ABSTRACT

In this paper, I employ thematic analysis of text data from a web forum to highlight the prevalent debates and themes that emerge in online discussions of Dominican identity. I find that these spaces can be arenas for identity contestation where what I refer to as traditionalist understandings of race and culture clash with non-traditionalist perspectives. When this happens, users rely on a number of strategies to rouse cultural memory, evoke racialised emotions, and establish cultural legitimacy. Forum participants create digital imagined communities where they can perform and share the particularities of their culture, while producing new conditions of cultural legitimacy and belonging. As technological innovation provides new platforms where diasporic and non-diasporic members of a nation can come together, it is important to continue to explore the role of online spaces as sites of cultural production.

摘要

在本文中，我对来自网络论坛的文本数据进行了主题分析，以突出在多米尼加身份在线讨论中出现的普遍辩论和主题。我发现这些空间可以成为身份争论的舞台，我所说的对种族和文化的传统主义理解与非传统主义观点发生冲突。当这种情况发生时，用户依靠多种策略来唤起文化记忆、唤起种族情感并建立文化合法性。论坛参与者创建了数字想象社区，他们可以在其中表演和分享其文化的特殊性，同时创造文化合法性和归属感的新条件。由于技术创新提供了一个新的平台，一个国家的侨民和非侨民成员可以聚集在一起，