Euskaldiaspora.com: A methodological approach to study the Basque diaspora online

Introduction

In this paper I would like to address the use of new technologies such as the Web for academic purposes, by presenting a project based on my PhD dissertation[1], which focuses on how the Basque diaspora construct web discourses on Basque identity, and culture. That is to say,

• How ethnic diasporas such as the Basque utilize new technologies of communication and interaction such as the Internet and the Web in order to self-present their identity, culture, homeland, and nation? And
• How can social scientists can utilize those technologies to explore the online discourses created by diasporas?

Consequently, I conducted a study on the Basque diaspora online by analyzing the hyperlinkage structure and networking of diverse Basque diaspora web sites across sixteen countries. Here, I provide very briefly some of the results of this study in order to encourage a fruitful discussion.

Web Studies
How to conduct academic research in the cyberspace?

Some authors (Bromberg, 1996; Reid, 1995; Turkle, 1996) have applied traditional methods (ethnographies, participant observation, informal interviews etc.) of traditional sciences (anthropology, sociology etc.) in order to analyze the social processes that constitute a community in the cyberspace[2]. However, others authors (Parrish, 2002; Ward, 1999) argue the need to use “cyber-ethnographic methods” that “enable participants to drive and create the definitions of the concepts” (Ward, 1999: 100). That is to say, the specific cyber-ethnographic method on online interaction allows the participants of cybercommunities to define their own reality. Ward (1999: 100) argues that cyber-ethnography

“allows the subjects being studied to talk back even as the process is occurring […] The dialogue that emerges between myself as the cyber-ethnographer and the other internet users gives rise to a new type of data. Since the participants are in a position to ask a question and reflect back on the interaction, an alternative slant is placed on the data […] In this sense the research always remains ‘unfinished’ and reflexive.”

According to Schneider and Foot (2004) the new media[3] (Web, electronic mail etc) has challenged the adaptation of traditional approaches to social research online (e.g., ethnography)[4], particularly, due to the specificity of the nature of the media. Consequently, there is a need to take into account the characteristics of the Web text when analyzing its content (see McMillan, 2000; Mitra, 1999, online; Mitra and Cohen, 1999):

· Ephemerality or impermanence of the Web text as the Web is updated in a constant manner[5].

· Non-linearity: “Traditionally, texts have been characterized by having a specific beginning and a recognizable end” (Mitra and Cohen, 199: 182), and a sequentiality or progression. It is not possible to determine the beginning or the end of the Web text. The Web text differs from the assumed linearity and sequencing of traditional written media.

· Hypertextuality or intertextuality[6]. Textuality is a central aspect of the Web. “Unlike printed analog text, the virtual text offers the opportunity to connect various virtual texts with specific “links” that allow the reader to move from one text to another in an effortless manner” (Mitra and Cohen, 1999: 182). Sites and their contents (textual, graphical, and multi-media) are implicitly or explicitly interconnected with each other (i.e., reciprocity and interactivity). The interconnection nature of sites and contents allows the reader or user to explore beyond the initial starting text. The hypertextual links “provide the opportunity for producing a non-hierarchical network of texts where no single text can claim primacy or superior legitimacy […] No single text would be more central than another” (Mitra, 1999, online). That is to say, hypertextuality constructs decentered texts in the Web. According to Mitra and Cohen (1999: 182) “the effectivity of a single text depends on the larger discourse it is a part of.”

· Multi-medianess of the text: combination of written word, graphics, and audio-visual forms.

· Global reach, ubiquity, and asynchrony of the Web text: There is a potential global audience. There is a great and fast accessibility to the Web. Nevertheless, the users’ accessibility depends on their commands of languages[7]. The Web text is found at any place and can be simultaneously read by different people at different places and times. Computer “navigation” enables a continuous and stable communication, independently of the place users live in, unthinkable three decades ago.

A multi-sited ethnographic approach to hundreds of diaspora communities, such as the Basque, throughout twenty-three countries (as of April 2006) raises obvious obstacles such as time and funding. Therefore, technologies such as the Internet and the Web offer new possibilities to conduct a research on diasporic cultures without having to travel to all the localities to conduct for example in-person interviews. These technologies (via electronic mail communication) allows me to explore the Basque diaspora (and its notions of identity, culture, and homeland) throughout its institutional web sites without having to physically travel to specific diaspora communities to conduct fieldwork, while studying the interconnection of global technologies and diaspora identity. Basque diaspora institutional web sites helps me to visualize not only local Basque dispersed migrant communities around the world but also challenge me to rethink and explore notions of identity and culture from diasporic and transnational perspectives, while portraying and projecting, theoretically, the Basque diaspora as a global cultural imaginary (though not homogeneous).

Therefore, I created a web site called euskaldiaspora (<http://euskaldiaspora.com>)[8] in order to explore the Basque diaspora online by linking each diaspora web site in a common space. That is to say, euskaldiaspora is a hypertextual experiment on the Basque diaspora online. It allows to explore the geographical webscape of the Basque diaspora and to reimagine the Basques online.

Basque Diaspora Web Sites Directionality: Towards the Homeland
The Basque diaspora is a network of transnational communities comparable to nodes in a network. Similarly, the Internet is also a network of computers (or nodes) that conform social networks of people. Consequently, I define the Basque diaspora webscape as the landscape produced by the Basque diaspora web sites online. This webscape is constituted by web sites (texts and graphics), which create a common networked set of online discourses across geographical, political and linguistic barriers, and which are produced by multiple authors. The hypertextual nature of the web text allows analyzing the discourses constructed by the Basque diaspora institutions online. The hyperlinks offered in euskaldiaspora tight together the set of discourses produced by the different Basque diaspora web sites. The online text provides the opportunity to interconnect the diverse Basque texts-sites with specific "hyperlinks" or "links" allowing the reader to move from one text to another.

What do these links imply? What can we learn from the Basque diaspora webscape’s hypertextuality?

Hypertextuality, according to Rodríguez de las Heras (1999, online) is “a way of folding a text, a new geometry of the text [in the cyberspace].” That is to say, imagine an ordinary piece of paper where we are going to fill out with words…then, we are asked to read it through a small window (i.e., the computer electronic screen). The area of the written paper is larger than the screen; however the technology offers you an unlimited depth, but you need to look through a small screen. The author states that there are two ways to solve this discrepancy: First of all, if the page is too large, we need to “chop” it down to the size of the screen. Then, the technology offers us links to tie together the pieces of the “chopped” page. This is the most common or nearly exclusive solution provided by Basque diaspora webmasters. That is, Fox and Roberts (1999: 644) state that,

“Electronic writing such as World-Wide Web […] provides the possibility for hypertextual links [or hyperlinks] to other blocks of [html] texts [within and outside the site], ad infinitum.”

Secondly, instead of cutting the page, we fold it. Rodríguez de las Heras (1999, online) concludes:

“As we fold it, the text is disappearing under the creases while emerging as an origami figure, an interface that fits on the screen. Then, the reader will unfold the text by touching on it. The hypertext is an origami work, although what is being folded is not the paper but the text.”

The aforementioned technology refers to the hypertext transfer protocol (or http://) which allows for files (or sites) written in the hypertext markup language (or html) to link with each other constructing a network of interlinked files or sites which might contain textual, audio-visual or graphical content. Hypertextuality works like the human memory; it remembers in a non-linear manner, linking one thought to another, retrieving information from a small link to a bigger link.

In other words, the Web is a compendium of infinite number of pages where none is the first and none is the last. The reader does not turn the pages but uses its hypertextual organization to unfold the text. Web sites offer a number of selected external links which connect with other similar or related sites on the Web. The links provided by the diaspora web sites (educational, cultural or euskal etxeak) offer a sense of commitment to the homeland, the hostland, or the diaspora. The diaspora sites’ links are related to the specific purposes and goals of the web sites and offline associations, as well as the sites/associations positionality: abridge between the homeland and hostland (a motivation or desire to connect), while enhancing their diasporicity tendency of connecting and networking the different segments that conform the Basque diaspora. The links imply, first of all, networking (a common inter or hypertextuality and a horizontal network of connections) and an awareness of the web sites existence (and in many cases their offline associations) as well as a geographical and linguistic “proximity,” (illusion of closeness), which have the potential to open channels of communication and networking in a near future. Consequently, links (or hyperlinks) work as:

· Points of entry into a “greater” Basque webscape (homeland and diaspora) recreating a networked topography of Basque communities on the World Wide Web: a map of connectivity (Sökefeld, 2002).

· Cybercultural brokers or ambassadors, particularly, between the homeland and the hostland. They offer basic information for anyone to become an informed person on both realities –homeland and hostland-, and

· Preference directional figure: i.e., a thematic and geographical network of Basque cybercommunities; as a web of attachments (“triadic relationship”: homeland-diaspora-hostland, Sheffer, 1999), and as a conscience of diasporicity (intra-diaspora linkages).

Does this intra-connectivity translate into an intra-cooperation? What are the Basque diaspora sites linked to? Are they connected outside their “local cybercommunity”? Or are they only connected to Basque organizations –homeland, diaspora-, or to other ethnic organizations (exclusion and/or inclusion factor)? Are they connected to a local, translocal, national, transnational or international levels- (scale, scope, and distance)? What type of links do they have? Are the links center-oriented to the homeland or have been re-oriented to their new place of residence or hostland?

I analyzed 95 Basque diaspora web sites (100% of total sample) in order to study their external links (nearly 2,000 as of July-August 2005) as the scope of the Basque diaspora webscape[9]. For the analysis of the links, I took into account the continent/country, type of site, type of links (e.g., educational, cultural or political) and their directionality: the homeland according to its current administrative division –the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC); the Navarre Foral Community; and the Northern Basque country provinces or Iparralde-; the hostland; the Basque diaspora; and other countries. When we talk about the Basque homeland, what are we talking about? The directionality of the Basque web sites’ links presents a clear direction and understanding of the meaning of homeland as I will illustrate later on.

In sum, the European web sites present the largest percentage of total links of the Basque diaspora (36.96%), despite of having a modest number of web sites compared to the American continent. Europe is followed closely by the South American web sites with 35.23% of the total links, and the North American web sites with only 27.43% of the total links. Oceania with Australia as its only representative has only 0.36% of the total links.

In regards to the directionality of the 1,910 Basque diaspora links, a striking 68.63% of the total links were directed to the homeland, showing a pattern of closeness, priority, and hierarchy of links. Significantly enough, the second highest number of links (17.43%) are directed to the Basque diaspora itself (bi/multiple intra-diaspora connections), while only 10.36% of the total links refer to the hostland. Nearly 4% of the total links are directed to other countries. Similar to other diasporic groups such as the Indians (Mitra 1999, online) their main discursive domain is based on a place of origin. The prioritization of the Basque diaspora webscape’s discursive domains is as follows: homeland (promotion of connection with the place of origin), diaspora (promotion of connection with other Basques), and hostland, which translates into a tendency to acknowledge dual allegiances.

The majority of Basque diaspora institutional web sites (e.g., the Euskal Etxeak sites) identify a common homeland despite being geographically dispersed and socio-historically, culturally and generationally apart from each other. Consciously the links aim to the homeland, not to Spain or France, or for that matter to any country, which does not mean anything to them. In this sense, links are meaningful. This homeland is primordially identified with the Basque Autonomous Community (or Euskadi) as the majority of links indicate, and followed by Navarre and Iparralde. However, the combination of links directed to the BAC, Navarre, and Iparralde are the norm in the majority of the sites, implying the widespread regional origin of their institution’s membership. According to diaspora institutions’ statutes, membership is open to all Basques from the seven homeland provinces. This could indicate the webmasters’ willingness to provide links for their membership and visitors to homeland sites that they have a strong connection with, and they might be useful to them. The presence of the BAC is quite heavily noticed in the diaspora as for the last twenty years its government has played an increasing role in the international sphere, particularly on diaspora policy-making, and as its has occupied the role of being the institutional mediator between, not only its administrative constituency (i.e., the BAC, three of the four southern Basque provinces) but the entire Basque homeland formed by Navarre and Iparralde, and the diaspora. The BAC Government is the main homeland institutional reference for the Basque diaspora.

Furthermore, in the study, I highlight the existence of two online Navarran clubs (or Nafar Etxeak, both from Argentina) as separate entities within the overall Basque diaspora (online and offline)[10]. This is due to the Navarran club web sites portray of a clear sense of identity, which differs from the overall Basque diaspora identity. The existence of this clear identifiable “internal element” of the Basque diaspora online, in relation to other Basque online institutions (such as the Euskal Etxeak web sites), allows us to study and compare the diverse identity markers of the Basque diaspora (online). For example, one of the most distinguishable characteristics of the Nafar Etxeak online is their links directionality, and their meaning of homeland. While the Euskal Etxeak sites are mostly linked to the Basque Autonomous Community, as well as Navarre and Iparralde, the Nafar Etxeak sites are almost exclusively linked to the Foral Community of Navarre. At the same time, the inter-connectivity (via links) between the Euskal Etxeak and other educational and cultural sites, and the Nafar Etxeak, and vice versa, is almost non-existent. Only one Euskal Etxea site from France provides a link to one of the two Nafar Etxeak online. That is all. It seems that the web sites have constructed two parallel cyberspaces (Euskal Etxeak and Nafar Etxeak) that ignore, or at least do not acknowledge, each other’s reality, failing to provide online bridges of communication and understanding. On one hand, a visitor to any of the Nafar Etxeak sites, ignoring the history of the Basque Country or its geographical location, would find no reference to the Basque Country or to their centennial common history. To this visitor nothing would be missed. On the other hand, a visitor to any of the Euskal Etxeak web sites would find multiple references to Navarre, not as an autonomous community part of the Spanish current political and territorial structure, but as a part of an imagined unified Basque Country conformed by seven provinces. This also reflects on the plurality of the Euskal Etxeak membership: many of them are from Navarre. According to Park and Thelwall (2003, online)

“The literature [on hyperlink network analysis] suggests how hyperlink networks may in some circumstances reflect offline connections among social actors, and be unique to online interactions in other cases.”

However, I cannot infer, conclusively, from the data analyzed that there is no communication and/or cooperation between Euskal and Nafar Etxeak in the “real” world. In addition, the particularly low percentage of links (less 1% of total links) to Spanish and French web sites is quite significant[11]. This might help us to understand the meaning and the image of the homeland portray by the Basque diaspora web sites. Those portray a community of Basques territorially defined by boundaries that shifts, according to the links analyzed, from the current autonomous communities of the Basque Country and Navarre, and the territory of Iparralde to any combination of all of those provinces by forcing a (cyber)imagined homeland.

In short, the majority of the Basque diaspora web sites are linked to cultural sites (28.06% of total links), diaspora sites (17.32%), educational sites (15.86%), media (14.81%), and government (8.27%). The Basque diaspora web sites are linked to the Basque homeland (67.01% of total links): first of all they are linked to the Basque Autonomous Community sites (21.3%; particularly to political organizations 70.21%; media sites 58.3%; government sites 55.65%; and educational sites 28.38%). Secondly, the Basque diaspora sites are linked to Basque diaspora sites (particularly to the US 54.38%, and Argentina 25.98%), and then, to the hostland educational, cultural, government and media sites. Geographically, the Basque diaspora online is connected to North American Basque sites (58.61%), South American Basque sites (29.9%), European sites (8.45%), and Oceania sites (0.9%). Linguistically, the Basque diaspora online is consequently connected to English-speaking countries (63.14%), then to Spanish-speaking countries (32.32%), and to other countries (2.41%). That is, the Basque cyberdiaspora is not separated geographically, as territorial boundaries are blurred online, but linguistically into two different blocs: English and Spanish-speaking countries. The Basque diaspora offline is both segmented geographically and linguistically. Can this linguistic obstacle mean a communication problem for the Basque diaspora, at least in its online version?

Conclusions
In sum, euskaldiaspora is becoming a useful research tool not only for academics but for the general public including Basque diaspora webmasters and associations, as it offers information about other co-ethnic associations and facilitates ways of interlinking with each other. In this regard, this web site facilitates the researcher an unprecedented tool to explore the meanings of Basque diaspora identity across the planet. The Web provides unprecedented means for academics conducting research on, particularly, dispersed groups such as diaspora. The study of the hyperlink network of the Basque diaspora is a good example on how to utilize new technologies in order to explore identity discourses.

As we have seen one can argue that Basque diaspora sites are interconnected, via common hyperlinks, and exhibit a great level of ties that bind many (online) institutional sites together, at least theoretically. However, this does not imply that in a non-online level, they know each other or they maintain any relationship inside and/or outside the cyberspace. Nevertheless, the study of the Basque diaspora webscape’s links reveals a online world, not so well known, that displays a vibrant and constant changing community, which transform itself in a relentlessly manner. As if it was a galactic nebulous, the Basque diaspora webscape is made up of individual stars which form constellations that we can be traced by imaginary lines or links.

The discussion is open…

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