Educational Migrants,ICTs and Socio-Spatial Relationships: Establishing Presence from a Distance

Abstract

Previous research on transnational migration and information and communication technologies (ICTs) demonstrated how ICTs shape transnational social relationships. What remains less explored is how ICTs shape spatial dimensions of such relationships. Also, international educational migrants constitute a substantial part of transnational migration flow, yet their everyday lives are not well studied. Building upon material semiotic scholarship, we examine how ICTs shape socio-spatial dimensions of transnational relationships in the lives of educational migrants, and the impacts that such relationships have on their everyday lives. This research is based on the empirical exploration of 21 in-depth interviews with educational migrants who came from Central Asian and African countries to the Netherlands. We show that spatial relationships, such as co-presence and distance, are not naturally ‘given’ but are instead enacted in heterogeneous communication practices of educational migrants, and these relationships produce both enabling and constraining effects on their everyday lives.

Introduction

The number of educational migrants, those who travel internationally to acquire academic degrees, has increased rapidly in recent decades. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation Institute of Statistics, it reached 1.3 million in the decade before the 1990s and, in the following two decades, it tripled to 3.4 million (Chien and Kot, 2012). Subsequently, educational migrants have become an increasingly substantial part of transnational migration (Raghuram, 2013).

Despite this growth, educational migrants’ everyday lives, struggles and mobilities are not well studied. When they are studied, the main focus thus far has been on their opportunities to benefit from study opportunities abroad (Mazzarol and Soutar, 2002; Naidoo, 2010) and the challenges faced by both students and lecturers within increasingly international classrooms (Carroll and Ryan, 2007). However, as Waters showed, these new student mobilities come with important downsides and can reproduce inequalities (Waters, 2012). The everyday complexities of students’ mobility outside of their academic activities are less explored, possibly because they are typically perceived as belonging to the elites of their countries of origin, as well as amongst migrants (Brooks and Waters, 2011). Yet, like other international migrants they remain bound to their countries of origin in many ways when pursuing their degrees (Saxenian, 2002). Relationships with loved ones especially shape such continued attachments to places. Whilst they are not typically perceived as being parents, some of them are (Raghuram, 2013). Also, they often leave behind partners, friends, parents, siblings, children, and other family members for a prolonged period of time and maintain their social networks with the assistance of information and communication technologies (ICTs), in what Madianou and Miller (2012) termed the ‘polymedia environment’.

The profound effects of ICT developments, which allow migrants a greater frequency of contact through greater ease, access or reduced cost on transnational social relationships, have been widely acknowledged, as evidenced by a recent special issue of Global Networks dedicated to the theme (Baldassar et al., 2016). It was more than a decade ago that the low-cost availability of pre-paid calling cards for transnational migrants was found as one of the most significant achievements in retaining transnational household communication (Vertovec, 2004). This was confirmed elsewhere (e.g., Horst, 2006; Wilding, 2006). ICTs play a crucial role in maintaining transnational parenting relationships (Baldassar, 2016; Carling et al., 2012; Leifsen and Tymczuk, 2012; Madianou and Miller, 2011, 2012, 2013; Parreñas, 2001, 2005, 2008). For example, with new ICTs, family routines and celebrations can be shared by family members living far apart (Baldassar, 2016; Benítez, 2006; Nedelcu, 2012).

ICT developments are not necessarily positive in transnational social relationships. Different generations, cultural values, class and access shape ICT practices in ways that can be incompatible with each other, or that generate inequalities (Panagakos and Horst, 2006). Also, spending time on relationships with people in the country of origin may be done at the expense of connecting with people locally. As Turkle (2011) attested, ICTs not only facilitate life but also concurrently increase the amount of time that we are being ‘there but not there’, which, in the case of migrants, may reinforce the figure of the ‘double absent’ migrant (Sayad, 1999). Benítez (2012: 1443) pointed out that the intimacy achieved through ICT is not to be overestimated: ‘migrants are reluctant to talk with their family members back home about the reality of their experiences, the hardships and the problems they face in the host country’. Furthermore, the research on transnational communication amongst transnational Filipino families has shown that mobile phones actually tie migrant mothers to their traditional gender roles (Parreñas, 2005).

Communication technologies shape not only social but also spatial relationships in complex ways. Physical closeness is commonly seen as a requirement for activities such as caressing and feeding, as well as the attentiveness that precedes it. However, care can also be performed over distances, mediated by technologies (Baldassar, 2016; Baldassar et al., 2007; Madianou and Miller, 2012; Pols, 2012). Warning against a deficit approach that demonises distance as the cause of problems in care and social relationships, Baldassar (2016), in agreement with the earlier text by Madianou and Miller (2012), emphasises that assessing the quality of care is complex. Care is not necessarily good because it is given from close by, and neither is it necessarily bad when it is coming from a distance. Care is a complex process of adjustment and there are no a priori ways to determine what makes it good or bad. Care can certainly be ‘bad’ in families who share a residence.

Featherstone et al. (2007) caution us that an understanding of transnational mobility easily falls into a trap of ignoring the spatialities of transnational practices. To attend the spatialities of such practices, they advocate a research agenda that explores how such practices are developed and enabled, as well as inhibited, in actual, material spaces (see also Law and Hetherington, 2000). Furthermore, as Brooks and Waters (2017) recently advocated, mobilities and materialities are ‘co-constitutive’ and need to be studied together. Such materialities include wide-ranging kinds of technologies and infrastructures available and used.

Aligning our ambition with both these pleas, we look at the local embeddedness and materiality of transnational ICT practices through empirical exploration of in-depth interviews with 21 educational migrants who came from Central Asian and African countries to the Netherlands. To better understand how socio-spatial relations are made with ICTs, we employ a material semiotic perspective (Latour, 1996). This discourages us from seeing ICTs as imperfect intermediaries that fulfil a function and enables us to examine how ICTs shape both social and spatial dimensions of relationships in the lives of educational migrants. Just as Harvey (1989) reminded us that our now common-sense cartographic positioning is not natural, but produced through labourious work, we aim to better understand how socio-spatial relationships are performed by educational migrants through the use of ICTs, and what effects such relationships have on their everyday struggles and opportunities.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the emerging scholarship on the opportunities and constraints of educational migration from regions in the global South to universities in the global North by signalling the profound effects of ICTs in shaping such conditions. A material semiotic perspective helps to illuminate how the everyday communication practices of students shape both their social relationships and the way in which they are spatially positioned vis-à-vis spatial positioning.

In what follows, we first present what constitutes our material semiotic perspective of spatiality. After outlining our research methods, we proceed with an analysis of the socio-spatial dimensions of transnational relationships experienced and enacted by educational migrants through their practices with ICTs. In conclusion, we discuss the productivity of our material semiotic perspective to shed light on the enabling and constraining effects of socio-spatial relationships on educational migrants’ everyday lives.

Material semiotics of spatiality

To better understand the socio-spatial relationships supported by the extensive use of ICTs in the lives of educational migrants, we draw on material semiotic analyses of spatiality (Law and Hetherington, 2000). This implies a specific way of looking, which we break down into several principles.

First, a material semiotic analysis denaturalises common-sense notions of space (Law and Hetherington, 2000). It argues that distance, location and other spatial dimensions are not fixed parameters but are made in heterogeneous practices. The activities of cartographers, such as drawing maps, could be seen as practices in which such spatial relations are made. Thus, the knowledge about spatial dimensions is produced in academic activities, such as cartographic imaging. But, also, practices of the local provider connecting a phone line, or store clerks connecting remittances between migrants and their families, can be seen as making spatial relationships. Only when places are connected to a network does their mutual distance become relevant. The common-sense notion of place is also problematised in the work of Pols (2012). In the context of telecare through webcams, she showed how socio-spatial relationships are made by a caregiver and a patient who were physically in different locations. Whilst the patient had the feeling of being in the room of the carer, as this was the place displayed on the patient’s screen, the carer had the sense of visiting patients at their homes, as they were the places displayed on the carer’s screens. This spatial effect, which Pols calls a ‘topologically reversed telepresence’ (Pols, 2012: 105), was helpful to care, especially for the carer, who could gather visual cues about the wellbeing of a patient not only through bodily signals but also through having a look at the patient’s whereabouts and assessing how the room looked.

Second, the making of such socio-spatial relationships is an effect of heterogeneous networks. That is, not only humans, such as migrants, local providers and left-behind families, but also a wide range of material things, such as phones, computers, cables, desks and earphones, help create such spatial dimensions. This also implies that it matters how such heterogeneous networks are composed. When new technologies, such as videoconferencing tools, become part of the network, this may affect the way in which distance between family members is felt. Thus, whilst in care-practices the phone has been available for a long time, the introduction of webcams and other forms of video calling changed the socio-spatial relationships between carers and patients. Over the phone, as Pols states, patients were always ‘fine’ and carers had to accept such statements. With the introduction of video calling, a sense of ‘telepresence’ emerged in which conversations became more in-depth and informative.

Third, from a material semiotic perspective, the aforementioned studies relating to migrants sustaining relationships transnationally (Benítez, 2006; Leifsen and Tymczuk, 2012; Madianou and Miller, 2012; Nedelcu, 2012) can be seen to indicate that being together shifts from physical proximity to being attuned to the network through the introduction of new technologies. A material semiotic perspective of spatiality allows us to unravel how socio-spatial relationships are co-shaped by both educational migrants and the particular ICTs in use. That is, it stops us from focusing either on material artefacts and infrastructure or on humans. Neither do the material entities nor humans working by themselves constitute ICTs. Paying attention to how technologies are used in actual practice helps us to better understand the complexities of the everyday lives of educational migrants.

Fourth, material semiotic analyses illuminate the intricate relations between spatial and power dimensions (Law and Hetherington, 2000). For example, within the hybrid networks that connect places transnationally, also global asymmetries are produced between more connected places and those that are not so densely connected. Within such asymmetrical networks, some positions are more strategic, for example, as the right place to gather knowledge about other places in the network. In the case of educational migrants, it is vital to understand how they are actually empowered or disempowered by their particular spatial arrangement.

We use the material semiotic lens just introduced to explore ways in which socio-spatial relationships are enacted and experienced by educational migrants in ICT-mediated practices.

Methods

This study is based on in-depth interviews with 21 graduate students at Wageningen University in the Netherlands who have migrated from countries in Central Asia and Africa. Interviewees were identified through the use of the authors’ networks as well as a mail that sent out by the graduate school to potential candidates. Amongst our interviewees, nearly half of the African respondents were parents (five out of 11, compared to one out of 10 for the Central Asian students). The interviews followed a semi-structured format in which several topics were specified, and interview questions were designed that could be employed when the conversation would not pertain to a particular topic in the flow of the conversation. Predetermined topics of conversation encompassed the use of ICTs, both in sustaining social relationships in Wageningen as well as with family and friends in the home country. Individual interviews spanned an average of 1 hour. The interviews with students from Central Asia were conducted in Russian and then translated into English. English was used in the interviews with African interviewees. Interviews were transcribed and organised thematically with the use of ATLAS.ti. Analysis of the interviews consisted of initially identifying all of the different types of ICTs and ICT practices and, secondly, all of the spatial concepts and metaphors. Quotations that most clearly illuminated the different factors involved in generating certain socio-spatial relationships were selected for analysis.

Enacting socio-spatial relationships through ICTs

Below we analyse how spatial dimensions are enacted with the aid of different forms of ICTs in the lives of educational migrants and how they take different shapes depending on social relationships, ICTs and practices. ICTs are shown to play an important role in enabling educational migrants’ mobile lifestyles as well as in the maintenance of long-distance social relationships across national borders. Depending on the availability of facilities in both students’ home and host locations, they may have access to a selection of ICTs from the following, far from exhaustive, list: chatting, email, internet calling, prepaid calling cards, social networking sites (SNSs), text messaging and video calling. With such ICTs educational migrants create and sustain different kinds of socio-spatial relationships.

Mothering at a distance through ICTs

The mothers amongst our respondents endeavoured to enact a sense of co-presence, especially with children. The ability to establish a form of spatial co-presence is vital for achieving closeness in their relationship. Video calling through Skype is the preferred technology for mother students communicating with young children. Co-presence emerges in the following set of fragments from the interview with a mother who babysat her eight-year-old daughter through Skype – a situation that was also found elsewhere (Nedelcu, 2012; Nedelcu and Wyss, 2016).

Once my husband called me. He left my daughter alone in the house because he had to meet some people coming from South Africa for his work. So I walked fast to make a connection through Skype. And I stayed with my daughter until my husband came. There she was lying on the couch. I was behind my computer, reading and writing. Once in a while she asked: “Mommy, are you there?” [I said:] “I am right here with you.” (Female, PhD student, 44 years old, Ghana)

Whilst acknowledging her absence, as it is understood in a common sense, this mother student also challenges this spatial understanding. Saying that ‘I stayed with my daughter’ and that ‘I am right here with you’, she explicitly located herself with her daughter. To enact this form of closeness, particular networks needed to be composed: The husband needed to be away, the mother needed to fulfil her motherly and student responsibilities, the daughter’s care needs needed to be limited to reassurance and the Skype connection needed to function well on both sides. Furthermore, the enactment of closeness is accomplished only through a shared understanding of the possibilities and limitations of the situation between the mother and the daughter.

Being able to see and talk with each other every day seems to be central to the possibility of creating co-presence between parents, especially mothers and children with a video-calling technology. This technology not only establishes a connection between people at a distance but also helps to shape how mothers and children interact and how they are able to enact a form of closeness.

I told my youngest one I will see her every day. I told her that “there would not be one day when you would not see mom.” (Female, PhD student, 44 years old, Ghana)

Apart from being able to see each other virtually and listen to one another, the frequency of contact, afforded by this technology being relatively low cost once computers and internet are set up on both ends, enables this sense of closeness. This is another way by which Skype supports the enactment of closeness. The focus here is not so much being in the same room as the child, as Pols (2012) discussed for the telepresence that emerged in video-mediated consults. The focus appears to be establishing bodily vicinity. Thus, this is also a form of telepresence, but it is achieved through creating a form of bodily contact and intimacy through the screen of the computers.

Moreover, touch, in this case, virtual touch, is also crucial in achieving a feeling of bodily sharing of a space. With video-calling technology, a form of bodily contact can be visually communicated. Though actual skin contact through kissing, hugging and smelling is impossible and missed (Madianou, 2012), bodily co-presence can be enacted through simultaneous visual bodily movements, for example, touching the screen from both sides, which another African mother student identified as ‘more than intimate’. Through this intimacy, she feels injected into Ghana. Thus, being in different continents, they can create a sense of being in the same place.

With my daughter, yesterday, we had connected through Skype video calling. We had a very good chat. Usually we do it every evening. She plays, tells stories to me and I have to listen. She always wants me to listen. We spend, I think, more than three hours. We touch each other on the screen. It is more than intimate. It is just like I am in Ghana for me. (Female, PhD student, 40 years old, Ghana)

This fragment also indicates that the colloquial nature of conversations adds to a sense of closeness or ‘doing family’ at a distance (Nedelcu and Wyss, 2016). Whilst new ICTs have been criticised for serving as a channel for shallow conversations, it is exactly through such ‘shallow’ everyday conversations in combination with the ability to perform and see each other’s bodily movements that intimacy and co-presence are achieved (Licoppe, 2004).

Through our interviews with parent student migrants, we learned a lot about what they do to achieve closeness with their children at a distance. However, it is clear that children also need to invest a lot in the composition of networks and develop a shared practice with their parent through the screen. When children refuse this, closeness cannot emerge. Closeness is thus co-produced by educational migrant parents, their children and the particular ICTs in use in heterogeneous networks. It is through developing such rituals in which bodily movements are aligned between individuals that a feeling of being together, or telepresence through intimacy, can emerge. Learning occurs both ways – a daughter needed to learn to speak, listen to and touch her mother through the screen, and do these things for some hours – her mother also learns to actively listen to her daughter for three hours in a row. Perhaps, it is more than she would and could actually be available to do when she would be physically with her daughter in Ghana, but was made possible by the particular setting where, as a graduate student, she has relative freedom to self-manage her study hours. Understanding her motherly responsibility and her daughter’s care needs at some physical distance, she compensates for her physical absence by being virtually present and performing active listening and touching via Skype for some hours.

The ability to listen to everyday affairs enables another practice: to actively intervene in such affairs. Knowing and acting at a distance (Law and Hetherington, 2000) emerges as a way of being close. The previously quoted mother from Ghana with high aspirations for academic achievement video-calls her daughter every day, to encourage her daughter to perform well. In this way, she attempts to intervene.

In the evening after her school, which for me is after my work, she usually wants me to listen to a story. Yesterday I was also reminding her that she needs to read by herself…. I worry [about her] and I want to know how she is. I always ask: “Have you eaten? Have you prayed for me? Have you read? Have you done your homework?” That kind of stuff. That is to make sure that she does things well. (Female, PhD student, 40 years old, Ghana)

Enacting closeness may be perceived as vital to mother-child intimacy and it simultaneously enables the kinds of surveillance discussed by Law and Hetherington (2000). We do not know how this particular daughter felt about her mother’s daily enquiries about her school progress, and how she might have created distance. Also, it is unclear whether the surveillance is successful, or if the children in fact hide what they want to keep undisclosed to their mothers’ view, as suggested in Waters’ research on Chinese children enrolled in Canadian schools whilst their parents lived in China (Waters, 2003). What we know is how our mother respondents strike the balance between their mothering and student roles and how ICTs play a role in the balancing act whilst being away from home.

It is not like I am with them. I am out of Ghana. But that kind of distance disappeared a bit. Because every day I see what they are doing. I get information on what is happening and I think it is enough. I am not cut off [from the household] in the meaning of “household” for me. I am not there because of migration, but we take decisions and I am not out of their life. I am involved in what they do. (Female, PhD student, 44 years old, Ghana)

In terms of fulfilling her mothering role, video-calling with her family members was considered ‘enough’ for her and her family by this mother in the given circumstances. What made her think ‘enough’ has to be understood in relation to her past experience: She was away from her family members when she did her previous graduate work overseas, at that time without a video-calling technology. By comparing the past and the present experience, we see how a video-calling technology enabled this mother to conclude, at least temporarily, that it is possible to be a good mother even if she can only be virtually present. Thus, since some earlier studies on transnational parenting conducted in a pre-Skype era, such as by Parreñas (2001), the image that emerges is one of much less pain and sense of alienation. With the help of video-calling technologies, a level of intimacy is achieved that the Filipino women she interviewed seemed to crave.

Enacting parental surveillance at a distance is not dependent on video-calling in all cases. With her son who resides at a boarding school, the Ghanaian mother whom we just cited uses email. Whilst she supervises both her eight-year-old daughter and her high-school-age son at a distance via ICTs, the choice of ICTs is different depending on whom she supervises. She supervises her son’s school performance and monitors each paper that he turns in via email. In this relationship, email allows an instantaneous response with attached documents that contributes to enacting closeness. This type of mothering role that she performs in Wageningen is actually very similar to the role she performed in Ghana. For this specific relationship, the larger cartographic distance created by the mother’s migration is perhaps less significant. It could be even thought that the relationship is strengthened after the mother’s migration to a setting with more stable and fast internet access where she has more control over her time and more hours in front of a computer as opposed to her working less flexibly away from her desk in Ghana. The continuity in fulfiling the surveillance role via the same ICT supported by better internet access and more flexible time is another way of maintaining closeness at a distance. With her daughter and with her son, the ICTs employed differ, as do the practices. However, in both cases the mother experiences a form of closeness when she achieves what we might call ‘tele-surveillance’ through her practices with ICT. The modes of surveillance are co-shaped by the ICTs in use, as well as the needs and practices on both sides of the communication. This surveillance is a continuation of her mothering efforts in Ghana and supports Parreñas’ (2005) finding that gendered parenting roles tend to be reproduced in transnational households with the help of ICTs.

‘Heading the household’ on the phone

In comparison with mothers amongst our student interviewees, father student interviewees perform their continued presence in the households with the support of ICTs in different ways. They stress their active role in the family through providing advice, decision-making and sending remittances. A father student from Benin states that:

I am the main person who makes decisions. Even now they have to be consulted. We have to discuss the issue, which they are going to do. But the final decision is for me. (Male, PhD student, 42 years old, Benin)

He considers the role of the father to be the ‘head of the household’ and the ‘ultimate decision maker’. However, unlike the ICT practices performed by our mother respondents, being able to actually see each other through video calling is perceived as unnecessary. Insofar as internet calling (using Voice-over-Internet-Protocol) enables him to participate in decision-making process, he does not feel that he is excluded from the everyday life of his household. Regular telephone conversations enable him to achieve this role. This finding resonates with Parreñas’ discussion of transnational fathers performing a ‘heightened version of conventional fathering’ in which authority and disciplining are central (Parreñas, 2008).

However, the practice of decision-making must be adapted because there is also a clear sense of not ‘being together’ between this father and his remote family. ICT-mediated decision-making is not understood to be identical to its non-ICT–mediated equivalent and he sees a need to be kinder, to be less tough.

I am not there so I have to be ready to support, to be kinder than if I were there. … When I am physically present I can be somewhat more tough. I can say “do not do that, you have to do like this.” (Male, PhD student, 42 years old, Benin)

Through a comparison with our mother respondents’ practices to achieve ‘being together’ via ICTs, a gendered dimension of socio-spatial relationship becomes visible (Baldassar, 2016; Brownlie, 2011). Compared to our mother respondents’ practices (e.g., spending more time in talking about everyday issues, performing emotional labour through bodily movements), this father needs to work hard in another way to care for the relationship. In fact, more than the two mothers introduced in the previous paragraphs, he acknowledges his distance from his family and makes amendments not to his communication medium (e.g., switching to video-calling) but to his communication style (kinder and less tough). Maintenance of his identity as the head of the household at a distance is supported by a new decision-making practice in which he is softer. With this adapted practice, and its acceptance from his family, he can remain, in his understanding, the head of the household. His presence is enacted through his ability to adapt his decision-making performance when at a distance. As such, the particular socio-spatial arrangements that emerges from the ICT practices produce contradictory effects. They enable him to continue a ‘head of household’ position; however, simultaneously, they constrain him insofar as he needs to communicate carefully for his influence across a distance to be effective. Also, as in the case of Parreñas’ research (2008), adapting communication enables a conventional fathering role, rather than serving intimacy.

Balancing costs and convenience with cell phones

Whilst our respondents do not mention the use of landlines to call, they do use a cell phone to call and combine monthly subscriptions with prepaid credit. Calling with cell phones is more expensive than internet calling for our respondents, but it is sometimes preferred, as they are able to call from almost any location. As noted by Horst (2006) in her research regarding Jamaican migrants, the cell phone has been particularly significant in increasing access and communication between members of transnational families. Most interviewees from both regions use Lebara Mobile because it is one of the lower-cost international services in the Netherlands. Credit is purchased beforehand from general retailers and independent cell phone shops. Still, the cell phone is obviously a gateway to a range of communication practices that students engage in. As such, it is central to their everyday lives:

If someone forgets a cell phone at home, he will feel like cut off from rest of the world. You know it is like being outside without coat in winter. (Male, PhD student, 24 years old, Kazakhstan)

As this quote indicates, the cell phone is the technology that has most profoundly integrated into their bodies in a prosthetic sense (see also Thompson and Cupples, 2008; Urry, 2004). A cell phone, or more specifically a smartphone, is the technology that makes the rest of the world accessible to educational migrants. Without it, the ‘rest of the world’ is less accessible, no matter how close in terms of cartographic distance (Madianou, 2014).

Most of the educational migrants we interviewed employ cell phones to directly call people in their home country. They perceive this as the most unmediated form of communication as it can be established between people residing anywhere. However, understanding that this way of communication costs them more than others, our interviewees usually set a specified credit limit for themselves, therefore, whilst spatially more flexible, conversation time is more restricted.

Usually I do not spend more than 10 euro on calls per week. I have a Lebara, so 10 euro gives me 20 euro call credit. I do not spend more than 10 euro per week. (Female, PhD student, 40 years old, Ghana)

Unlike internet calling that allows conversations that flow from topic to topic and from person to person, conversations with cell phones are more ‘single topic’ and ‘single person’ in nature. They can be used in situations of urgency and on top of this, it is reliable as they do not need to worry about internet connections and technical competencies.

I prefer a cell phone because you can solve the problem immediately… I think the cell phone is the most convenient because it is reliable. (Female, master student, 23 years old, Kazakhstan)

The fact that it is reliable, and the fact that many people ‘back home’ carry the cell phone with them at all times, makes it possible to solve problems immediately. In such circumstances, cell phones allow ‘acting at a distance’ and thus accomplishing a form of closeness, as discussed by Law and Hetherington (2000), most reliably and conveniently within their limited budget. Whilst the cell phone thus may empower them to act at a distance, it has clear budget ramifications.

Connecting with partners

A cell phone also connects two individuals in a romantic relationship. It establishes a link that can be activated at any moment and in any place. In such relationships, it is not just talking through a phone but the cost, which limits conversation time and frequency, that creates distance. However, it is not that a couple accept this distance as a given. The following student attempts to overcome this distance by combining the advantages of the cell phone, allowing a link with his girlfriend to be established at any time and in any place, with low-cost internet calling.

Sometimes I call her through the internet, but mostly I use a cell phone… If I call through the internet and she does not know the number she does not reply. Then it [the call] remains anonymous. So usually I do not do that. Sometimes she is there when I call her: “Are you there?” [Her answer is] “Yes.” “Can you talk?” [Her answer is] “Yes.” Then I get off [the cell phone] and I call her through the internet. But sometimes when I am in hurry or busy, I cannot always do it. Then, I call through the cell phone. (Male, master student, 31 years old, Tanzania)

Maintaining a relationship from a distance seems to require quite some work. As evident from the interview, this student learns to enlist his girlfriend through a strategic choice of ICTs. Internet calling that assists in enacting co-presence can be limitlessly exploited due to the fulfilment of certain conditions: the availability of cell phones on both ends; the low cost of internet-calling technology; the near-unlimited internet access afforded by the Northern educational setting; his flexibility in scheduling his time as a graduate student; and the 1-hour time difference between Tanzania and the Netherlands, despite a large cartographic distance.

In the case of the cell phone, closeness is enacted as ‘being able to establish a connection at any time and from anywhere’. It is relevant to understand that the educational migrants we interviewed were in a ‘more privileged’ position where they could accommodate privacy in the setting of their transnational conversations. Horst’s (2006) research in Jamaica showed that migrants had a lack of privacy when they communicated through kiosks and public phones. Thus, the ability to make the conversations more private, supported by the availability of ICTs (private phones on both ends and internet-calling technology on at least one end), and the locations of phones without the presence of strangers, are all crucial to whether or not a couple can experience intimacy.

Hanging out and spending time on SNSs

Whilst parenting and romantic relationships figure strongly in the interviews when our respondents discuss being together, such a spatial relationship can also be identified in relation to interactions with friends on SNSs. The respondents discuss SNSs as ‘where they are’ and ‘spending time’ more than with other ICTs. The African interviewees prefer Facebook. In Central Asia, Vcontakte and Moy Mir are the most popular SNSs. This popularity follows from the relative popularity of SNSs, as students use what their friends are using. In comparison with the ICTs as a means of communication across distance to achieve closeness within social relationships as discussed in the previous sections, SNSs are denoted as places to ‘hang out’ with numerous others, especially friends and siblings regularly.

The one [SNS] which consumes all of my time is Facebook. I chat a lot on Facebook. Mostly with my friends who are not here. I always chat with one of my brothers if I am on Facebook. I am every day on Facebook. (Male, master student, 31 years old, Tanzania)

The spatial metaphor employed is telling. Like being in a place, the Tanzanian student expresses that he is ‘on Facebook’. Being on a SNS is a way of being together with an array of friends and siblings who are not here. He actively creates a common, albeit virtual, place between here and there through this ICT. It creates a place for space for global, daily online interactions and crafting of an identity in this particular geography of international students that can be shared by friends and siblings regardless of their respective locations (see also NurMuhammad et al., 2016).

This everyday practice of hanging out with friends and siblings on SNSs must contrast with the experiences with their offline location. Most interviewees state that they have difficulty feeling ‘at home’ in Wageningen. They experience loneliness and not much social interaction in Wageningen.

When I was in my country … I was drawing myself away from Facebook because there is a lot of crap on Facebook. But here I decided to do it [Facebook] … Here people are more individualistic, so I found myself alone in my room. Sometimes I am bored. Then I go back to Facebook. I can say that it is some kind of company for you. I do not have so many Dutch friends. (Male, master student, 31 years old, Tanzania)

Occupying himself with online social life, even when that requires altering his practice, is a way to overcome his loneliness. Furthermore, most interviewees miss their family and friends as well as places of origin. The student we just quoted acknowledges that he is more involved in online social life than in interactions with people in Wageningen. He constructs the interaction with others in Wageningen as more time-restricted as opposed to time spent on the internet as more open-ended.

I meet the person who comes to visit me for a dinner… I can visit him, or I go for a drink like for two hours and then “bye-bye.” If you go to watch a football match, it is only maximum three hours because one hour before we enjoy a drink… However, most of the time I am on the internet. (Male, master student, 31 years old, Tanzania)

Because of their limited social interaction in the Netherlands, many of our respondents report that they do not really feel like they are ‘here’ in Wageningen. This dissociation is expressed in the following quote:

I was thinking when I have a holiday here I will go back home. I was thinking this is not the life I want to live. This is not the area where I want to live. (Male, master student, 31 years old, Tanzania)

Our respondents often assume that their stay in Wageningen is temporary. For at least some, this possibly lowers their ambitions to learn the language and to create enduring social relationships. As a result, they experience boredom and loneliness at times. This confirms what Benítez (2012) cautioned: The intimacy achieved through ICTs is not to be overestimated. The feelings of boredom and loneliness experienced in Wageningen, facilitated by their unique contexts already mentioned above, drives them back to hanging out with friends and siblings on SNSs to overcome those feelings. Whilst the SNSs play an important and time-consuming part in their lives, spatial distance is certainly not dissolved, as also concluded by Waite and Bourke (2015), as it is this distance that drives them there.

Overcoming the unpleasant feelings in Wageningen requires considerable time investment (see also Turkle, 2011). It is not always easy to be instantly together with whom one wants to be on SNSs, particularly when the people with whom one wants to interact have different rhythms of the day. Thus, being on SNSs also involves being somewhere, where educational migrants await others to arrive, possibly for some considerable time.

I have got a stupid habit like I want to sleep but cannot leave the internet [Moy Mir] because I am waiting. Maybe someone would come. And you know, it leads to chronic lack of sleep. (Female, master student, 23 years old, Kazakhstan)

A number of hours being on SNSs may compensate for the lack of close relationships and loneliness in Wageningen and give them refuge in their everyday life away from home. On the other hand, it may cause chronic sleeplessness, which is partly supported by time differences. Moreover, it may prevent them from making close relationships in Wageningen and/or negatively affect their academic performance.

On SNSs, the interviewees do more than communicating with the people they already know. They also spend time viewing other profiles and posting new information about themselves. Thus, SNSs are not merely a communication device, but also an online place where they can spend time and craft an image of themselves.

The main photo on the profile I upload very often. Sometimes monotony bores me, so I change it often. It is very pleasing when my friends evaluate my photos. … Every morning, I first check my mailbox and Moy Mir. I see what is new, what has changed, who married, and who moved etc… In my opinion, I am very active on Moy Mir. But I do not spend too much time. Twenty minutes per day is enough for me. (Female, researcher, 32 years, Kazakhstan)

This respondent uses a SNS to remain current in her network and gives others updates about her life. Like with other SNSs, she crafts an online image of herself and affirms others’ like practice by giving feedback on their photos. This requires constant updating. Nonetheless, not all respondents spend hours on SNSs every day. This respondent clearly sets a certain time limit voluntarily to balance out her work and social life. The activity seems geared towards maintaining the page as well as meeting social expectations. She does not linger around unlike the aforementioned female master student.

The example just discussed indicates that online places are not detached from other places. Online and offline places are, as Valentine and Holloway (2002: 316) argue, ‘mutually constituted’. In the practices of educational migrants, this mutual constitution includes quite distinct offline places that become connected through SNS.

I upload information about my location and some photos on my Facebook every day.… The time I spend on Facebook depends on how many hours I am at home. It could take more than three hours per day. (Male, master student, 35 years old, South Africa)

Time at home in Wageningen, in this quote, corresponds closely with time on Facebook. By going home, this student logs in with his social network that is to a large extent still in South Africa. Still, the offline itinerary constitutes an important part of this online space. Offline places that are visited, including international conferences, are documented and shared and become part of online places. By providing information and pictures from the work and home, knowledge given about both places, which friends and family can employ as a resource to learn more about the student’s whereabouts (see also Hamel, 2009), are produced with the SNS.

The internet is not only a means of being together with others and complying with social expectations but also ‘a place to be’ and linger around alone, as comes across in the following fragment:

Maybe I am not talking with my family for such a long time… I spend more time on the internet doing other things… Occasionally I watch a movie or television from home, but this is not every day. I listen to music from home more often. (Male, researcher, 41 years old, Ghana)

The internet is considered not just a tool to access music but a place to go to enjoy movies and music from home. Furthermore, the internet does not only offer a place to ‘be’, it also provides them a gateway to virtually interject as a local presence in their country of origin.

Conclusion

This article showed how socio-spatial relationships are experienced and enacted by educational migrants through their practices with ICT, and how this affects their everyday lives in empowering and disempowering ways. The educational migrants we interviewed employed a range of ICTs throughout the day, every day and clearly operate in polymedia conditions (Madianou and Miller, 2012). The proliferation of ICTs has certainly transformed the social lives of educational (and other) migrants. More than before, it is possible to stay connected with family members and friends across long distances in a multitude of ways. Whilst this generates opportunities to establish closeness with loved ones, it also enlists them in practices that take up a lot of time and require meticulous balancing.

Using a material semiotic perspective contributed a vital perspective to the literature in showing that not only are the social lives of educational migrants transformed in contradictory ways, but the spatial dimensions in their everyday lives have also been greatly affected. In their practices with ICTs, social and spatial relationships were mutually shaped. Whilst the cartographic distance between person A and person B does not differ whether communication is via Skype video calling or SNS, the spatial positioning created in that contact could be quite different in practice, as the interviewees relayed. A mother talked about experiencing co-presence when virtually touching her child’s hand on the screen. For one respondent and her lover, cell phones, through the instantaneous access they provide, helped to enact closeness. And email was one of the ways by which a mother achieved what we called tele-surveillance with her son in a boarding school. As evidenced by the interviews, the mutual constitution of social and special relationships resulted not just in the dissolution of distance, making migration less painful. What struck most in the interviews was the amount of time and effort involved in achieving the kinds of spatial arrangements that seemed to suit the relationship, whether it was between parents and children, between lovers or with a wide range of family members and friends.

Our research clearly resonates with Baldassar’s study on co-presence across distance (2016). The research showed, however, that co-presence was not the only spatial dimension affected. Communication practices with ICTs transform the understanding of both ‘with whom’ educational migrants are (the issue of co-presence), and where they were. Turkle (2011) warned us that ICTs increases the amount of time that we are being ‘there but not there’. Such a line of reasoning can be easily read into the lives of educational migrants. Instead of investing in local relationships and actually ‘being’ in the new environment, they may retreat to their private space to post on Facebook and/or to make video calls. However, to say that migrants are ‘there but not there’ ignores the fact that migrants can experience a strong sense of ‘being there’ in SNSs such as Facebook. Whether or not the polymedia environment is empowering or disempowering is not a question that can be determined in simple terms. Clearly, the spatial arrangements that are generated affect the students’ lives fundamentally.

Being able to act at a distance was also a vital aspect of reconfigured spatial positioning. There were different ways of acting at a distance and different ICTs that enabled it. The cell phone was mentioned as the device that enabled instantaneous interference as well as problem solving. But also mothering and fathering, and the gender relations implicated in those, are forms of acting at a distance. A father used the cell phone to remain ‘decision maker’ in his household. A mother recalled a time she babysat her daughter through Skype, offering care for her daughter in that way and relieving her husband. As such, gender relations are not just reproduced (Parreñas, 2005, 2008) but also adapted in the specific socio-spatial as well as material arrangements.

The number of educational migrants is growing. As a migration flow that is considered relatively unproblematic for both migrants and receiving countries, their everyday struggles and opportunities receive relatively little scholarly scrutiny. To understand the interplay of numerous transnational mobilities, this research shows we need to take notice of those efforts as well as the effects that they generate, not only in terms of social effects such as intimacy and affect, but also in terms of the ways in which spatial positioning gets configured in practice. Only then can we understand the ways in which everyday lives of migrants change in a dynamic polymedia environment as well as how the new spatial arrangements can be both empowering and disempowering.