Eritrea on-line: Diaspora, Cyberspace, and the Public Sphere

For Eritreans in diaspora, identities are deterritorialized, one's most pressing communication may be with far-flung strangers in cyberspace, and one's political engagement is centered on a distant homeland. Eritrean experiences, thus, seem to bring together various qualities that scholars have been grappling with in trying to chart the implications of the infotech revolution and life on-line, in seeking to understand processes of transnationalism and globalization, and in charting the elusive construction of community in the postmodern age. Through an analysis of the social history of www.dehai.org, a website developed by Eritreans in diaspora, I explore the ways that new forms of technological and geographical mobility are changing the conditions not just of capitalist production but also of knowledge production and the constitution of publics, public spheres, communities, and nations.