Easy access: new dynamics in long-distance African intimacies Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • AbstractThis article examines how African transnational relationships in the twenty-first century differ from their manifestation in previous periods of mobility and long-distance intimacy. I argue that the possibilities for and expectations of immediate communication and co-presence facilitated by the current technological landscape distinguish this era from earlier ones and fundamentally alter the ways in which African migrants connect to those at home. Although timespace compression allows for the potential of new practices of virtual intimacy, it also creates an imperative of availability for migrants that is reinforced not only on micro- and meso-levels by families and communities but also on macro-levels by neoliberal state policies that target migrants as agents of development and providers of social services.

published proceedings

  • Africa

altmetric score

  • 0.5

author list (cited authors)

  • Hannaford, D.

citation count

  • 0

complete list of authors

  • Hannaford, Dinah

publication date

  • November 2018

published in