“Come On, Put Viber, We Can Drink Coffee Together”: Performing (Im)mobile Intimacy in Turbulent Times Among Aging Migrants

Abstract

This paper critically examines how elderly people from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse(CALD) backgrounds in Victoria, Australia use visual-based platforms in navigating the lockdown in Melbourne, Australia. Based on conducting remote interviews among 15 participants in 2020, the findings show digital practices as integral to forge and maintain cultural identities and social connectedness. Using the mobilities perspective to interrogate digital behaviours, I coin the term ‘(im)mobile intimacy’ to articulate a sense of closeness enabled, felt and negotiated through modes of movements and stasis in and with online platforms. I contend that differential mediated mobilities and immobilities are informed by social, contextual, and technological factors, revealing the textures of affective and relational dimensions of enacting mobile intimacy. In sum, by locating both movements and stasis in digital environments, this paper sheds light on the (re)production of exclusion during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction

Perennial and increased disruptions of everyday movements had become a familiar scenario for most people in the world since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. A majority of individuals across the world was forced to “stay put” in their homes, regions, and countries because of travel restrictions, border closures, and on-and-off lockdowns. While spatially immobilized, mobile communication technologies and online channels became integral to forging and maintaining personal, familial, and social ties. In a sense, containment in physical spaces was traversed through the interconnectedness of physical and virtual mobility (Urry, 2007), facilitating mobile intimacy (Hjorth, 2011; Urry, 2007).

This article critically investigates how elderly people from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds used visual-based online channels to forge and sustain intimacy at a distance during a lockdown in Victoria, Australia, in 2020. The key participants of the study were considered “aging in place” (Baldassar, Wilding, Boccagni, & Merla 2017) or living with their family members or living alone in their residential place but proximate to immediate family members, peers, and community members. The central theme of the article is on performing mobile intimacy through visual-based platforms, including messaging applications and a videoconferencing tool. In this regard, the study raises the following set of questions: What is the role played by visual-based channels in the experiences of mobile intimacy among aging migrants while navigating a lockdown? What are the motivations behind the use of these channels? What are the factors that engender and undermine digital practices? What do diverse digital practices reveal about the dynamics and textures of mobile intimacy? In addressing these points, the study deployed remote interviews—via Zoom or a phone call—among 15 aging migrants in Victoria, Australia. Interviewing at a distance was selected for the research study because of the lockdown.

The study grounds its discussion within the growing body of work on intimacy at a distance (Cabalquinto, 2018b; Hjorth, 2011; Holmes & Wilding, 2019; Urry, 2007). In the first instance, I refer to intimacy as a set of practices that activates a sense of closeness in a familial and community context (Jamieson, 1999). Within the field of media and communications, everyday intimate and connective practices are understood as mediated by mobile devices (Vincent & Fortunati, 2015), stirring diverse affective intensities and emotions (Lasén, 2004). Here, individual users do not only feel the media by using it (Pink, 2015), but everyday mediated and intimate practices trigger a sense of proximity. This has been the case for migrants (Boccagni & Baldassar, 2015; Holmes & Wilding, 2019).

This article offers a nuanced take on understanding mobile intimacy. I approach the enactment of mobile intimacy through a mobilities lens (Sheller & Urry, 2006; Urry, 2007). This perspective highlights the interconnectedness of movements and stasis as shaped by people, objects, infrastructural systems, and social structures. It also centers the production and experiences of inclusion and exclusion in social settings as informed by an individual’s age, class, ethnicity, gender, and dis/ability (Elliott & Urry, 2010; Hannam, 2011). In the context of media and communications (Keightley & Reading, 2014), every day and intertwined movements and immobilities are considered shaped by social and technological factors. To date, while several studies on mobile intimacy tend to highlight “movements” (Hjorth, 2011; Holmes & Wilding, 2019), a growing number of works have begun unpacking how both mobilities and immobilities in and with mobile devices characterize mobile intimacy (Alinejad, 2019; Cabalquinto, 2018b; Leurs, 2014). Yet, the latter’s approach has not been explored in the context of aging migrants’ digital practices especially during the pandemic. This study addresses this gap. Significantly, based on the findings of the study, the article coins the term “(im)mobile intimacy” to articulate how a sense of closeness is enabled, felt and negotiated through modes of movements and stasis in and with online platforms.

Revisiting Mobile Intimacy

In an increasingly digital age, mobile devices are constitutive in enacting mobile intimacy. Individuals are connected intimately to a mobile phone as it contains their personal or private information (Vincent & Fortunati, 2015), a representation of personhood and culture through contents (Hjorth, 2009), as well as an important tool for sustaining decentralized ties (Hjorth, 2011). This article illuminates the experiences of elderly CALD people in using mobile devices and online channels to forge and embody a sense of closeness with their local and transnational family members and peers while navigating stay-at-home orders during a pandemic. As discussed in this article, mobile device use enables aging migrants to temporarily escape physical separation and sustain intimate ties, locally (Baldassar & Wilding, 2019), and transnationally (Cabalquinto, 2022; Leurs, 2014).

I interrogate the formation of mobile intimacy within the context of a crisis. In the last decade, many studies have begun exposing the role of mobile communication technologies in shaping the experiences of intimate connections during turbulent times. In the case of migrants, most studies have focused on how digital technologies are frequently used to identify and solve familial issues (Baldassar, 2014; Horst, 2011; Peile, 2018). For instance, visuals are produced and circulated among dispersed family members in messaging applications to identify and assess health conditions and seek medical support (Cabalquinto, 2021). Financial hardships are addressed through communicating, organizing and sending remittances via mobile phones (Baldassar, Wilding, & Worrell, 2020; Cabalquinto, 2018a; Peile, 2018). Ultimately, these mobile practices are enacted when individuals are situated and sometimes “stuck” in dispersed arrangements. However, to date, we know little about how older adults (Moore & Hancock, 2020), particularly those with migrant backgrounds, use an array of digital communication technologies in coping with the global health pandemic.

Structuring Intimacy

I approach the mobile practices of aging migrants in forging and sustaining mobile intimacy through a mobilities lens (Sheller & Urry, 2006; Urry, 2007). This perspective indicates how both mobilities and immobilities are produced through complex mobility and infrastructural systems (Sheller & Urry, 2006; Urry, 2007). In a migration context, the movements and stasis of people are governed by migration policies (Glick Schiller & Salazar, 2013) as well as surveillance technologies (Turner, 2010). In the context of everyday media and communication practices, the mobilities lens probes how social and technological factors produce and undermine mediated mobilities (Keightley & Reading, 2014).

Building on the mediated mobilities lens, I consider the diverse factors that shape mobile intimacy. Particularly, a range of factors inform the affective and relational dimensions (Cabalquinto, 2018b; Leurs, 2014; Twigt, 2018) of mobile intimacy. In the first instance, studies have shown how kinship structures and familial obligations (Baldassar, Baldock, & Wilding 2007) as drivers for mobile intimacy. Here, enacting a sense of proximity through digital media use is impacted by gendered and familial roles (Alinejad, 2019; Baldassar et al., 2007; Cabalquinto, 2018b; Leurs, 2014; Parreñas, 2005). Practices of delivering emotional and practical support and care are mediated via mobile devices. Additionally, mobile device use is shaped by the positionality of migrants in their host country (Ong & Cabañes, 2011; Ong & Rovisco, 2019). For instance, mobile technologies and online platforms are used both for sustaining connections and solidarities among selected networks in and beyond borders (Ong & Cabañes, 2011). Additionally, engagements in communities are also fueled by migrants’ challenging experiences in their host country and fostering support (Francisco-Menchavez, 2018).

I particularly draw on the conception of “digital kinning” by Baldassar and Wilding (2019) to unpack the social and cultural dimension of everyday intimate digital practices of aging migrants. Baldassar and Wilding (2019) propose the term “digital kinning” to conceptualize the processes through which digital media use facilitates the maintenance of social connectedness and cultural and social identity. They also argue that aging migrants use digital communication technologies for sustaining ties with their local and transnational support networks. In interrogating such concept, I consider how personal and cultural backgrounds inform mobile intimacy (Elliott & Urry, 2010).

The socio-technological affordances of mobile devices impact mobile intimacy (Hjorth et al., 2020; Watson, Lupton, & Michael, 2020). Technological features and functionality often become a vital part of the everyday, habitual, and sensorial experiences of personal and social lives (Pink & Leder Mackley, 2013). As presented in several works, everyday intimate connections during a crisis are enabled through the visuality and networked connectivity of contents (Watson et al., 2020) and navigating the interface of the device through touching buttons and circulating data (Hjorth et al., 2020). In the case of migrants, situated and embodied practices are activated through the visual and networked features of a videoconferencing tool (Alinejad, 2021) or mobile images (Cabalquinto, 2020; Leurs, 2017). Notably, aging migrants also draw on these affordances to stay connected with their local and transnational support networks (Baldassar & Wilding, 2019).

Mobile Intimacy, On Hold?

In this section, I illuminate the immobilities generated in the enactment of mobile intimacy. Within the intersections of digital media and migration research, a body of work has developed a critical perspective on articulating mobile intimacy. The discussions have explored how social and technological influences undermine the quality of mobile intimacy.

Scholars have identified asymmetrical social and technological factors (Cabalquinto, 2018b; Leurs, 2014; Lim, 2016; Wilding, 2006) generating “immobilities” in digital exchanges. For instance, gendered and familial expectations often compel migrants to voluntarily choose to remove or not share personal social media posts and sustain a sense of closeness among kins (Cabalquinto, 2018; Madianou & Miller, 2012). This performative adjustment, such as being (in)visible and (dis)connected in digital spaces (Sinanan, 2019), demonstrates the management of emotional registers in a polymedia environment (Madianou & Miller, 2012).

In some cases, mediated immobilities are stirred by the uneven technological landscape between the migrant’s host and home country (Baldassar et al., 2007; Cabalquinto, 2022; Wilding, 2006). Moreover, the lack of access to resources (Leurs, 2014; Smets, 2019) and low levels of technological competencies to use online platforms undermine intimate engagements (Cabalquinto, 2022; Madianou & Miller, 2012; Parreñas, 2014). In the case of aging migrants, limited digital access and skills (Millard, Baldassar, & Wilding, 2018) paired with declining physical conditions (Wilding, 2006) hamper local and transnational communication.

This study will unpack both mobilities and immobilities as crucial components for facilitating mobile intimacy. This approach builds on an understanding that both mobilities and immobilities are resource-based (Elliott & Urry, 2010), and operate as vantage points to expose and interrogate exclusion and inclusion (Cresswell, 2010) in the digital world. Importantly, both are embodied, felt and negotiated as shaped by social and technological influences. As demonstrated in this study, the embodied experiences of both mobility and immobility manifest in the mediated and intimate lives of aging migrants during the pandemic. To capture this, I propose the term “(im)mobile intimacy” to highlight the closeness enabled, felt and negotiated through modes of movements and stasis in and with online platforms.

Methods

Aging migrants are part and parcel of Australia’s multicultural society. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2020), there were 1.38 million people aged 65 years old and over from CALD backgrounds in Australia. The term CALD is typically used to categorize individuals coming from a non-English speaking country. Historically, their mobility and settlement in Australia has been defined by global events and migration policies. For instance, the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 or the White Australia Policy particularly restricted the number of non-white migrants to Australia (Martinez, 2005). The policy was eventually abandoned by the Australian government in 1973, enabling the flows of migrants from diverse backgrounds, and therefore influencing the nation’s multicultural measures and policies (Jupp, 2007). Additionally, the influx of migrants to Australia has also been shaped by post-war immigration between 1940s and 1960s (Jupp, 2007). The first wave of post-war migration was comprised of displaced persons. The second wave was consisted of persons seeking for a better life. In this study, most of the participants migrated to Australia between 1960s and 1990s, and three participants recently migrated to Australia, from 2012 onwards.

This article is part of a larger project that seeks to investigate how aging CALD people in Australia use digital media technologies and online platforms to navigate their personal, familial, and social lives during and beyond a global health crisis. The study involved 15 elderly participants in Victoria, Australia, who were recruited via multiple migrant organizations for elderly people. The participants’ ages ranged from 60 to 96 years old. Five participants were male, and the rest were female. Twelve of the participants were retired and three were working. The majority had completed a Bachelor’s degree, except for two participants. Of the 15 participants, three completed a diploma course in Australia, and two had doctorate degrees. As mentioned at the outset, the participants were “aging in place.” They also came from diverse cultural backgrounds, including: Syrian (1), Macedonian, (1), Cambodian (1), Filipinos (4), Indian (3), Sri Lankan (1), Taiwanese (1), Malaysian (1), Hongkonger (1), and Indonesian (1).

The study deployed a qualitative methodology, particularly employing in-depth interviews (Lindlof & Taylor, 2002). In the first instance, the participants were recruited via a circulation of a call-for-participants on the author’s academic website, on Twitter, and an email among migrant organizations. I received calls and emails from several elderly people who expressed interest in participating in the research study. In accordance with the health protocols in Victoria, I deployed remote interviewing to collect data. Out of the 15 participants, six were interviewed via Zoom and nine were interviewed during a phone call.

The interviews covered many themes in relation to the everyday digital practices of the participants during the pandemic. However, in this article, I focus on the ways visual-based platforms were utilized to forge and sustain local and transnational intimate ties among participants. Deploying the mobilities lens in the media and communication context (Keightley & Reading, 2014), I pay close attention to how diverse factors shape the movements and stillness with and in media technologies among aging migrants for enacting mobile intimacy. This approach allowed me to explore the affective (Pink, 2015) and relational (Twigt, 2018) dimensions of enacting mobile intimacy. The interviews, conducted in English, were transcribed in verbatim. In analyzing the data, I used an NVivo software, guided by the work of Saldana (2011) on scrutinizing the similarities and differences in the data. Selected quotes were incorporated into this article. The project received an ethics approval from the Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee (DUHREC), with number HAE-20-106.

Staying Put in a Mobile Environment

Victoria, one of the states in Australia, was subject to a series of stay-at-home measures by the Australian government to stop the spread of the coronavirus. This was a result of the state’s growing number of positive cases in 2020. During the lockdowns, Victorians were allowed to leave their house for four reasons, including buying food and supplies (with a restriction of one person per household during a certain period of a lockdown), outdoor exercise, caregiving, and an authorized work or education if one cannot do so from home. As a result of these constrained movements, Victorians, including older adults, had no choice but to rely on digital communication technologies to cope with forced physical immobility.

During the remote interviews, the participants identified the multiple mobile devices and online channels they used during the lockdown. For them, the most common online channels used were Facebook, messaging applications such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Viber, YouTube, news websites, and a videoconferencing tool such as Zoom. For this article, I focus on the enactment of mobile intimacy among the participants with their local and transnational support networks, with special attention paid to the use of messaging applications and a video-based platform. The visual-based platforms facilitate affective experiences through the way migrants interact with the screen of digital technologies (Leurs, 2014). In capturing the consequences of digital media use among aging migrants in performing and negotiating mobile intimacy, I coin the term (im)mobile intimacy.

A majority of the participants talked about their use of visual-based platforms to forge and maintain ties while staying at home. They benefited from the visual and networked affordances of online channels. This was mainly because these technological capacities replicated face-to-face interaction (Miller & Sinanan, 2014) and as prompts for imagined visual presence (Cabalquinto, 2020; Ito, 2005). For the participants, visual-based platforms generated the maintenance of local and transnational connections among participants and their distant family members and relatives. Notably, everyday movements in and with visual-based channels were influenced by gendered and familial structures (Baldassar et al., 2020).

The participants used digital media platforms to stay connected with their family members in Australia. In 2020, I interviewed Rosa, a 79-year-old Macedonian. She moved to Australia in 1967, “to seek for a better life,” as she said. She worked in a factory for several years. Now, she is retired and being supported by her family members. She currently lives alone. Her husband passed away in 2019 after battling dementia for seven long years. On a regular basis, she was visited by her children and grandchildren. Notably, as reflective of gendered care practices common among female aging migrants (Baldassar et al., 2020), she would normally hang around with her children and grandchildren, chatting with them and enjoying her home-cooked dishes. These activities were drivers for cementing strong relationships with her family members.

However, when physical visits were curtailed because of the lockdown, she relied on her smartphone to stay connected with her family members in Australia. Specifically, video calling on Viber played an important role in this process. In our interview, she expressed, Sometimes my grandson says, “‘Come on, put Viber, we can see each other.’” She also added, “We can see each other, you know.” Sometimes my daughter say, “Come on, put Viber, we can drink coffee together.” At this point of our interviews, I probed her, “Do you actually drink coffee while using Viber?” She said, “Yeah, while doing Viber, same time.” Notably, I also followed up with Rosa about how she felt with using Viber. She said, “Yeah, better. Nice. Nice to hear from somebody.” In this case, we can see how Viber allowed Rosa to enact intimate and mobile interactions with her family members.

The participants used visual-based platforms to activate transnational familial connections. This was the case for Lena, a 68-year-old Indian woman. Lena moved to Australia in 2012, together with her husband. They were petitioned by their son to move and live in Australia. Apart from her husband’s savings, they receive financial support from their son. Lena has two children, both married with children. She and her husband currently live with their son and his family in Victoria. Meanwhile, the other child and his family are based in India. To remain connected with her son and the family in India, she was using Google Hangout through her tablet computer given to her by her son in Australia. During our interviews, Lena uttered that she usually received visual contents from her overseas grandchildren via Google Hangout:

So, they will send photos to me. And they are doing really well in all their activities. Even though, I’m thinking “yeah, I can’t go there.” Even though I can’t go, immediately and free, myself, sitting in my bed, I can see how they are doing through Google Hangout.

In this quote, we see how transnational connections allowed Lena to be updated about her overseas grandchildren’s everyday lives.

Similar to Lena, Mohammed, a 77-year-old man, and originally from Syria, used the visual and networked affordances of a messaging application to enact transnational connections. Significantly, exchanges facilitated a form of transnational grandparenting (Nedelcu, 2017). Muhammed currently lives with his wife. They moved to Australia in 2015. Due to a crisis in their home country, Muhammed applied for a protection visa in Australia. He is now an Australian citizen, enabling him to access a range of social support services from the government.

During the interviews, Mohammed talked about his transnational connection to his granddaughter in Oman. As much as he wanted to visit them, he couldn’t. The borders were closed. To ensure connection, Mohammed used Facebook Messenger. He mentioned that he would prompt his granddaughter to send pictures of paintings on Facebook Messenger. This practice allowed him to witness the development of his granddaughter’s practical skills, which some migrant men tend to interpret as their achievement as a result of their supportive role in their family despite the distance (Baldassar et al., 2007; Cabalquinto, 2022). He explained:

One of my granddaughter which is living in Oman, she is around nine years, she is a very, an artist girl, she’s painting. Several times from time to time she send me some of her paints. To encourage her to paint more and more I said please send more (…) She is looking, she is very fond of her paints. I say, can you send more paints? She is drawing a lot of things.

As Mohammed ended his statement, I asked him how he feels about the paintings that he received from her distant granddaughter. He said, “It is very nice. I appreciate what she is doing and what we’re doing on a daily basis.”

Social Connectedness

Visual-based channels were not only used to connect with family members on a local and transnational domain. They were also utilized to maintain connections with peers and community members. In the first instance, 12 participants were active members of community organizations for elderly migrants in Victoria. Digital technologies sustained their connections to their community members. Through digital activities, migrant organizations provided the participants a space for cultural gathering (Millard et al., 2018), a sense of solidarity (Ong & Cabañes, 2011), and exchanges of affective care through sharing similar experiences (Francisco-Menchavez, 2018), all of which contributing to belongingness. Additionally, the participants also relied on staying connected with their overseas friends and acquaintances. As noted by Baldassar et al. (2020), connections with peers and acquaintances from one’s home country crystallize the maintenance of cultural and social identities.

During the remote interviews, the participants shared their experiences in overcoming the lockdown by connecting to their peers who were members of migrant organizations. A messaging application facilitated the connections. A case in point is Donna, a 96-year-old Filipina. She moved to Australia in 1994. She was sponsored by her son. She did not seek employment but devoted her time to taking care of her children and grandchildren. To keep busy, she is an active member in and even leads several organizations for elderly migrant Filipinos in Victoria.

However, during the pandemic, her physical engagements with her peers stopped. Despite this, she remained connected. In our interviews, she revealed that she is part of a Facebook Messenger group chat for elderly migrant Filipinos, and this group chat ran multiple sessions to help assist the health and wellbeing of the members. On top of participating in an online prayer, she also often participated in sitting exercises like twisting of hands and deep breathing. She also found the sessions to be “easier with instructions.” During the interview, I asked her how she feels about her online activity. She reiterated, “Well it’s better that we can see each other through Messenger and we can chat with each other and we have exercises online. We’re doing it and we’re not bored.”

This is a similar case for Vince, a 75-year-old man, who lives with his wife. Vince was born in Hong Kong and migrated to Australia in 1960s as an international student. For Vince, the Facebook Messenger application provided a space for exchanging updates on personal and social lives among his peers in Victoria:

I connect on that [referring to Facebook Messenger]. A lot of friends actually prefer that Messenger (…) With the Messenger, the photo its small not as big as Facebook itself. You got a lot of photos come on, small bits, but it’s quite quick and quite easy to use.

I then asked Vince to further detail his use of Facebook Messenger. He said:

The photo is more to do with the news and current news most of the time. Sometime you got birthday. A lot of them they share their grandchildren photo. So they send it because you know grandparents, they put a photo of their grandchildren every day.

Echoing the study by Baldassar and Wilding (2019), we can see how the messaging application operates as an interactional space for exchanging mundane or intimate but “newsworthy” information in a communal setting.

Some participants used a messaging application to sustain transnational ties with previous workmates in their home country. This was very common among most male participants of the study. A case in point is Mohammed. Prior to moving to Australia, he worked as a Senior Audit Manager in a bank. Now, he is retired. Despite living away, he maintains connections with his former colleagues via WhatsApp. He often sends and receives messages from them, even during the pandemic. These messages are sometimes random contents or work-related prompts. For Mohammed, exchanges are beneficial, “It’s created inside us a new life because of to stay at home idle doing nothing. This gives us some energy to be sure that you are still alive, you are still dealing with others.” In a sense, sustaining connections with former workmates provides a sense of continuity and positive affective experience.

A videoconferencing tool was utilized for communicating with an overseas friend. An example is the case of Maly, a 60-year-old Cambodian, who lives with her husband and one daughter. Her other daughter was based in Sydney during the interviews. Maly moved to Australia in 1995, together with her husband and their daughter. During our interviews, she mentioned that she usually calls her friend overseas via Facebook Messenger to do Buddhist chanting. I asked her about the motivation behind this practice, and she said, “Buddhism is for my mental health.” I asked her to elaborate, and she explained:

We talk a little bit more like counselling each other a little bit, chatting and after that she rings the bell. She has a bell there. We’re just chanting for two to three minutes together and we use Messenger on Facebook.

She also added, “So at this two and three minutes I see her, she sees me. After that we disconnect from Facebook Messenger. But I continue another 20 minutes. She continues how long she want to do the chanting.” In here, the experiences of Maly show how a religious ritual was re-staged on a transnational domain through a videocall. Both Maly and her overseas friend were afforded with the visuality of the device that shows their movements and more importantly creates an intimate and relaxing atmosphere. As Maly said in the interviews, “I feel very good actually. I think that technology also brings us together.”

Temporarily Immobile

As presented in previous sections, the visuality, mobility, and networked connectivity of digital media channels reinforce cultural and social connections and a sense of inclusivity (Baldassar & Wilding, 2019). However, digital and interactional spaces are characterized by immobilities. For the participants, such conditions are addressed through various strategies.

A growing body of research shows that older adults’ physical conditions impact digital practices (Hänninen, Pajula, Korpela, & Taipale, 2021). In this study, several of the participants identified their physical condition as source of constraint in their digital media use. The case of Anna, the 85-year-old Malaysian, was an example of this. During our interviews, Anna revealed that she has a smartphone and a tablet computer. Despite having both devices, she highlighted that she faced difficulties in using her smartphone, “I’ve just had an operation of one eye, and I need another one on my right eye. I haven’t done it yet so when I see things it’s not that clear.” To cope with this barrier, she typically opted to use her tablet computer whenever she wants to engage in a videocall. As she reiterated, “If I want bigger one I have to use the tablet computer because sometimes my eyes are not that great.”

It is not only the physical condition that affected the way the participants used digital technologies. Echoing previous studies (Cabalquinto, 2018b; Parreñas, 2005; Wilding, 2006), a slow Internet connection disrupted experiences of mobile intimacy. This was evident in the experience of Vince. Vince would usually use YouTube and Zoom, platforms used for streaming content and typically requiring a strong and stable Internet connection. However, sometimes, he struggled with an interrupted Internet connection. He reiterated, “It’s lagging.” In the interviews, I asked him how he resolved the issue. He explained, “I switch it off and reactivate it because it seems to solve the problem. When it’s a problem, switch if off for 10 seconds then switch it back on.” I probed him about the outcome and he responded, “So far, so good.”

The networked affordance of the video-based platforms also generated tensions in digital exchanges. Some participants struggled with the presence of multiple networks in their social media channel (Boyd, 2010). For instance, Dorothy, a 70-year-old Filipina, expressed her frustration in joining a 14-day challenge on social media with her peers in Victoria. Dorothy is an active leader in an organization for elderly migrant Filipinos. She usually organizes events and various activities for them. However, during the lockdown, several online activities were organized by other members. She explained:

My friends sent me their photo review, something like that, a challenge, 14 days. I just have to post plants or flowers or just for the good vibes, whatever, no caption. Then you have to nominate ten friends or ten people to do the same. I did it because I'm fond of plants and I'm fond of sending them (…) I posted them on the Facebook.

However, Dorothy received unwanted requests on Facebook. This compelled her to choose and use a more private channel and enact a carefully curated co-presence (Alinejad, 2019). She noted:

If there is something that I really wanted to only few people will see it. I post it in Messenger because sometimes when I post it on the Facebook, some people will comment, “pahingi pahingi” (give us, give us). Something like that, and I will comment back, "I don't want you to have it. It's mine." Yeah, sometimes I'm not greedy but I want that plant only for myself.

Lastly, sustaining transnational intimate connections was constrained by uneven technological landscape, complementing several studies that have already highlighted how disparate digital infrastructures across countries impact transnational exchanges (Cabalquinto, 2018b; Madianou & Miller, 2012; Wilding, 2006). In this study, the case of Mercy, a 62-year-old Filipina, was a standout. Mercy, working in the aged care and disability sector, has been supporting his left-behind mother, siblings, and their family in the Philippines. During our interview, she highlighted that she often used Facebook Messenger to stay connected with her 90-year-old mother in the Philippines, who is cared for by one of her brothers and his family. Sometimes, she would call her mother via a videocall on Facebook Messenger. However, the slow Internet connection back in the Philippines impacted this:

Normally I use Messenger because there is Internet in our place (…) every time I call them it froze, it stopped, and oh God! So, because they are using their own phone, it has limited Internet, and it’s not that good, and that’s the problem in our country. Their Internet should be really, really powerful. So many people are using Internet.

As a result of this, Mercy asked her family members to install a fixed broadband connection to their house. They agreed to this. However, to her dismay, she discovered the cables for the Internet connection were placed on a tree instead of putting them in a strong pillar. She said, “Some of them they use the tree to put the cable on and that is not the right thing.” Despite her frustration, Mercy regularly contacted her family members in the Philippines.

Through these examples, this article demonstrates how immobilities are produced, felt and negotiated by aging migrants. Aging migrants deployed strategies to mobilize such as opting to use a bigger mobile device, managing posts, switching on and off the Internet connection, and enduring a slow Internet connection. These tactics facilitate temporary mediated immobilities. Notably, I argue that mediated immobilities demonstrate how digital exclusion manifests as context-based (Hargittai, Piper, & Morris, 2019). For example, despite the accessibility of online channels, some aging migrants, such as Mercy, are disadvantaged in digital spaces as a result of broader issues tied to uneven living conditions and infrastructural divides (Cabalquinto, 2022; Helsper, 2021). This point therefore alerts us to rethink how the foundational digital circuits of cultural and social identities are threatened by the disproportionate distribution of digital access and networks on a transnational scale.

Conclusion

This article has revealed the consequences of using visual-based online channels among aging migrants while navigating a lockdown. Everyday digital practices reflected “digital kinning” or the reinforcement of cultural and social connectedness. Moreover, digital behaviors were shaped by gendered and familial roles and community-based relations. However, immobilities manifested in digital environments, as shaped by social, technological and contextual factors. Aging migrants deployed a range of strategies to reclaim and activate mobile intimacy. Building on these insights, I coin the term “(im)mobile intimacy” to capture and explain the intimacies performed, felt, and negotiated by the aging migrants through modes of movements and stasis in and with online platforms.

This article contributes to ongoing discussions and approaches on mobile intimacy. It particularly highlights the performance and experience of intimacy as characterized through both movements and stasis. In illuminating the digital practices of an understudied population of aging migrants, the study contributes to a diverse and critical perspective on digital migration research (Leurs & Smets, 2018). Building on this understanding, I also acknowledge the limitations of this research. A majority of the participants were educated and living in relatively supportive home environments. Using this point of departure, future studies can further explore the experiences of older adults in differing demographics, contexts, and capacities (Fernández-Ardèvol, 2020). This will provide additional layers and much-needed insights to exploring the changing media and communication practices of diverse elderly migrants.

In conclusion, this study has not only showed how the lockdown—forced physical immobility—has served as a window to reveal the possibilities of performing and embodying intimacy among aging migrants via digital media use. It has also underscored how everyday affective textures, intensities and negotiations are informed by digital access, competencies, and a stable networked connectivity. For individuals navigating their turbulent digital lifeworlds, enacting mobile intimacy becomes an “endurance game” of performing, sensing, and negotiating patterns of mobilities and stillness in a tech-based world.

Acknowledgement

I would like to acknowledge the elderly CALD people who participated in this research project. I am immensely grateful for their generosity and strength in sharing their personal stories in navigating the uncertainties brought upon by the global health pandemic. I also would like to thank the Special Issue editors, Sandra Ponzanesi and Koen Leurs, for a smooth and engaging editorial process. Parts of this article were presented in the NOISE Summer School 2021, which provided a generative dialogue to interrogate the cultural dimensions of mediated (im)mobilities. Lastly, I am grateful for the two anonymous reviewers who provided valuable feedback in strengthening the arguments of the article.

Funding

This project is funded through the Research Seeding and Development Grant by the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation.

References

Author notes