Understanding cultural and identity narratives in the age of advanced digital technologies
Team Members
Masoud Kianpour, Anna Triandafyllidou and Thomas Allen (external link)
Research Assistants: Shiva Mazrouei, Morteza Shams
Funders
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), in partnership with Canadian Heritage, Genome Canada, and UK Research and Innovation’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (UKRI-AHRC).
Description
This project aims to critically review relevant literature in ethnicity and citizenship studies, diaspora studies, new media and communication, and literary studies. It seeks to bridge the gap between two bodies of literature: one analyzing 50 years of multiculturalism in Canada and the other examining advanced digital technologies and their impact on diaspora politics and societal polarization in identity politics and community mobilization.
With a focus on the Canadian experience, the goal is to develop analytical tools contributing to SSHRC’s Knowledge Synthesis objective of recovering, revitalizing, and protecting cultures and histories amidst the movement of people and rapid technological change. Our methodological innovation lies in integrating materials from sociology, diaspora studies, and narrative analysis. While much research on technology’s impact on multiculturalism and identity has been confined to traditional disciplinary boundaries, our interdisciplinary approach recognizes the importance of personal narratives and oral histories in understanding how technology influences self-identity and social cohesion, alongside quantitative data.
Employing an interdisciplinary and multigenre approach, we seek to understand how shared narratives of cultures and histories can be constructed in this rapidly evolving landscape. We are also looking ahead to understand how advanced digital technologies make the world increasingly interconnected, compressing time and space, but also more uncertain and polarized.
Methodologies
This project is grounded in a scoping review, a type of exploratory study that systematically surveys the existing literature on a subject to identify key concepts, theories, and sources of evidence shaping the field. Our approach involves reviewing relevant academic and non-academic literature from the past decade to identify predominant theoretical and normative perspectives addressing our research questions in various humanities disciplines, with particular emphasis on migration studies, diaspora studies and literature.
Project Outcomes
Articles:
Kianpour, M., Triandafyllidou, A., Allen, T., Mazrouei, S., & Shams, M. (2025). Social media narratives, diasporic identity and collective memory: A critical synthesis of the literature. Ethnicities, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/14687968251386072 (external link)
Kianpour, M. (2025, February 11). Online brain rot is undermining our ability to tell meaningful stories. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/online-brain-rot-is-undermining-our-ability-to-tell-meaningful-stories-248984 (external link)