Affectivization of borders in the digital sphere: migration-related online narratives in Argentina

Abstract

ABSTRACT The topic of borders is an active research area in Lotmanian studies. Starting from this scholarship, the article aims to open up fresh possibilities for interpretation of Lotman's spatial-driven theory, making it dialogue with the cultural affect studies and the current communication-focused research on the digital sphere. This theoretical framework underpins the case study covered in the essay, that is, the linguistic analysis of online narratives on migration during the COVID-19 pandemic – a prolonged situation of high-intensity relational affect in which emotions played a pivotal (agentive) role in the perception of a widespread and multidimensional crisis. Argentina is the cultural milieu of socio-semiotic scrutiny, in which distant reading and close reading cross-pollinate each other.