Maria Lucinda FONSECA, IGOT, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Franz BUHR, IGOT, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Amandine DESILLE, IGOT, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
This paper aims at providing an integrated understanding of the role ICTs play in migration trajectories as they unfold, before and after arrival. ICTs have proved crucial for the maintenance of long-distance familial arrangements, for the mobilisation of migrants’ social networks, and for managing remittances etc. Recently, scholars have looked into how ICTs also shape migration decisions and the choice of destinations. Taking a different approach, we will look at the ways migrants have used ICTs to imagine a future in Lisbon, Portugal, and at how they have become aware of the city’s urban resources with the help of ICTs and other locative technologies. For this end, we rely on a pilot study comprising in-depth encounters with 8 middling migrants of diverse origins but with similar levels of digital literacy, established in Lisbon between 2015 and 2019. Participants are also part of a four-week long online focus group organised on WhatsApp. Here, they share ICT resources in “real time”, engage in discussion among themselves, and respond to questions asked by the researchers.
This analysis will focus on the ways migration and emplacement are entangled with various forms of technology. As a port city, Lisbon may be considered a “contact zone” at the interface of the Mediterranean, European and Atlantic regions and migration systems. This pilot study will engage with the specificities of learning (to use) a Mediterranean city, and with how migrants connect different locales (translocalities) through the use of digital tools.
Mots clés : Lisbon|Mediterranean city|ICTs|migration imaginaries|urban space
A103684MF