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.
AdedejiA (2021) Social capital and migrants’ quality of life: a systematic narrative review. Journal of International Migration and Integration22(1): 87–101.
2.
AngS (2017) I am more Chinese than you: online narratives of locals and migrants in Singapore. Cultural Studies Review23(1): 102–117.
3.
AradauC (2014) Security and the democratic scene: desecuritization and emancipation. Journal of International Relations and Development7: 388–413.
4.
BambergM (2024) Positioning, narrative practices, and positioning theory. In: McVeeMBVan LangenhoveLBrockCH, et al. (eds) The Routledge International Handbook of Positioning Theory: Routledge, 43–56.
5.
BaranDM (2018) Narratives of migration on Facebook: belonging and identity among former fellow refugees. Language in Society47(2): 245–268.
6.
BergerR (2015) Now I see it, now I don’t: researcher’s position and reflexivity in qualitative research. Qualitative Research15(2): 219–234.
7.
BlommaertJDe FinaA (2017) Chronotopic identities: on the spacetime organization of who we are. In: De FinaAIkizogluDWegnerJ (eds) Diversity and Superdiversity: Sociocultural Linguistic Perspectives: Georgetown University Press, 1–15.
8.
BlommaertJVarisP (2015) Conviviality and collectives on social media: virality, memes, and new social structures. Multilingual Margins: A Journal of Multilingualism from the Periphery2(1): 31.
9.
BontenbalI (2023) The good, the bad and the advantageous: migrants’ attitudes towards other migrants. International Journal of Intercultural Relations94: 101802.
10.
ChouliarakiL (2020) Symbolic bordering: the self-representation of migrants and refugees in digital news. In: DueD (ed) Self-(Re) Presentation Now: Routledge, 25–41.
11.
ChristouAKofmanE (2022) Gender and migration: An introduction. In: ChristouAKofmanE (eds). Gender and migration: IMISCOE short reader. Cham, Svizzera: Springer International Publishing, 1–12.
DalmauMS (2015) Migrant identities in narrative practice: in-/out-group constructions of ‘comrades’ and ‘rivals’ in storytelling about transnational life. Narrative Inquiry25(1): 91–112.
14.
DaviesBHarréR (1990) Positioning: the discursive production of selves. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour20(1): 43–63.
15.
De FinaA (2015) Narrative and identities. In: De FinaAGeorgakopoulouA (eds) The Handbook of Narrative Analysis: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 349–368.
16.
De FinaA (2021) Doing narrative analysis from a narratives-as-practices perspective. Narrative Inquiry31(1): 49–71.
17.
De FinaAGeorgakopoulouA (2008) Analysing narratives as practices. Qualitative Research8(3): 379–387.
18.
De FinaAPaternostroG (2024) Communicative practices and online communities on social media in migration context. In: In and Out: Rights of Migrants in the European Space: Springer Nature Switzerland, pp.291–306.
19.
De FinaATsengA (2017) Narrative in the study of migrants. In: CanagarajahS (ed) The Routledge Handbook of Migration and Language: Routledge, 381–396.
20.
DelahuntyJVerenikinaIJonesP (2014) Socio-emotional connections: identity, belonging and learning in online interactions. A literature review. Technology, Pedagogy and Education23(2): 243–265.
21.
FilebornB (2016) Participant recruitment in an online era: a reflection on ethics and identity. Research Ethics12(2): 97–115.
22.
FrouwsBPhillipsMHassanA, et al. (2016) Getting to europe the WhatsApp way: the use of ICT in contemporary mixed migration flows to europe (regional mixed migration secretariat briefing paper). SSRN.
23.
García-PeñalvoFJ (2019) Managing the digital identity as researchers. Journal of Information Technology Research12(3): vi–viii.
24.
GilodiAAlbertINienaberB (2024) Vulnerability in the context of migration: a critical overview and a new conceptual model. Human Arenas7(3): 620–640.
25.
GlissantÉ (1997) Poetics of Relation. Wing B (Trans): University of Michigan Press.
26.
Gutiérrez RodríguezE (2018) The coloniality of migration and the “refugee crisis”: On the asylum-migration nexus, the transatlantic white European settler colonialism-migration and racial capitalism. Refuge34(1): 16–29. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7202/1050851ar
27.
HamiltonKDunnettSDowneyH (2012) Researcher identity: exploring the transformatory power of the research experience. Journal of Consumer Behaviour11(4): 275–282.
28.
HibbertPSillinceJDiefenbachT, et al. (2014) Relationally reflexive practice: a generative approach to theory development in qualitative research. Organizational Research Methods17(3): 278–298.
29.
InnesA (2023) Migration, vulnerability, and experiences of insecurity: Conceptualising insecure migration status. Social Sciences, 12(10), Article 540. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12100540
30.
KarimKHAl-RawiA (eds) (2018) Diaspora and media in Europe: Migration, identity, and integration. Cham, Svizzera: Springer.
31.
LingelJNaamanMboydDM (2014) City, self, network: transnational migrants and online identity work. In: Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing. Baltimore, MD. 15–19 February 2014, 1502–1510.
32.
MarinoS (2015) Making space, making place: digital togetherness and the redefinition of migrant identities online. Social Media + Society1(2): 2056305115622479.
33.
MarwickAEboydD (2011) I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society13(1): 114–133.
MerinoMEBecerraSDe FinaA (2017) Narrative discourse in the construction of Mapuche ethnic identity in context of displacement. Discourse & Society28(1): 60–80.
36.
MesserschmidtJWMessnerMA (2018) Hegemonic, nonhegemonic, and “new” masculinities. In: MesserschmidtJWMessnerMAConnellR, et al. (eds) Gender Reckonings: New Social Theory and Research: New York University Press, 35–56.
37.
ParkSGerritsL (2021) How migrants manifest their transnational identity through online social networks: comparative findings from a case of Koreans in Germany. Comparative Migration Studies9(1): 10.
38.
PastoreSDelvilleAColosimoM, et al. (2023) With equity in mind: a systematic review of recognition practices for migrants and refugees in the European context. Higher Education for the Future10(1): 71–85.
39.
PlüssC (2013) Migrants’ social positioning and inequalities: the intersections of capital, locations, and aspirations. International Sociology28(1): 4–11.
40.
PoppiFIM (2025a) De Vindicta et Resistentia: The failure of migrants’ narrative resistance and the emergence of revenge narratives. International Journal of Intercultural Relations97: 102224.
41.
PoppiFIM (2025b) Conformans novas selves: the significance of Balkan route migrants’ possible and future narrative identities. Migration Studies13(1): mnaf004.
42.
PoppiFIMGattinaraPC (2018) Aliud pro alio: context and narratives within a neo-Nazi community of practice. Journal of Language and Politics17(4): 552–572.
43.
ProbstB (2016) Both/and: researcher as participant in qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Research Journal16(2): 0038.
44.
RobardsB (2013) Friending participants: managing the researcher–participant relationship on social network sites. Young21(3): 217–235.
45.
RostronA (2024) Who do they think we are? Reflexivity and participant constructions of the researcher. Journal of Management Inquiry33(3): 284–299.
46.
SagerM (2018) Struggles around representation and in/visibility in everyday migrant irregularity in Sweden. Nordic Journal of Migration Research8(3): 175–182. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48711711
47.
SirunoLSwertsTLeerkesA (2024) Personal recognition strategies of undocumented migrant domestic workers in The Netherlands. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies22(3): 632–645.
48.
SoehlTVan HarenI (2023) The effect of social capital on migrant labor market success: evidence from refugee sponsorship in Canada. Ethnic and Racial Studies46(15): 3224–3248.
49.
StokoeE (2009) “I’ve got a girlfriend”: police officers doing “self‐disclosure” in their interrogations of suspects. Narrative Inquiry19(1): 154–182.
50.
UdenzeSUgoalaB (2019) Building community and constructing identity on WhatsApp: a netnographic approach. World Medicine49: 109–120.
51.
Varga-DobaiK (2012) The relationship of researcher and participant in qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Report17: 93. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ990024
52.
WojnickaK (2019) Men and masculinities in migration processes. In: GottzénLMellströmUSheferT (eds) Routledge International Handbook of Masculinity Studies: Routledge, 283–291.
53.
WuCHJPhungTB (2017) The antecedents of intention to use Facebook: The case of female foreign spouses’ community in Taiwan. International Journal of Web Based Communities13(3): 379–399. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1504/IJWBC.2017.086593
54.
YauAMarderBO’DonohoeS (2020) The role of social media in negotiating identity during the process of acculturation. Information Technology & People33(2): 554–575.
