Reclaiming agency in the digital neighborhood: an ethnographic exploration of ethno-religious minority youths' performances of the masculine self

Abstract

Self-presentation has been identified as a key practice within digital youth cultures. The scholarship on youths' self-presentation has extensively investigated how young people negotiate affordances in ways that optimally support their transitions into adulthood. However, the scholarship's focus on identity development and technological affordances risks constructing a homogeneous, de-contextualized, and media-centric representation of digital youth cultures. To unveil how self-presentation practices are embedded within a broader socio-cultural context, I conducted a 15-month hybrid ethnographic study with 23 ethno-religious minority young men living in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. The observations illustrate that these young men attempt to reclaim agency over their identity representations by performing "masculine ideals" of the self in response to racialized discourses. Overall, the results underscore the necessity of adopting an intersectional perspective that considers the interplay between self-presentation on social media and the threats and opportunities within youths' (digital) neighborhoods. Social media hold a central place within digital youth cultures as they enable young people to present their identities in creative ways. Ample studies show that youths appreciate the ability to disclose information about themselves through text, pictures, and videos. This scholarship, however, does not sufficiently take into account the socio-cultural context of young people. Consequently, we risk portraying digital youth culture as a monoculture. In this study, I conducted 15 months of hybrid ethnographic fieldwork among 23 ethno-religious minority young men living in Flanders, the northern Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. More specifically, I took up the role of a volunteer youth worker to gain an understanding of these youths' online and offline everyday lives. The results illustrate that these young men predominantly present themselves in typical "masculine" ways. Taking into account their socio-cultural context, the study found that they engage in these disclosures to challenge racist and discriminatory narratives that represent them either as victims or as perpetrators.