Digital Passages: Migrant Youth 2.0: Diaspora, Gender And Youth Cultural Intersections

325 Pages·2015·2.99 MB·English

by  Koen Leurs

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“This book analyzes data about the everyday digital lives of Moroccan- m
Dutch youth gathered by a gifted researcher over many years. A rich and ig edia
complex picture emerges, one that adds substantially to the existing it m
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scholarship on xenophobia, youth and social media, and identity. Strikingly l ter
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interdisciplinary, humane, and fascinating research from a nuanced P
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feminist perspective.”
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Lisa Nakamura, Gwendolyn Calvert Baker Collegiate Professor at the s
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University of Michigan, Ann Arbor g
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“His methods allow us to see these young people as agents who make :

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decisions in their media use and production. Overall the extent, depth
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and scope of this project makes it a strong contribution to the study of g
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youth cultures in global media contexts.”
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Radhika Gajjala, Professor of Media and Communication at Bowling n
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Green State University
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“Nothing else has been published on these topics that can match the rigour u
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and insight of Koen Leurs’ innovative book. Neither cheerleader nor nay h

sayer, he blasts apart every over simple assumption about social media in 2
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the everyday life of these marginalised and misunderstood young Dutch 0
people. It should be read by everybody interested in the power of network

technologies that have altered solidarity, place and belonging and are
now transforming the meaning of culture itself.”
Paul Gilroy, Professor of American and English Literature at King’s College
London.
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koen leurs is a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department Digital Passages:
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of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political

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Science. He is affiliated with the Institute for Cultural Inquiry and the
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Graduate Gender Programme at Utrecht University. ur Migrant Youth 2.0
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Diaspora, Gender and
Youth Cultural Intersections
Amsterdam
AUP.nl University
9 789089 6 46408 Press koen leurs
Digital Passages: Migrant Youth 2.0
MediaMatters is a series published by Amsterdam University Press on cur-
rent debates about media technology and practices. International scholars
critically analyze and theorize the materiality and performativity, as well as
spatial practices of screen media in contributions that engage with today’s
(digital) media culture.
For more information about the series, please visit www.aup.nl
Digital Passages: Migrant Youth 2.0
Diaspora, Gender and Youth Cultural Intersections
Koen Leurs
Amsterdam University Press
This book is published in print and online through the online OAPEN library (www.oapen.org).
OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) is a collaborative initiative to
develop and implement a sustainable Open Access publication model for academic books
in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The OAPEN Library aims to improve the visibility
and usability of high quality academic research by aggregating peer reviewed Open Access
publications from across Europe.
This study was conducted as part of the Utrecht University Executive Board-funded High
Potential project Wired Up: Digital Media as Innovative Socialization Practices for Migrant
Youth (2008-2012).
This research was also supported by a Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship within the 7th
European Community Framework Programme, project reference 332318 Urban Politics of
London Youth Analyzed Digitally (UPLOAD) (2013-2015).
This publication was made possible by financial support from the Utrecht University Library
Open Access Fund, Institute of Cultural Inquiry (ICON), seed funding by Cultures, Citizen-
ship and Human Rights (CCHR) and a 2013 Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Council for the Humanities Stipend.
Cover illustration: C215 - Mirleft stencil image
Cover design: Suzan Beijer
Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout
Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by
the University of Chicago Press.
isbn 978 90 8964 640 8
e-isbn 978 90 4852 304 7
doi 10.5117/9789089646408
nur 670
Creative Commons License CC BY NC
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0)
K. Leurs / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2015
Some rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, any part of
this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise).
Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations
reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is
advised to contact the publisher.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 11
Introduction 13
1. Online/offline space and power relations 16
Digital divides 19
Internet platforms as passages 21
Space invader tactics 23
2. Digital identity performativity 25
Micro-politics 27
Intersectionality 29
Digital identities: Materiality, representation & affectivity 30
3. Moroccan-Dutchness in the context of the Netherlands 33
Deconstructing labels 35
4. The transnational habitus of second-generation migrant
youth: From roots to routes 42
5. Hypertextual selves: Digital conviviality 47
6. Structure of the book 48
1. Methodological trajectory 51
1.1 Empiricism versus constructivism 52
1.2 The Wired Up survey 55
Constructing the survey 55
The power of definition 59
Survey sampling and access 60
Conducting the survey 63
Descriptive survey data about digital practices of Moroccan-
Dutch youth 64
1.3 In-depth interviews 70
Interview sampling 71
Doing interviews using participatory techniques 75
Reflexivity and power relations 80
Inside and outside school: The dynamics of interview settings 84
Selecting field sites 87
1.4 Virtual ethnography 88
Publicly accessible digital field sites 89
Accessing closed digital field sites 91
1.5 Analyzing informants’ narratives 94
Politics of translation 95
Coding 97
Feminist poststructuralist critical discourse analysis 98
1.6 Conclusions 100
2. Voices from the margins on Internet forums 103
2.1 Internet forum participation among Moroccan-Dutch youth 105
Marokko.nl and Chaima.nl 106
2.2 Theorizing Internet forums as subaltern counterpublics 110
2.3 Digital multiculturalism: “Not all Moroccans are the same” 117
Hush harbors 120
The carnivalesque 121
Networked power contradictions 123
2.4 Digital “hchouma”: Renegotiating gender 126
Daring to break taboos: “I just want to know what ‘the real
deal’ is” 128
2.5 Digital postsecularism: Performing Muslimness 131
Digital reconfigurations of religious authority 134
Voicing Muslimness 135
2.6 Conclusions 138
3. Expanding socio-cultural parameters of action using Instant
messaging 141
3.1 Moroccan-Dutch youth using instant messaging 144
3.2 Theorizing instant messaging as a way of being in the world 149
3.3 The private backstage 153
Conversational topics 155
Boundary making 156
Unstable boundaries: Risks and opportunities 159
3.4 The more public onstage 163
Display pictures and gender stereotypes 164
Display names and bricolage 165
A funky, informal writing style 169
3.5 Conclusions 171
4. Selfies and hypertextual selves on social networking sites 173
4.1 Moroccan-Dutch youth on Hyves and Facebook 175
Self-profiling attributes 178
Motivations 179
4.2 Theorizing the politics of online social networking sites 181
Templates and user cultures 181
Neoliberal SNS logics 183
Teenager SNS logics 186
4.3 Selfies and the gendered gaze 188
Selfie ideals 188
Meeting the gaze: Objectification and/or representation 192
Victimization and cautionary measures 193
In-betweenness 196
4.4 Hypertextual selves and the micro-politics of association 197
Cultural self-profiling as fandom 200
Differential networking 207
Cosmopolitan perspectives 208
4.5 Conclusions 212
5. Affective geographies on YouTube 215
5.1 Moroccan-Dutch youth using YouTube 217
The Ummah 218
Fitna 220
5.2 Theorizing the politics of YouTube 223
5.3 Theorizing affective geographies and YouTube use 226
5.4 Rooted belongings: Transnational affectivity 230
5.5 Routed affective belongings across geographies 236
5.6 Conclusions 241
Conclusions 243
1. Transdisciplinary dialogues 245
2. Methodological considerations 249
3. Digital inequality and spatial hierarchies 251
4. Space invader tactics and digital belonging 253
Bibliography 261
Appendix 1: Meet the informants 287
Index 315
List of figures
Fig. 1: “Mocro’s be like. Born Here,” tweet @Nasrdin_Dchar
(March 17, 2014) 13
Fig. 2: Geweigerd.nl website top banner (March 6, 2005) 15
Fig. 3: Google.nl search for “Marokkanen” (June 28, 2012) 17
Fig. 4: Internet map made by Soesie, a thirteen-year-old girl 79
Fig. 5: Word cloud based on all Internet applications included in
the Internet maps of the informants 87
Fig. 6: Four different approaches to discourse analysis (Phillips
and Hardy, 2002, p. 20) 98
Fig. 7: “Average Moroccan boys look like this,” forum user Mocro_s
contesting Moroccan-Dutch masculinity (Mocro_s, 2007a) 117
Fig. 8: “Average Moroccan girls look like this,” forum user Mocro_s
contesting Moroccan-Dutch femininity (Mocro_s, 2007b) 126
Fig. 9: Forum user Mocro_s contesting Moroccan-Dutch
religiosity (Mocro_s, 2007b) 132
Fig. 10: Cartoon Overvaren (in English: Sailing Across) (Rafje.nl, 2011) 136
Fig. 11: Screenshot of an MSN Messenger conversation with
twelve-year-old Soufian (July 22, 2011) 146
Fig. 12: Hyves groups thirteen-year-old Anas linked to on his
Hyves profile page (July 22, 2011) 173
Fig. 13: Facebook advertisements (advertisements appeared on
October 16, 2011, and January 11, 2012) 185
Fig. 14: Still from Bezems 2010.!! uploaded by user Bezemswalla on
YouTube (February 8, 2010) 195
Fig. 15: Hyves groups Midia linked to on her Hyves profile page
(April 15, 2009) 198
Fig. 16: “I’m a Berber Soldier,” archived from http://imazighen.
hyves.nl (September 19, 2009) 202
Fig. 17: “Error,” archived from http://trotsopmarokko.hyves.nl
(October 23, 2009) 205
Fig. 18: “100% Marokaan,” archived from http://trotsopmarokko.
hyves.nl (October 23, 2009) 206
Fig. 19: Still from Kop of Munt, YouTube video uploaded by MUNT
(October 20, 2009) 222
Fig. 20: Still from Marrakech, Morocco City Drive, YouTube video
uploaded by eMoroccan (October 8, 2010) 231
List of tables
Table 1: Time frame of different fieldwork activities 52
Table 2: Frequency of non-Internet media use among Moroccan-
Dutch youth (percentages, n = 344) 66
Table 3: The interviewees; names are pseudonyms suggested by
the informants 72
Table 4: The importance of online discussion forums in the lives
of Moroccan-Dutch youth (percentages, n = 344) 105
Table 5: The importance of instant messaging in the lives of
Moroccan-Dutch youth (percentages, n = 344) 145
Table 6: The importance of social networking sites in the lives of
Moroccan-Dutch youth (percentages, n = 344) 176
Table 7: Self-profiling cultural affiliations (n = 344 Moroccan-
Dutch and 448 ethnic-majority Dutch respondents) 208
Table 8: The importance of YouTube in the lives of Moroccan-
Dutch youth (percentages, n = 344) 217