Third Spaces or Heterotopias? Recreating and Negotiating Migrant Identity Using Online Spaces

Abstract

A cyberethnographic (Robinson and Shulz, 2009) study of one friendship group reunited online after 20 years is presented.This study follows a group of eight migrant and non-migrant women living over three continents (four countries).The study uses data gathered over a period of one year from the archives of one ‘e-group’. Beginning with the notion of Babha’s (1994) ‘third space’ and cultural hybridity, the study examines the interactions of these ‘in-between’ subjects. The disjunctive notions of place, ‘other space’ and time are examined within this online site. The Foucauldian idea of heterotopias is offered as an explanation of this online ‘other space’ and of the migrant experience.