e-Diasporas Atlas

International Conference on ICT and MigrationsUniversidad de Deusto (UD), Bilbao, November 10-12, 2010

Matthieu RenaultICT-Migrations Research ProgramFondation de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Telecom ParisTech

Exploration and Cartography of Diasporas in the Digital Networks(a project coordinated by Dana Diminescu)

Back to the beginnings…

2003: Dana Diminescu founds the ICT-Migrations research program (Maison des Sciences de l’Homme) grounded on her « The Connected Migrant – an Epistemological Manifesto »

2005: Special issue « Digital Documents: Archiving Methodologies and Research Perspective » in Migrance

http://www.archivesaudiovisuelles.fr/FR/_video.asp?format=68&id=895&ress=2870&video=6597

Creating a digital memory of migrations

First map: the case of the first website of « sans-papiers »(Pajol)

2008: the e-Diasporas Atlas selected by the French Research National Agency (ANR) – 3 years funding

The need for our own tools

The Methodological Chain

Web exploration - corpus creation

Equiped navigation: the Navicrawler

A tool developed by Mathieu Jacomy

Description/Classification

within the Navicrawler

… or without (in Excel)

An excerpt of the Hmong classified corpus

Prospection and Corpus Validation: crawling

Example of the Ouïghour section of the Atlas

Visualizing (spatialiazing) the corpus using Gephi

A project initiated by Mathieu Jacomy and developed by Mathieu Bastian

Semantic Analysis (Exalead tools)

Cultural References Geotagging

Enriched Data

Online Collaborative Platform

http://ks20876.kimsufi.com/eda_proto_final/

Corpus Statistics

Archiving (INA)

Archiving set up

Focused studies

Romanian embroidery in diaspora

Moroccan cooking blogs

Indian Diaspora Matrimonial Web

Palestine’s Virtual Borders 2.0 (Anat-Ben David)

Against the virtual/real dichotomythe « reinjection » of geography on the Web

Work in Progress (with Jasmina Maric)

New Developments: a Digital Toolbox

Developing « small applications » (on researchers’ requests)

Using Free Online Tools (collaboration with the Digital Methods Initiative)

http://www.digitalmethods.net/

Dealing with the Web 2.0: Data mining of Social Networking Platforms

Getting the social graph of a(consenting) user

Representing a Facebook group’s network

Combining Computer Sciences and Migration Studies

An interdisplinary process at every step

Involving the researchers on migrations in the conception, development, and improvement of webmining tools

« researcher- computer » interaction : the « expert » at the centre

« Incorporating » concepts of the humanities in computer systems

Developing digital methods in continuity with the « traditional » methods of researchers on migrations

Quali-quantitative methods

Articulating online and offline (fieldwork) researches

Providing an example for the others disciplines of social and human sciences

To conclude with…

4 Chapters: large diasporas, “dynamic” diasporas, virtual homeland, expatriates

6 classified, visualized and archived corpus (Moroccans, Turks, Alevis, French Rapatriates, Hmongs, Russophones )

9 corpus in progress (Jewish diaspora, Indians, Ouïghours, etc.)

… and some other researches to come (Africans, Chinese, Americans, etc.)

A structured network: ≈ 30 researchers/PhD students (from France and abroad) involved

Formations to our tools on a regular basis

An international impact

… forthcoming: the « actual » atlas:enriching the maps, producing narratives

Learn more: http://ediasporas.ticmigrations.fr

Thank you!

http://ticmigrations.fr/

What is an e-diaspora?

« where once were dispersions, there is now diaspora » TÖTÖLYAN K., “Rethinking Diaspora(s) : Stateless power in the transnational Moment”, 1996

« where once were dispersions, there is now the web »

e-diaspora (or digital diaspora) refers to the migrant communities acting through various digital media and especially on the web.

An e-diaspora is a distributed group [collectif distribué], that is to say a « heterogeneous entity whose existence relies on the elaboration of a common sense which is not defined once and for all; it is constantly negotiated through the evolution of the group » (William Turner)

Dealing with the Web 2.0

Web 1.0 working for diasporas

Migrant web 1.0 website acts as a catalyst of the scattered community compelled to organize itself (in forums, etc.) as a diaspora by borrowing the structure produced-imposed by the website and its managers

Centralized and one-corridor: home-country/host-country

Web 2.0 undoing diasporas

Large diversity of web 2.0 networked communities on various social platforms (blogospheres, Facebook, Orkut, YouTube, etc.) which do not necessarily « coagulate » in diasporas

Multi-corridors: multiplication of centers of authority and corridors according to activites, hobbies, etc.

Rethinking Space: towards a geopolitics of the web

The multiple meanings of web space:

•The web as space: language (websites,navigation) and topology (graph)

•The physical location of websites (servers)

•Websites’ owners and addressees locations

•Contents: name of places

•Geographic web information system (e.g. Google Maps)

•User-generated (spatial) content

•« International Relations » on the Web: country-code top-level domain name