The connected migrant: an epistemological manifesto

Abstract

Current trends in thinking on contemporary migration (in particular, theories on transnational networks) agree that today's migrants are the actors of a culture of bonds, which they themselves have founded and which they maintain even as they move about. Formerly a latent feature but typical of all groups on the move, this culture of bonds became visible and highly dynamic once migrants began massively to use modern information and communication technologies (ICT). It is more and more common for migrants to maintain remote relations typical of relations of proximity and to activate them on a daily basis. The paradigmatic figure of the uprooted migrant is yielding to another figure: the connected migrant.