Du brain drain à l’e-diaspora : vers une nouvelle culture du lien à l’ère du numérique

Abstract

Mobile information and communication technologies (MICT) are profoundly changing the way of being together of migrant and not-migrant populations, as well as their capacity to interact, to organize themselves transnationally and to act remotely at the local level. When used by highly skilled migrants, endowed with high levels of human, social and cultural capital, MICT generate innovative collaborative strategies and new patterns of transnational action. Based on a netnographic study of the website www.ad-astra.ro, this article shows how the Romanian scientific diaspora connects in virtual space and mobilizes itself around a common aim: to efficiently improve the reform process of the education and research system. Thus, deterritorialized practices articulate with local representation in the virtual network to propel Ad-Astra as a legitimate actor of civil society, recognized as partner by the institutions of the Romanian State.

Keywords

• scientific e-diaspora
• transnational e-practices
• hybrid networks
• Romania
• migration
• brain drain