how do offline contexts shape online activities? Drawing on my ethnographic fieldwork among Chinese urban elite migrants, the study explores the ways in which new types of urban communities are formed as an outcome of online-offline dynamics in a rapidly changing society. The research starts as a ‘traditional’ ethnography focusing on the offline ‘natural habitat’ of the participants. However, the participants demonstrate that their virtual spaces are as important as their offline physical spaces; the online and offline spaces are growing into one lived reality, and the ethnographer is compelled to take into account the online in order to gain a rounded understanding of the participants’ life worlds.