Making migrant identities on social media: a tale of two neoliberal cities on the Pacific Rim

Abstract

The copper mining city of of Alto Hospicio, Chile and GoodPath town, a factory city in China both seem to be archetypal neoliberal cities. They epitomize the circulation of goods, people, and ideas through their export-based economies, large migrant populations, and high penetration of Internet and social media use. Yet, we find that in migrants’ social media use, there are stark contrasts in the significance they place on their movement and the identities they form around these migrations. In China, factory workers take to the ‘online world’ to escape harsh realities and engage in identity formations that privilege cosmopolitan aspirations. In Chile, mining workers express the harshness of their lived reality, using social media to build identities around a sense of pride in their abrasive conditions. This comparative essay reveals how processes associated with neoliberal capitalism – including migrations of people, goods, and information, and the commodification of identities – is preconditioned by local contexts. We find that the processes of neoliberal capitalism sometimes yield starkly different consequences, even when local circumstances seem to be similar. This demonstrates that even as media (and particularly social media) connect people more closely, their effects are anything but homogenizing.