Paper short abstract:

This study explores how Romanian seasonal migrants use TikTok to creatively express their digital belonging through content and discourse analysis. It highlights TikTok’s role in shaping identity, resilience, adaptation, and challenging stereotypes while negotiating symbolic boundaries.

Paper long abstract:

This study examines how Romanian seasonal migrants express their belonging and negotiate their identity on TikTok through creative and performative methods. Migrants share their challenges, achievements, and cultural aspects of seasonal work in short videos, which become narratives of resilience and adaptability. TikTok offers them a platform to challenge stereotypes and the stigmatization associated with their precarious status, allowing them to redefine their public image and assert their agency.

By expanding Jay Marlowe's concept of digital belonging, the study explores how migrants utilize strategies like mimicry, viral content creation, and engagement with trending topics to claim space in digital cultures. The role of these strategies in fostering community building, solidarity, and connection among migrant workers across different countries is also highlighted. Furthermore, it considers how TikTok's algorithmic promotion of content influences the visibility of their stories.

The research investigates the specific challenges migrants face in gaining visibility and participating in public discourse on identity and integration, particularly in the context of social and cultural boundaries. Using content and discourse analysis of TikTok videos, this study highlights how migrants reshape public perceptions of their work and identity. Early findings suggest that TikTok empowers migrants to challenge stereotypes, build solidarity within their communities, and foster a sense of belonging through creative self-representation.