Abstract
This study examines the impact on the identity of voluntary economic migrants of their different social representations meeting, which they need to negotiate in their transnational context, which are simultaneously online and offline. Voluntary economic migrants are individuals with university education, with special professional skills who choose to move to a destination country for professional opportunities. The challenge for these individuals is developing the codes for social exchange to construct a new social reality and identity upon migration through their online/offline interpersonal communication. This process of renegotiation can lead to voluntary economic migrants experiencing schismogenesis during acculturation. Through in-depth interviews with voluntary economic migrants, Facebook data analysed using netnography, as well as interviews with members of their personal network, this research compared how individuals socially represent stabilisation their identity schism through their interpersonal communication. Themes from the data provided insight into the personal processes of individuals in attaining schismogenic stabilisation and degree of influence on their identity in a short period i.e. re-identity. System coupling outcomes, simultaneously conscious and subconscious, in order for voluntary economic migrants to attain schismogenic stabilisation were based on: (i) their fulfilment of professional aspirations, (ii) time to their attainment of financial stability, and (iii) their secondary lifestyle purpose of migration. The expanded and amended schismatic framework illustrates how the contextual changes brought about by migration challenge the strength of the social representations tied to individual identity, which are simultaneously hidden and overt and how individuals worked through them.
D.Litt. et Phil. (Corporate Communication)