Bittersweet Festivity

How do digital communication technologies mobilize the enactment of family celebrations in a transnational setting? This chapter unwraps the bittersweet moments of digital media use by migrants and their left-behind family members to enact intimate interactions during special family occasions. In the first instance, it showcases the joyful, creative, and customized moments embodied by transnational family members through the circulation of personalized messages and material gifts. However, it also exposes the frustrating experiences encountered by dispersed family members, as shaped by asymmetrical familial dynamics, economic status, uneven access, digital literacy, and technological parameters. Ultimately, this chapter opens a critical conversation on the paradoxical outcomes of the reliance of transnational family members on smartphones, social media, and mobile applications to reclaim and revive traditional and household celebrations in their efforts to sustain ties at a distance.