Logged In: Portuguese Transnational Families and Communication Technology

Abstract

Up to 110,000 Portuguese a year left their homeland in the period following the implementation of Troika austerity measures. The UK was the most popular destination, with a third of arrivals now holding degrees- the highest proportion in Europe and double what it was 10 years earlier. This paper focuses on how the latest generation of transnational families use communication technology and digital networking at a time of swiftly evolving social and technological change. Drawing on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork with university-educated Portuguese migrants in London aged 23-40, and with their families in Portugal, I will explore how communication technology has shaped their experiences. Employing anthropological concepts of relatedness and personhood, I will focus specifically on the changing nature of transnational living in an increasingly polarised, neoliberal world and what it means to be a Portuguese transnational family in Europe in 2017.