Filipino migrants in Germany and their diasporic (irony) chronotopes in Facebook

Abstract

This article explores Facebook's role in how Filipino migrants negotiate their diasporic chronotopes, that is, spatio-temporal constructions of their past/homeland and present/hostland. Specifically, focus group and digital ethnographic data with Filipino migrants in Germany are analysed using ethnography and discursive psychology approaches. Findings illustrate how Facebook enables Filipinos to re-enact and challenge past/homeland practices, which in turn help create a more meaningful present/hostland life. Facebook further facilitates the capture of conflicting yet socially consequential chronotopes – or irony chronotopes – that traverse and impact both offline and online dimensions of diaspora relations. Capturing such spatio-temporal interplays in migrant realities through social media provides a nuanced and dialogical view into migrants’ lifeworlds, looks beyond the communication role that social media play therein, and contributes to the digital media and temporal turns in diaspora studies.