ABSTRACT
Transnational populations increasingly rely on the Internet to create and maintain links between sites of being and sites of belonging because it provides tools for establishing social relations across any distance. However, little is known about the implications of this fast-growing integration of Internet facilities into the everyday lives of geographically dispersed communities such as families or ethnic groups. This chapter introduces some emerging forms of global togetherness which are enhanced by the ongoing process of mutual integration of information and communication technologies (ICTs) with transnational everyday life. Drawing on data from multisited ethnographic research, this chapter discusses some results of a recently concluded study (Greschke, forthcoming). During the first phase of generating data from the virtual scene, the practice of interrelating local and virtual settings has emerged as a striking phenomenon within this field. In order to comprehend this multilayer techno-social formation properly, a multisited ethnographic approach has been developed which relates the data gathered on the online discussion forum to data which was collected face-to-face in some of the places of residence of some of the participants, i.e. in Paraguay, Buenos Aires, California and Germany. 1 I introduce an “ethnic group” that inhabits a common virtual space in the World Wide Web (WWW) while being physically located in various socio-geographical contexts.
