Diasporic sociality online: a rising ICT-dependent networking culture and its work-life boundaries

Abstract

本文指出一種由傳播科技中介的新興離散社群社交形式，分析傳播科技如何在新一代的中國移民中模糊他們工作與休閒的界線。透過訪談與參與觀察，本文的研究發現指出中國專業工作者由於其移民的經驗而有較為受限的人力資本和社會資本，這使得他們傾向利用非勞動工時在同族裔的專業工作者之中尋求社會資本。這些下班後的離散社交實踐具有幾種特點，包括：將勞動包裝為休閒並延伸至消費主義式的場景中、傳播科技在這些社交實踐之中的象徵性功能、以及扁平化的資訊傳播結構。

This research examines the role of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) in blurring work-leisure boundaries among a recent wave of Chinese migrants in Britain, identifying a rising mode of ICT-mediated diasporic sociality. In particular, it examines an emerging ICT-sustained after-work culture that extends their labor process into the leisure setting. Based on in-depth interviews and participant observation, the findings demonstrate how the limited human and social capital Chinese migrants possess encourages them to seek help for work and building client relationships within co-ethnic social ties through leisure events in non-working hours. This type of after-hours labor is discursively constructed as leisure and is characterized by its ICT-savvy sociality.