Entre Presenças e Distâncias
o WhatsApp como Mitigador da Nostalgia na Migração Italiana Contemporânea
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1590/1980-858508803402013Keywords:
Italian migration, digital technology, WhatsApp, nostalgia, transnationality, affective relationshipsAbstract
Contemporary Italian migration to Rio Grande do Sul is characterized by the intensive mediation of digital communication technologies, particularly WhatsApp. Based on fourteen semi-structured interviews conducted between May and October 2025, this article examines how WhatsApp operates as a “nostalgia mitigator” - a tool that attenuates, but does not resolve, distance, creating a form of paradoxical presence: a mediated copresence in which communicational and affective proximity is intensified without suppressing the physical separation between migrants and their families in Italy. The study adopts qualitative thematic analysis to explore how instant messaging platforms constitute key digital infrastructures for the maintenance of transnational affective ties, the transformation of migratory temporalities, and the ritualization of long-distance communication. The findings show that digital technologies do not eliminate distance, but make it “habitable,” establishing a condition of mediated copresence that characterizes contemporary transnational fields.
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