Infrastructural evolution: the algorithmic mediation and the platform logic of irregular Chinese migration to the United States

Abstract

This paper theorizes the digital transformation of irregular migration as a process of infrastructural evolution, focusing on the quick surge of irregular Chinese immigrants undertaking the so-called zouxian journey to the United States via Latin America. Based on multi-sited digital ethnography and in-depth interviews, this study analyzes how social media platforms have become central to organizing, mediating, and sustaining transnational mobility. We highlight three dynamics that underpins this digital transformation in algorithmic amplification of migration-related content based on behavioral profiling, the circulation of user-generated content in incentive-driven knowledge ecosystem, and the emergence of social media platforms as de facto migration infrastructure that increasingly supplant and integrate traditional intermediaries. By bridging migration infrastructure theory and platform studies, this paper shows how algorithmic mediation is reshaping not only the routes and practices of migration, but also the power relations, temporalities, and epistemic structures through which mobility is imagined, enacted, and contested in the digital age.