Title   Identidade cultural na (e em) rede : as redes sociais digitais (Facebook) como espaço de revivificação e afirmação da identidade cultural dos jovens migrantes portugueses, na Suíça (Original)
          Cultural identity on (and in) the network: digital social networks (Facebook) as a space for reviving and affirming the cultural identity of young Portuguese migrants in Switzerland (EN)
Author  Maria Carolina da Cunha Pinto
Advisor  José da Silva Ribeiro
Year  2017
Institution  Open University
Degree  Masters
Area  Intercultural Relations
Keywords  Internet, Digital technologies, Social networking, Cultural identity, Virtual ethnogtraphy, Migrant youth, Facebook, Switzerland
URI http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/6549

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the theoretical triad young migrants, cultural identity and social digital networks. Firstly, I intend to map the social and cultural uses of digital technologies – the Internet-within the migration experience of Portuguese young migrants in Switzerland. Secondly, I propose to understand the role of social networking, its importance and implications on their cultural identity. The Facebook constitutes the locus for the empiric observation based on open and flexible ethnographic method applied to a virtual environment. Due to the specific and hybrid locus, the Facebook, different tools and techniques to collect data are carried out such as: conducting a survey online aimed particularly at the diasporic Portuguese groups, participating in the observation of the young migrants’ chronologies and profiles and having semi-structured interviews online with the administrators of the observed diasporic groups. The obtained results reveal that the Portuguese young migrants are immersed in a digital lifestyle where technologies not only have a central role as means of communication and socialization inter pares but also are a crucial tool in the migration experience process. From a series of referred social networks, the Facebook is undoubtedly the most required one by the Portuguese young migrants to contact with both their families and friends in Portugal. Beyond the social, communication and interaction component of the network in study, there is a strong cultural component observed in either the diasporic groups organized to support the Portuguese migrant community in Switzerland or in the young migrants’ chronologies and profiles. These young migrants are members of those diasporic groups that perform a key role as means of communication and making public Portuguese events and festivals, they also seem to enhance the intensification of offline contact among the Portuguese young migrants. Lastly, the Facebook as a social network tend to assume that it is a symbolic and nostalgia place, a generator of the sense to belong to and cultural identity contributing to the revivification of Portuguese language and culture.