[Nettime-nl] Koen Leurs: Digital Passages. Moroccan-Dutch youths performing diaspora etc.

[Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl>]

Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2012 09:07:03 +0000
From: "Leurs, K.H.A. (Koen)" <K.H.A.Leurs@uu.nl>

Digital Passages. Moroccan-Dutch youths performing diaspora, gender  
and youth cultural identities across digital space
The book can be downloaded  in pdf form from: http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2012-0614-200543/UUindex.html 
<blocked::http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2012-0614-200543/UUindex.html 
>

Summary:

Digital Passages considers how the relations between gender, diaspora  
and youth culture are digitally articulated by Moroccan-Dutch youths  
between the age of 12 and 18 years old. Combining new media, gender  
and postcolonial theory, a transdisciplinary analysis is carried out  
of a young ethnic-minority population whose contribution to digital  
culture was undertheorized. In particular I explored how Moroccan- 
Dutch youths appropriate digital spaces in order to convey their  
belongings across multiple axes of identification such as gender,  
sexuality, diaspora, religion and youth-culture. The study was  
conducted in the context of Wired Up, a research project funded by a  
Utrecht University High Potential grant, bringing together humanities  
and social science scholars to analyze digital media use among migrant  
youths. Together with other Wired Up researchers, a large-scale survey  
was developed. 1408 students in seven secondary schools completed this  
survey. Furthermore, in-depth inte
rviews were carried out with a group of 43 Moroccan-Dutch youths, 21  
girls and 22 boys, between the age of 12 and 18 years old. Online,  
narratives were gathered through participant observation.

From the survey I learned that Moroccan-Dutch youths consider online  
discussion forums, instant messaging (IM), online social networking  
sites (SNSs) and video sharing platforms most important. These four  
types of digital space were analyzed on a case-study basis. Survey  
data showed computer ownership and Internet access is widespread among  
Moroccan-Dutch youths, however I revealed that digital divides go  
beyond ownership and access. Exploring how offline exclusionary  
mechanisms travel online and establish new digital divides, I  
unraveled how technological decisions and mainstream user preferences  
contribute to medium-specific spatial hierarchies. The focus was in  
fact on the ways in which hierarchies are subverted from below and how  
the medium-specificity of each of the four applications studied  
informs these processes differently. An inventory was made of space  
invader strategies Moroccan-Dutch youths employ to cope with multiple  
forms of inequality. With the title Digital Passages, I referred not  
only to their navigation across bordered digital spaces, but also  
capture the digitization of key identity formation processes such as  
voice, romance, affectivity and the negotiation of coming-of-age,  
gender, diaspora, generational, religious and youth cultural  
expectations. Rather than a straightforward continuation of migrant  
cultural legacies the informants are actively transforming those  
legacies in ways that resonate with the dominant local and global  
youth cultures in which they grow up.

My cartography of Moroccan-Dutch youths' multi-spatial digital  
identity performativity provides a history of the present full of  
promises but also full of personal experiences of struggle. The  
relationship between profit-driven digital templates and user cultures  
and conveying belonging across multiple axes of identification remains  
intricate and complex. At certain points, the private/public and  
online/offline world overlap or augment one another and at others they  
collide, providing room for re-signification. The boys and girls I  
interviewed are confronted with various aspects of Dutch multicultural  
society: while they are often considered the other, in their everyday  
digital convivial encounters they nevertheless also establish and  
connect new passages between their Dutch, Moroccan-Dutch, Muslim,  
gender, diaspora and youth cultural belongings.

I'm looking forward to receiving any comments and/or questions you  
might have.

Hope this is of interest,

Best wishes,

Koen Leurs

Koen Leurs, PHD | Utrecht University | Muntstraat 2a, 3512 EV Utrecht  
| tel. 030-253 7859 | K.H.A.Leurs@uu.nl | www.uu.nl/wiredup
www.koenleurs.net | www.digitalcrossroads.nl





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