India'com: online community building by the Indian diaspora

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India.com online community building by the
Indian diaspora
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Virtual space place

• contexts for distanciated interaction
• non-physical centers of care and identity
  formation
• television
• Internet
• chat rooms
• BBS
• blogs
• community networks
• etc.

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Is there a way to think of virtual space/place
that is people-centered rather than
medium-centered?
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The extensible individual
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Communication situations as topologies
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Network topology vs. radial topology
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A virtual space by and for a particular community

• built in various media
• defined by the needs, desires, plans and projects
  of a particular community
• or communities

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Bridgespace

• a virtual space designed (or rather evolving)
  as a bridge between
• separate times
• personal biography
• national history
• separate places
• continents
• locales (cities, towns, states)
• cultures

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Bridgespace politics

• intervenes in the construction of nation
• perpetuates a national identity among members of
  several associated diasporas
• perpetuates ethnic identities that are
  transplanted into a host community that does not
  recognize them
• constitutes sub-ethnicity
• intervenes various ways in the construction of
  self

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Bridgespace economics

• a marketplace for goods
• access to material culture
• access to potential customers
• a marketplace for services
• employment
• immigration
• tax advice
• a channel
• for overseas investment
• for remittances overseas gift-giving
• for the formation/maintenance of professional
  ties

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Culture in bridgespace

• slowing diffusion
• intergenerational transmission
• intercontinental exchange (of traditional
  culture)
• accelerating diffusion
• intercontinental exchange (of non-traditional
  culture)
• hybridization
• material
• institutional
• ideological

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Why NRIs?

• Collaborative project w/ Rina Ghose, (Illinois
  State U./U. Wisc. at Milwaukee)
• special group
• high level of technological expertise
• high income (above U.S. median)
• recent arrival (1990s for most)
• various forms of multilingualism including
  English as second language
• actually multiple groups

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TOPOLOGY of the NRI bridgespace
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Places within bridgespace

• hub sites
• ION
• EGON
• LRSEGO
• retail sites
• cooking site
• religious sites
• matrimonial sites