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Paper short abstract

This paper situates digital nomadism within postcolonial theory to interrogate whether, and to what extent, their everyday practices of transnational mobility can be read as postcolonial formations.

Paper long abstract

This paper situates digital nomadism within postcolonial theory to interrogate whether, and to what extent, their everyday practices of transnational mobility can be read as postcolonial formations. Drawing on feminist and postcolonial scholarship, the contribution questions the dominant narratives that frame digital nomadism as an expression of freedom, agency, and individual choice, and instead foregrounds the power relations, inequalities, and historical legacies that shape the trajectories of this highly visible form of mobility. The analysis combines theoretical reflection with qualitative examination of popular media sources.

Theoretically, the paper conceptualises digital nomads as neoliberal subjects who deploy individualised exit strategies—such as geographic arbitrage and outsourced labour—to navigate crises in affluent industrialised countries, while relying on global inequalities rooted in colonial histories. Empirically, the paper identifies three dimensions through which coloniality shapes digital nomads’ habitus: tourism-oriented imaginaries of place, an internalised ethos of productivity, and an embedded “institutional whiteness” that normalises Western cultural dominance, English as a global language, and asymmetric economic relations.

The findings suggest that digital nomadism operates as a depoliticised form of coloniality, extending capitalist value extraction and cultural hierarchies into destinations historically shaped by colonial relations. The paper concludes that digital nomads exemplify the figure of the postcolonial neoliberal subject and argues for the necessity of incorporating intersectional, non-Western, and place-based perspectives into future research on lifestyle mobilities.