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Creating immigrant identities in cybernetic space: examples from a non-resident Indian website

Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, USA

Looking at the Internet from the perspective of ‘voice’ and ‘space’, an argument is presented that suggests that the Internet offers the unique opportunity for marginal voices to be uttered in the public sphere. Numerous such utterances can begin to create a discursive space that eventually can become a ‘safe’ place for such voices. Finding such a safe space is particularly urgent for non-European immigrants in the Western hemisphere who are finding their identities being challenged and questioned following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. Using examples from a website for non-resident Indians, it is possible to demonstrate that an unique cybernetic space is evolving in the synthesis of the ‘real’ spatial location of the immigrants from where the ‘virtual’ space is accessed thus offering the immigrants an opportunity to comfortably share their multi-faceted identity narratives using their unique and non-editorialized voices.

Key Words: cybernetic space • immigrants • India • Internet • space • voice

Media, Culture & Society, Vol. 27, No. 3, 371-390 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0163443705051749


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