Digital diasporas and the religious reproduction of "home"

• Main Author: WOODS, Orlando
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2022
• Subjects: digital diaspora; religion; migration; belonging; home; Religion; Sociology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cis_research/21
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The proliferation of the Internet, social media, and smartphones has ushered in a new era of social reproduction that is global in scope and rapid in its effects. This has brought about an epistemological reimagination of how “communities” are formed and maintained, of what it means to “belong,” and of what “home” is and where it might be located. Similarly, constructs like “religion” and “diaspora” have evolved and expanded in response to the mediatory role of the digital throughout people’s everyday lives. This chapter tracks these expansions and seeks to bring the idea of digital diasporas into conversation with the religious reproduction of home. It argues that whilst digital technologies provide displaced people with the tools needed to connect to, to claim and to contest the idea of “home,” religion can provide the motivation to do so. It offers both an overview of existing research that explores the nexus of the digital, the diaspora, and religion, and it identifies promising areas for future research.