Reach out when there is no way to reach: social media and migration activism in Italy and East Asia

Isabelle Cockel, Beatrice Zani

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter (peer-reviewed)peer-review

Abstract

When the coronavirus took the world by surprise and halted human mobility, living a life online, particularly on social media, ceased to be a novelty and became a reality for many people. Online technology and social media enhanced the connectivity of people across households within a country, and across state borders, and they were particularly utilized by migration activists to reach out to isolated migrants. During the pandemic, not only were migrant workers separated from their left-behind families but they were also abandoned or housed in questionable accommodation by their employers, brokers or states of origin or destination.

Conceptualizing the precarity in which migrants in East Asia and Italy found themselves during the pandemic as risk, this chapter investigates how they were exposed to a host of physical, mental, socioeconomic and health risks as a result of different mobility regimes adopted by Italy and East Asian states. Taking the experiences of migration activists in Italy and East Asia as a vantage point, we explore their online activism on social media at a time when they could only virtually, rather than physically, reach migrants and their families in need of help. While doing so, we also underline the contrast between online visibility and offline difficulties. Characterizing this as ‘heard but not listened to’, we show that online visibility may publicize issues that otherwise go unnoticed by mainstream society, but its effectiveness continues to be limited by offline difficulties centring on structural inequality between citizens and migrants.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationLiving Across Connectivity: Intimacy, Entrepreneurship and Activism of East Asian Migrants Online and Offline
EditorsBeatrice Zani, Isabelle Cockel
PublisherAnthem Press
Chapter8
ISBN (Electronic)9781839988875, 9781839988882
ISBN (Print)9781839988868
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2024

Publication series

NameAnthem Series on Global Migration in the Asia-Pacific Region
PublisherAnthem Press

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Reach out when there is no way to reach: social media and migration activism in Italy and East Asia'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this