Digital Diaspora & Automediality: Indonesian Female Vloggers and the In-Between Space
The project focuses on the connections between digital media, migration, and diaspora by analyzing Indonesian women who migrated abroad and documented their lives through YouTube vlogs. These female vloggers undergo a process of self-formation with the constant need to narrativize the self through their vlogs. The research question is how they articulate a sense of in-between-ness between their homeland and hostland through their vlogs or their personal yet public diary.
The project aims to revisit the conceptualization of digital diaspora and automediality by utilizing ‘ethnography for the Internet’ (Hine, 2015). Data are collected through observation, participation, and “critical visual methodology” (Rose, 2001). Interviews will also be done to accommodate the flexibility of the field (online and offline).
The outputs are an article for journal publication and digital content(s) (Podcast recording and videos disseminating the research findings in my home institution’s Spotify and YouTube channel).
Research Results
The fellowship project, which is still ongoing, reflects on how digital media has transformed the way we understand issues of belonging in the complexity of migration. Previous scholarly works on digital diaspora have looked into how migration works in the context of digital connectedness. My work contributes to the discussion of diasporic agency in the digital age particularly on female (migrant) vloggers. As I “lurk” into the practice of vlogging on YouTube by Indonesian women migrating to European countries, findings show how they navigate the invisible border of their position as a foreigner in their host land. Building on Youna Kim’s (2016) insights on “imperfect belonging” as migrants are often neither here (homeland) nor there (homeland) and also Rita Budiman’s (2022) conceptualization of “digital homemaking,” vlogs have served as a means to occupy the digital space(s) strategically while helping them to manage the tension of multiple belongings.
Plenary Speaker at ‘Doing Cultural Research in the Global South’ (University of Melbourne, 18 April 2024). https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/asia-institute-cultural-research-activism-panel-discussionbook-launch-tickets-865189092867?aff=oddtdtcreator
Keynote Speaker at MEDIACON 2024 (22-24 August 2024): “Digital Diaspora and Strategic Belonging in Vlogging”
https://sites.google.com/petra.ac.id/mediacon/home
Main Research Topics
- Digital Media
- Popular Culture
- Identity
Curriculum Vitae
- Associate Professor, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia
- Head of Literature Postgraduate Program, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia
- Head of Film Committee, Jakarta Arts Council
Publications and Presentations
- Tambunan, S. M. G., Tirtapradja, W. A., & Steviro, A. (2023, May). Chinese Indonesians Stand-Up Comedians on YouTube: Laughing with or Laughing at. In fourth Asia-Pacific Research in Social Sciences and Humanities, Arts and Humanities Stream (AHS-APRISH 2019) (pp. 604-611). Atlantis Press.
- Tambunan, S. M. G. (2020). Linking Privatised Large-Family Domestic Space with a Public Audience: An Analysis of Housewives who are YouTube Vloggers. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 28(1).
- Tambunan, S. (2019, July). Authentic” Culinary Experience in YouTube Travel (V) log: Eating the “Other. In First International Conference on Advances in Education, Humanities, and Language, ICEL 2019, Malang, Indonesia, 23-24 March 2019.