Experiencing Homeland: Social Media and Transnational Communication among Kurdish Migrants in Northern Italy

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which experiences of homeland take shape through the use of social media among first- and second-generation Kurdish migrants living in Milan and surrounding areas in the Lombardy region of Italy. Drawing on a short-term ethnographic study of social media practices carried out in spring and summer 2018, the paper presents and compares the uses of social media among two migrant generations and conceptualizes homeland as a mediated experience that takes shape through people’s everyday social media practices. This approach to homeland can account for the multiple ways in which the affordances of digital platforms and the subjective aspects of homeland are interconnected with one another through social media practices. The paper is part of the Global Perspectives, Media and Communication special issue on “Media, Migration, and Nationalism,” guest-edited by Koen Leurs and Tomohisa Hirata.