Asia-Pacific in the Age of Transnational Mobility
The growing mobility of people within and into the Asia Pacific region has created environments of increasing diversity as nations become hosts to both permanent and temporary multicultural societies. How do we begin to gauge the impact of mobility and multiculturalism on individuals and groups in this diverse region today? The authors of The Asia Pacific in the Age of Transnational Mobility turn to social media as a tool of inquiry to map how mobile subjects and minorities articulate their sense of community and identity. The authors see social media as a platform that allows users to document and express their individual and collective identities, sometimes in restrictive communication environments, while providing a sense of belonging and agency. They present original empirical work that attempts to help readers understand how mobile subjects who circulate in the Asia Pacific create a sense of community for themselves and articulate their ethnic, ideological and national identities.
Catherine Gomes is a Senior Lecturer at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.