Digital diasporas: accounting for the role of family talk in transnational social spaces

Focusing on the subjects of conversation between members of Mexican families in Mexico and the United States, this chapter explores the communication of diasporic families using a variety of information and communication technologies (ICTs), thereby calling for their inclusion in the study of digital diasporas (DDs). It argues that the talk of diasporic families puts into perspective a range of activities such as travel and remittance‐sending in ways that contribute to an understanding of how connectivity across borders breeds transnational social spaces (TSSs). Such an approach goes beyond the typical attention to the maintenance of affective relationships and the tendency of studies to emphasize either homeland or hostland orientations of DDs, whilst offering a method toward the fruitful combination of DDs and transnational studies.