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Engaging with the World: Digital Nomadism between Mobility, Work, and Tourism

Introduction

The main objective of this special issue is to focus on the multidimensionality of digital nomadism (DN), both through the analysis of the phenomenon and through a theoretical framework and interdisciplinary methodology. The beginning of the 21st century has seen the emergence of a new population of highly mobile workers commonly referred to as digital nomads (DN) or digital nomads. The literature describes them as individuals who carry out their professional activities using new information and communication technologies while adopting a lifestyle based on frequent migrations (Makimoto and Manners, 1997). Digital nomads define themselves as individuals who escape the traditional framework of work through the use of constantly developing digital technologies in a globalized context: as global citizens, they constantly visit and even invent new places, engage in leisure activities such as surfing or skiing, and are eager to discover foreign countries and cultures (Reichenberger, 2018). However, they reinvent new relationships with work in a digital context. They mainly belong to the millennial generation (https://nomadlist.com/digital-nomad-statistics#age).

The global expansion of internet access allows them to reconcile lucrative economic activity (Trimoldi, 2018) with a "geo-arbitrated" lifestyle (Ferriss, 2011). This phenomenon, fundamentally linked to the Internet, has been influencing social interactions between individuals around the world since the 1990s. New forms of digital sociability are developing in virtual space (Mésangeau, 2021), and these online practices also shape and reshape certain territories (Vienne et al., 2017). As an emblematic population of contemporary changes related to the evolution of digital technologies, lifestyles, and work, particularly in relation to mobility, digital nomads reflect a paradigmatic shift in the digital realm that needs to be examined from a multidimensional and interdisciplinary perspective.

While the social sciences have experienced a "mobility turn" since the early 2000s, placing mobilities at the center of many analyses of the social world (Sheller and Urry, 2006), digital nomads invite further exploration of the hybridity of frameworks for understanding international mobility. Exploring itinerant lifestyles, the study of lifestyle mobilities (Duncan, Cohen, Thulemark, 2013) considers the connections between tourism and migration. In the same vein, the field of lifestyle migrations, which focuses on people from developed countries who settle abroad to develop a more fulfilling way of life, has consolidated around issues of privilege and post-colonial approaches to understand the relationships between these mobile groups and the inhabitants of the territories where they settle (Benson and Osbaldiston, 2014). In France, recent research on "privileged migrations" has emerged, contributing to the understanding of digital nomads. These studies examine the different dimensions (social, gendered, racial, etc.) of the privileges that allow certain groups to migrate without obstacles and explore the migration selection mechanisms that benefit these groups (De Facto, n°27).

As a community, digital nomads create unique worlds through their mobility practices and their connection to work, the boundaries of which may seem imperceptible. However, the widespread adoption of remote work since the health crisis has popularized the spatially disconnected relationship to work. There is an ongoing process by economic and political actors in the tourism and territorial development sectors (Boltanski and Chiapello, 1999) of capitalizing on this new mobility associated with work and its accompanying lifestyle. The practices of digital nomads, on the other hand, seem to be driven by a logic of distinction, markers, and social differentiation. The massification of this phenomenon can lead digital nomads to seek new places, representing new escape routes and ruptures with established routines (deterritorialization), which in turn can lead to new practices (reterritorialization) (Deleuze, Guattari, 1980).

Digital nomads are wanderers, but they are also settled. They settle in protected spaces and in their own representations of the world, using places as elegant and delicate props to serve their productivity and creative performance. They construct a particular way of engaging with the world. They travel, settle, work, rest, and move on, unanchored and aterritorial, yet often anchored in a capitalist system that they sustain through their professional activities (content producers for the internet, service providers for tech giants, marketers, trainers, translators, etc.) and/or through an alternative lifestyle ideal. The imagination of many digital nomads is populated by both tech millionaires in flip-flops, backpacking adventurers, and surfers and yogis in Volkswagen vans, tinged with a "new age" ideology. Thus, digital nomads challenge the relationship to work, travel, leisure, and territory in the context of pervasive digitalization. This complex socio-anthropological reality deserves to be analyzed through various proposed perspectives below.

Presentation of questions by thematic entries:

Digital Nomadism and Paradoxes

By questioning the relationship to work, privacy, leisure, and territory, digital nomadism highlights paradoxes: well-being versus performance, ecological value versus energy-intensive lifestyle, individualism versus community, freedom versus alienation, conformity versus nonconformity... It is necessary to examine the following:

● To what extent are digital nomads integrated into a hypercapitalist system? Conversely, can it be argued that they operate within a form of alter-globalization?

Can the notion of community, or even communitarianism, be associated with digital nomadism? Are there forms of ostracism among digital nomads? Is there a discourse/practice of inclusivity? How do they distinguish themselves from other communities?

How can the relationship between individualism and community among digital nomads be characterized? How can the diversity of this tension be analyzed?

● What are the effects of the COVID crisis on digital nomadism? Does it act as a hindrance or an accelerator of change?

Relationships with Places and the World of Digital Nomads

By embracing territorial detachment as a lifestyle, digital nomadism questions the connections to territories and relationships with places.

To what extent do digital nomads contribute to the invention of places (Boyer, 2002)? Can these places be considered heterotopias?

● How do the local and global dimensions of digital nomadism interact? Is digital nomadism an expression of a form of "glocalization"?

Are the accessibility of digital nomads' locations and their tourist dimension constraints or assets for them? There is indeed a tension between the search for atypical, often peripheral locations and the need to follow a trend already well-established in certain territories.

How does their anchoring and embeddedness in places manifest? How do they perceive their installation territory and how are they perceived by other local stakeholders (residents, local authorities, economic actors, etc.)?

Privileged Mobilities

International mobility is currently analyzed through the various regimes that organize it on a global scale. What can digital nomads and their profiles teach us about emerging forms of both mobile and localized lifestyles and the institutional frameworks that enable them?

Are digital nomads the new face of a globalized upper class? How can this group be socially characterized in relation to their professional positions and other privileged mobile professionals such as expatriates?

How does nationality intersect with multiple criteria such as class, gender, race, or age to shape the mobility experiences of digital nomads? How does the combination of these criteria identify unique paths between migratory privileges and constraints?

What resources or capitals do digital nomads rely on to construct their mobility experiences? For example, the weight of international socialization and past mobility experiences (study, professional, or tourist).

How does the privileged nature of digital nomads' mobility shape their experiences in destinations? Do they benefit from priority access to certain resources? What power dynamics and/or conflicts structure their relationship with the local population?

Sociotechnical, Communication, and Institutional Digital Systems

In their engagement with the world, organizational and professional practices, and modes of sociability, digital nomads rely on multiple systems. While they may have preexisting access to information and communication technologies (ICTs), others are specifically designed or constructed for them, even by them. It is important to examine the relationships these systems have with digital nomads, how they engage with them (or not), and the consequences this may have on their lifestyle.

While the development of ICTs is a foundational element of digital nomad practices, how do digital nomads use them? These uses should be analyzed in terms of organizational, work, leisure, and identity perspectives.

How does the institutionalization of digital nomadism give rise to a set of new economic actors positioning themselves as mobility facilitators, at the interface between companies and workers? What tools and devices do they develop? What are the consequences for other modes of work and leisure organization?

Which national and local governments are embracing digital nomadism? What types of public policies are they developing (specific visas, marketing and territorial attractiveness, taxation, etc.)? For example, Estonia was one of the first countries to offer a specific visa (in addition to the tourist visa) aimed at digital nomads. Between accommodating welcoming policies and territorial development strategies, how do public actors integrate the phenomenon of digital nomads into their actions?

What relationship do digital nomads have with taxes and taxation in general? Is digital nomadism a form of tax optimization? Does the practice border on illegality?

In addition to these non-exhaustive questions, proposals can address the sociological, historical, and prospective dimensions of digital nomadism. Meta-analyses and state-of-the-art studies will also be considered.

Modalities and Timeline

Contributions should be submitted by the following timeline:

Deadline for article submission: March 29, 2024

Evaluation of articles: between late April and late Mai

Planned publication of the complete issue: summer 2024

Contributions should be submitted to :

- clement.marinos@univ-ubs.fr

- florence.gourlay@univ-ubs.fr

- alexandre.cuvier@univ-lehavre.fr

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