Making digital ‘home-camps’: Mediating emotions among the Sahrawi refugee diaspora

Abstract

The concept of home relates to feelings of belonging coupled with emotionally meaningful relationships. In protracted refugee situations, the concept of home is re-signified by the material and symbolic conditions of living in exile. This article focuses on the Sahrawi refugee diaspora in the Tindouf refugee camps in Algeria to examine the role of emotions in the relationship between home and digital technology practices. Based on the narratives of Sahrawi refugees who were living in the camps at the time of the research fieldwork in 2016 as well as interviews with media activists, this article details Sahrawi refugees’ transnational dynamics in consolidating their camps as a home through feelings of digital connectivity. Thereby, it analyses multiple scales of digital home-making among Sahrawi refugees while exploring the ways in which refugees have generated emotional strategies to create a sense of home through their everyday digital practices.