Networked Identity: How Immigrant Youth Employ Online Identity Resources

Abstract

In recent years, practices of online social networking and their implications for migrant youth identity development have been heavily debated. The nature of access to resources for identification is changing, and by using a social network perspective, this research conceptualizes identity as a networked phenomenon in which resources are understood as specific kinds of social formations: identity networks. Social network interviews were conducted with Dutch-Moroccan inner-city teenagers, probing their online and offline identity practices as related to their actual social networks. Social network analysis was applied, assuming that structural properties of networks affect behaviour; they can limit or shape, but do not fully determine the actions that individuals can engage in. By combining numeric, discursive and visual data, we aim to understand how structural and compositional aspects of networks are related to the ways in which youth create opportunities for identity development. Four network types, with associated (online) identity practices, are presented.