ABSTRACT

The phrase ‘social networking sites’ suggested a strong affinity with the discipline of anthropology itself. Digital anthropology must constantly avoid the temptation to simplify or romanticise the predigital world. Social media has become one of the most conspicuous examples of the internet as representing ‘the death of distance’. Social media may form just one part of larger online projects. In many instances diaspora populations are trying to relate back to an original homeland that may have been destroyed, and part of their reconstruction as a community consists of the virtual reconstruction of their place of origin. Anthropologists alongside academics in other disciplines are also investigating the role of social media in situations of forced migration and displacement. Anthropologists often work with diaspora populations and have found that social media are just as important for longer-term sustained connectivity.