Teng Zhang, MA
Rethinking Digital Diaspora and the Role of Social Media
In recent years, displacement due to war, instability, and environmental threats has increased remarkably. Once people left their homelands and migrated to a new location, they tend to form diaspora communities to preserve their cherished identity and unique culture. Meanwhile, their culture and lifestyle also tend to be influenced by their new friends as they actively integrate into local communities. Existing models concerning residential segregation (Schelling 1971), cultural dissemination (Axelrod 1997), and their extensions (e.g., Gracia-Lázaro et al. 2009, Liu & Lazarova-Molnar 2019) can already provide some useful perspectives on dislocated cultural minorities’ interaction with mainstream culture. However, the advance of communication technologies added another crucial layer to the understanding of this issue. Connecting with others has become increasingly convenient in this digital era, hence the advent of social media platforms led to the formation of “digital diasporas,” which enabled the dislocated to maintain an online community of diaspora culture (Mitra & Watts 2002, Diminescu 2008, Brinkerhoff 2009, Candidatu et al. 2019, Bernal 2020). While social networks can be formed, via social media, without the constraint of geographical proximity, existing theoretical works have found certain rules can govern their structural formation (Watts & Strogatz 1998, Barabási & Albert 1999) and their emergent complex properties (Granovetter 1973, Centola & Macy 2007, Christakis & Fowler 2012, Lerman et al. 2016). In this case, under the co-existence of a real-world layer and a virtual layer of people’s daily life, what role did social media platforms and algorithms play in the digital diaspora? Do they help preserve the diaspora culture? Do they create online segregation and cultural marginalization? Or do they accelerate cultural assimilation or integration into the mainstream? Building on existing theoretical works, it would be fruitful to rethink and theorize the impact of social media on the digital diaspora.
Kellie Roddy, MA
Recontextualizing Diaspora: A Comparative Study of Ancient Mexican Migrations
This paper undertakes a critical examination of the 'diaspora' concept as it relates to ancient Mexican migrations. Drawing upon an interdisciplinary approach, it dissects the complex movements of ancient Mexican societies and juxtaposes them with traditional diaspora attributes. In exploring these migrations, the paper problematizes the distinction between diaspora and colonization—two contrasting paradigms of human movement, often bifurcated by power dynamics. With the paucity of historical texts, discerning the subjugated from the subjugators becomes challenging in the archaeological past. Thus, the paper probes whether the characteristics of modern diaspora and colonization models can effectively elucidate the large-scale movements in ancient Mesoamerica.
Through this analysis, the paper underscores the need for an expanded conceptualization of diaspora to include various migration patterns and their resulting socio-cultural effects, providing novel perspectives on both ancient and contemporary migratory phenomena. Ultimately, it asserts the significance of interpreting these movements within their specific cultural and historical contexts, enriching our interdisciplinary understanding of displacement and diaspora. This paper serves as a call to reconceptualize diaspora, bridging the chasm between the ancient past and our modern world, fostering a more holistic comprehension of human migration patterns.
Teng Zhang, MA
Teng Zhang is currently a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Kansas State University. He received his MA in economics from the University of British Columbia, Canada, and BA in mathematics from Wheaton College, U.S. His research interests include social networks, sociology of culture, and computational social science.
Kellie Roddy, MA
Kellie Roddy is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She earned her M.A. in Archaeology from UCLA and dual Bachelor's degrees from Brown University in Archaeology of the Ancient World and History of Art. Her research is primarily centered around political systems, social organization, identity, migration, cuisine, and foodways, particularly with a focus on West Mexico. She has gained extensive archaeological experience by conducting fieldwork across the U.S. Southwest, Mexico, and Peru. Publications include "Arqueología de los hogares tempranos en la periferia del sitio Los Guachimontones, Jalisco," submitted to the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Mexico; and "El Infiernito: Investigaciones Arqueologicas in Proyecto Arqueologico Busilja-Chocolja: Informe de la Septima Temporada de Investigacion” submitted to the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Mexico.
