Transfronterizxs Amidst COVID-19: Social Media Ethnography as an Innovative Method to Study Border-Crossing Literacy Practices

• In Event: Transformative Digital Spaces: Disrupting Traditional Notions of Learning and Reimagining Educational Possibilities Through Social Media

Abstract

Objective

Transfronterizx individuals are characterized by their dual sociopolitical, cultural, and economic participation across Mexican and U.S. societies through frequent border crossings at the México-U.S. border (Ojeda, 2005). While qualitative researchers have traditionally relied on in-person methods like semi-structured interviews and ethnography to study transfronterizx communities, the COVID-19 pandemic illuminated the limitations of such inquiries and called for innovative research methods that allowed for physically-distanced investigation of border region phenomena. As such, this study critically reflects upon the methodological affordances of utilizing social media as an innovative approach to study the literacy practices of transfronterizx individuals in the Tijuana-San Diego border region during COVID-19.

Theoretical Framework

The author employs two interconnected theoretical frameworks: multi-sited sensibility (Vossoughi & Gutiérrez, 2014) and transliteracies (Stornaiuolo et al., 2017). The former provides a more expansive view of human activity and learning that happens throughout multiple contexts, while the latter asserts the mobility and fluidity of literacies and their meaning-making power. By integrating these frameworks, the author gains a comprehensive understanding of the diverse spaces – both digital and physical – that transfronterizx commuters navigated during their routine border-crossings, one that appreciates the fluid and mobile nature of transfronterizx literacies across the border region.

Data

Over 250 Facebook posts and their respective comments sections were analyzed in this study. The format of posts and comments was multimodal; it included texts, pictures, videos, and live-videos.

Methods & Analysis

Adopting a digital ethnographic approach (Dalsgaard, 2016; Emerson et al., 2011), the study spanned three months from February to May 2021. Analysis of data relied upon analytic memos and activity logs to develop an inductive code system (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007) that categorized the characteristics and functions of observed posts and comments.

Findings

Digital ethnography allowed the researcher to uncover how transfronterizx commuters leveraged Facebook to crowd-source information (Avalos and Moussawi, 2022) as a means to mitigate prolonged waiting periods at Land Ports of Entry at the height of COVID-19 travel restrictions. Given that these waiting periods serve as a form of surveillance (Nuñez and Urrieta, 2021) and temporal and psychological punishment (Avalos, 2022; Castañeda Pérez, 2022), the study highlights how transfronterizx commuters engage crowdsourced multimodal texts (i.e., digital literacies) to invoke spatial landmarks (i.e., spatial literacies) that enabled strategic border-crossing decisions in response to their increasingly surveilled border region context.

Significance

This study significantly contributes to the body of literature on transfronterizx individuals and their multiliteracies (New London Group, 1996) by introducing digital ethnography on social media as an innovative mode of inquiry to the study of literacy at the México-U.S. border region. Through this approach, the author uncovers new dimensions to transfronterizx commuters' literacy practices, revealing how these practices transcend the physical confines of Land Ports of Entry and extend across digital spaces via social media platforms. This study, thus, underscores the need for the continued development of innovative methods to study transfronterizx communities along the México-U.S. border region – adding significant value to a growing area of scholarly inquiry in education research.

Author

• Isaac Alejandro Felix, University of California - Berkeley