ABSTRACT
Theories of Transnationalism focus on the macro economic reasons that people migrate to live in one country from another (Wallerstein 1974, Massey et al. 1993). Within studies on transnational migration, the focus has been squarely on how migrants ‘maintain a variety of ties to their home countries while they become incorporated into the countries where they have settled’ (Levitt and Jaworsky 2007: 130). In this paper, I argue that although many immigrants do have ties to ‘home’ and ‘away’ (or ‘sending’ and ‘receiving’ countries) they also have ties and orientations, manifested in everyday transnational practices of digital media use, beyond and between those two poles – to other ethnic diasporic communities in the world. To unpack this, I examine here how the globalization of the economy in Ireland and corresponding time-space compression in terms of transportation and communication makes transnational and cosmopolitan orientations possible for Chinese immigrants in Ireland (Vertovec 2004, 2009). I examine how the Chinese are seen in Irish society, the portrayal of Chinese in the Irish mainstream and ‘ethnic’ Chinese print media and then look at everyday practices and media orientations of Chinese migrants in Ireland. I look particularly at how Chinese migrants use digital technology in their everyday lives to maintain diasporic connections and identities while residing in Ireland.
