Reaching out for Greener Pastures

Processes of globalization as interdependences of flows of people, goods and know-how transform the experience of space and time on a societal and individual level. Social relationships and medial practices are being disembedded from local interconnections and embedded in a new way in transnational spaces and social and cultural contexts.

Regarding these processes of „disembedding-reembedding“ (Giddens) media is playing a crucial role. Within this setting the complexities of interactive media, as intermediary over spacial and cultural distance, with their specific technological features, shall be examined. Thereby I chose to concentrate on the so called “New Media” of communication, interaction and information, namely internet, and on their role they play within these transnational settings. The research refers to internet users in Bamenda, the Northwest Province in Cameroon, and, to a lesser extent, on Cameroonians in diaspora in Switzerland and Germany.

The main questions are the like:

1. How are the use of “New Media” (internet) and “practices of mobility” to be interrelated?
2. How do practices of use of “New Media” (as internet), and “practices of mobility”, influence sociality in that context?
3. How are respective processes of social and cultural negotiation reflected in the everyday lifeworld of people, on the local level and in media (and moreover internet)?

Given the transnational setting and the scope of “New Media”, which characterize them, I would like to capture media- and as well migration practices, as space transcending practices under the concept of “mobility”. I intend to look at “mobility” as  “practices of mobility”, the way how the users of New Media (mainly internet) transcend spatial distance in a “virtual” sense (flows of communication and interaction through these media) as well as in a “physical” sense, by migration practices. Most of all, I want to have a closer look on how these practices of mobility interrelate and how migration practices and the use of New Media influence and condition each other. Given the precepts of the space transcending quality of mobility practices, but considering the fact that these processes do not evolve within an undefined space, we need to “relocate” them and therefore pay attention to various locations where parts of these processes occur respectively. We therefore have to pay attention on media use on both “sides” or “ends” of the communication and migration flows which are established between “here” and “there”, in this case between Cameroon and Europe (Switzerland/Germany).

Furthermore we have to interrelate the specific qualities of the various “connections” between “here” and “there”, which may include social relations to friends, relatives, business partners, members of online newsgroups, but also “anonymous” interactions in the field of information gathering, and so on, with the specific characteristics of the respective media, namely internet. We have to ask questions related to the fact that social relationships of various kinds are shaped by being mediated through these media over a distance, whereas also “new forms” of “sociality” may appear within these media due to their specific characteristics. How are these transformations perceived by media users, are these media merely contributing to enhance and complement practices of interaction or are they related to qualitative transformations?

The questions relating to the “influence on sociality” in general lead to the respective processes of “negotiation”, we will have to look at. How do the transnational interactions and connections established and maintained through various “practices of mobility”, affect the everyday life of people on the local level, on both “ends”, “here” and “there” alike? In what ways references „towards the world“ are being changed? What new images emerge from that? How “culture” is being represented in different contexts? What discourses are being led in relation to that within media and on the local level?

Referent: Prof. Dr. Till Förster