The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture, First Edition. Edited by Jessica Retis and Roza Tsagarousianou. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 12 Introduction In communication studies, diaspora has experienced a new revival through the link to new technologies and how these enable transnational migrants to connect around the world. In the social sciences in general and in communication studies in particular, diaspora studies have focused on discursive connectivity between migrants and the linkages to transnational economic, political, and sociocultural formations across borders (e.g., Alonso & Oiarzabal, 2010; Bernal, 2006; Brinkerhoff, 2009; Fortunati, Pertierra, & Vincent, 2011; Georgiou, 2006, 2012; Hegde, 2016; Kang, Ling, & Chib, 2018; Laguerre, 2010; Madianou & Miller, 2012; Mainsah, 2014; Mitra, 2001; Nessi & Guedes Bailey, 2014; Smets, Leurs, Georgiou, Witteborn, & Gajjala, forthcoming; Trandafoiu, 2013; Van den Bos & Nell, 2006). Since the early 2000s, research has increasingly examined the interrelation between digital and embodied spaces for migrant communication, while the concept of digital diaspora has taken hold. Laguerre (2010, p. 50), for example, defined digital diaspora as immigrants’ “connectivity to participate in virtual networks of con- tacts for a variety of political, economic, social, religious, and communicational purposes.” Diaspora has often been used as an orienting concept, referring to a collective commonplace, an experience and lived reality of clusters of co‐nationals living outside the country they were born in. At the same time, diaspora remains a an idea which has left open many questions such as what makes diaspora similar to or different from the term transnational migrant, why do diasporas tend to be defined as national or ethnic, and how does nationality and ethnicity interlink with gender, class, and digital grouping? Digital Diaspora Social Alliances Beyond the Ethnonational Bond Saskia Witteborn 0004269219.INDD 179 02/08/2019 10:16:23 AM REVISED PROOFS