Liminalis voces: Migrant identity construction and positionality in a Balkan Route digital messaging research group

Abstract

This article explores how identity construction and positioning emerge through everyday interactions in a WhatsApp group involving young male forced migrants who arrived in Italy via the Balkan Route. While initially created for logistical coordination within a broader research project, the group evolved into a discursive space where participants reflexively shaped how they were seen—by others, by the researcher, and by themselves. Drawing on discourse-oriented digital ethnography and narrative analysis, the study shows how messaging platforms enable subtle forms of self-representation, strategic alignment, and affective negotiation. Identity is approached not as a fixed attribute but as a situated, emergent practice, shaped by both lived precarity and the interactional affordances of the medium. The analysis highlights how the researcher’s presence becomes entangled in participants’ discursive strategies, revealing the co-constructed nature of identity work in digital research settings. The findings contribute to debates on migrant digital selfhood, mediated belonging, and the epistemic implications of online qualitative research.