Cover not available

In:Storytelling in the Digital World
Edited by Anna De Fina and Sabina M. Perrino
[Benjamins Current Topics 104] 2019
► pp. 79–103

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

“We are going to our Portuguese homeland!”

French Luso-descendants’ diasporic Facebook conarrations of vacation return trips to Portugal

 | Universidade Aberta | CLUNL-FCSH-Universidade Nova de Lisboa
 | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Published online: 18 June 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.104.05sim
Abstract
This article combines the study of online narratives as social practices and the linguistic anthropological study of imagined communities, to examine a set of non-canonical narrative practices in a Facebook group for the Portuguese diaspora in France. Instead of reports of individual members’ past experiences, these narratives function as invitations to other group members to co-tell typical, shared experiences. Specifically, we investigate how group members share vacation trips to Portugal with each other in ways that produce a sense of collective and simultaneous experience. They accomplish this through deictically-based narrative strategies that shift the social, spatial, and temporal perspectives of narrating and narrated frames in ways that link the following: individual I’s with collective we’s, one-time events with timeless event types, and co-presence online with co-presence on vacation. Through these strategies, participants connect Facebook narrations of vacations to the larger social project of diasporic longing for and return to Portugal.
Article outline
  • Interactional approaches to narrative as social practice
  • Narrating nationalism
    • Narrating the ethnonational we’s on Facebook
  • The Portuguese diaspora in France, offline and online
    • Diasporic Facebook group: Tu sais que tu viens du Portugal Quand/ You know you come from Portugal when
    • Posting about vacation trips to Portugal
  • Creating collectivities and simultaneities
    • Anticipating departure
    • Simultaneity
    • Narrating shared Return to France
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (85)
References
Agha, A. (2005). Voicing, footing, enregisterment. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 15(1), 38–59. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2006). Language and social relations. New York: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Androutsopoulos, J. (2010). The study of language and space in media discourse. In P. Auer & J. E. Schmidt (Eds.), Language and space: An international handbook of linguistic variation. Volume I: Theory and methods (pp. 740–758). Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Axel, B. (2004). The context of diaspora. Cultural Anthropology, 19(1), 26–60. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baquedano-López, P. (2000). Narrating community in doctrina classes. Narrative Inquiry, 10(2), 1–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bakhtin, M. (1981). The Dialogic imagination. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bamberg, M. (1997). Positioning between structure and performance. Journal of Narrative and Life History 7(1–4), 335–342. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Basch, L., Glick-Schiller, N., & Szanton-Blanc, C. (1994). Nations unbound. Transnational projects, postcolonial predicaments and deterritorialised nation-states. Amsterdam: Gordon & Breach Science Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Basu, P. (2007). Highland homecomings: Genealogy and heritage tourism in the Scottish diaspora. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bateman, A. (2014). Children’s use of English ‘we’ in a primary school in Wales. In S. Pavlidou (Ed.) Constructing collectivity: ‘We’ across languages and contexts. (pp. 227–246). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bauman, R. (1986). Story, performance, and event: Contextual studies of oral narrative. New York: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bauman, R., & Briggs, C. (2003). Voices of modernity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bazzanella, C. (2014). Grammar, interaction, and context: Unmarked and marked uses of the first-person plural in Italian. In S. Pavlidou (Ed.) Constructing collectivity: ‘We’ across languages and contexts. (pp. 83–104). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Benveniste, E. (1971). Problems in general linguistics. Miami: University of Miami Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bernal, V. (2005). Eritrea on-line: Diaspora, cyberspace, and the public sphere. American Ethnologist, 32(4), 660–675. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2006). Diaspora, cyberspace, and political imagination: the Eritrean diaspora online. Global Networks, 6(2), 161–179. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Billig, M. (1995). Banal nationalism. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brettell, C. (2003). Anthropology and migration: Essays on transnationalism, ethnicity, and identity. Walnut Creek, California: Altamira.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Charbit, Y., Hily, M. A., & Poinard, M. (1997). Le va-et-vient identitaire. Migrants Portugais et villages d’origine. Paris: Persée.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2012). Analyzing narrative: Discourse and sociolinguistic perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2016). Storytelling and audience reactions in social media. Language in Society, 45, 473–498. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Fina, A., & Georgakapoulou, A. (2015). Handbook of narrative analysis. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Derrida, J. (1986). Declarations of Independence. New Political Science, 15, 7–15. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Villanova, R. (1988). Le portugais: une langue qui se ressource en circulant. In G. Vermès (Ed.), Vingt-cinq communautés linguistiques de la France (pp. 283–300). Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dick, H. (2010). Imagined lives and modernist chronotopes in Mexican nonmigrant discourse. American Ethnologist, 37(2), 275–290. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dori-Hacohen, G. (2014). Establishing social groups in Hebrew: ‘We’ in political radio phone-in programs. In S. Pavlidou (Ed.), Constructing collectivity: ‘We’ across languages and contexts. (pp. 187–206). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dos Santos, I. (2010). Les brumes de la mémoire. Expérience migratoire et quête identitaire de descendants de Portugais de France (Doctoral thesis). Paris: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duranti, A. (1986). The audience as co-author: An introduction. Text, 6(3), 239–247. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eisenlohr, P. (2004). Temporalities of community: Ancestral language, pilgrimage, and diasporic belonging in Mauritius. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 14(1), 81–98. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fono, D., & Raynes-Goldie, K. (2006). Hyperfriends and beyond: Friend and social norms on LiveJournal. In M. Consalvo & C. Haythornthwaite (Eds.), Internet research annual Volume 4: Selected papers from the Association of Internet Researchers Conference. (pp. 91–103). New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gal, S., & Woolard, K. (2001). Languages and publics. Manchester: St. Jerome’s.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2015). Introduction: Communicating time and place on digital media-multi-layered temporalities and (re)localizations. Discourse, Context, and Media, 9, 1–4. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1981) [1979]. Footing. In E. Goffman, Forms of talk (pp. 124–159). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gonçalves, A. (1996). Imagens e Clivagens: Os residentes face aos emigrantes. Porto: Edições Afrontamento.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, M. H. (1990). He-said-she-said: Talk as social organization among Black children. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1997). Toward families of stories in context. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 7(1–4), 107–112. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hanks, W. (1990). Referential practice: Language and lived space among the Maya. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haviland, J. (2005). Dreams of blood: Zincantecs in Oregon. In M. Baynham & A. De Fina (Eds.), Dislocations/relocations (pp. 91–127). Manchester, UK: Saint Jerome’s.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Helmbrecht, J. (2002). Grammar and function of ‘we.’ In A. Dusckak (Ed.), Us and others: Social identities across languages (pp. 31–49). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heyd, T., & Honkanen, M. (2015). From Naija to Chitown: The new African diaspora and digital representations of place. Discourse, Context, and Media, 9, 14–23. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hill, J. (1995). The voices of don Gabriel: Responsibility and self in a modren Mexicano narrative. In D. Tedlock & B. Mannheim (Eds.), The dialogic emergence of culture (pp. 97–147). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jakobson, R. (1957). Shifters, verbal categories, and the Russian verb. Cambridge: Harvard University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koven, M. (2002). An analysis of speaker role inhabitance in narratives of personal experience. Journal of Pragmatics, 34(2), 167–217. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2004). Transnational perspectives on sociolinguistic capital among Luso-descendants in France and Portugal. American Ethnologist, 31(2), 270–290. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2007). Selves in two languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2013). Speaking French in Portugal: An analysis of contested models of emigrant personhood in narratives about return migration and language use. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 17(3), 324–354. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2016). Essentialization strategies in the storytellings of young Luso-Descendant women in France: Narrative, calibration, voicing, and scale. Language and Communication, 46, 19–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koven, M., & Simões Marques, I. (2015). Performing and evaluating (non)modernities of Portuguese migrant figures on YouTube: The case of Antonio de Carglouch. Language in Society, 44, 213–242. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, W. (1972). Language in the inner city. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leal, J. (2000). Etnografias Portuguesas (1870–1970). Cultura popular e Identidade Nacional. Lisboa: Dom Quixote. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, B. (1995). Performing the people. Pragmatics, 5(2), 263–280. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lempert, M., & Perrino, S. (2007). Entextualization and the ends of temporality. Language and Communication, 27(3), 205–211. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mandelbaum, J. (2013). Storytelling in conversation. In Sidnell, J. & Stivers, T. (Eds.) Handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 492–508). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Muhlhauser, P., & Harre, R. (1990). Pronouns and people: The linguistic construction of social and personal identity. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Myers, G. & Lampropoulou, S. (2012). Impersonal you and stance-taking in social research interviews. Journal of Pragmatics 44/10: 1206–1218. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ochs, E. (1994). Stories that step into the future. In D. Biber & E. Finnegan (Eds.), Sociolinguistic perspectives on register (pp. 106–135). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ochs, E., & Capps, L. (2000). Living narrative. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
O’Connor, P. (1994). “You could feel it through your skin”: Agency and positioning in Prisoners’ stabbing stories. Text, 14(1), 45–75. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Page, R. (2012). Stories and social media. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pereira, V. (2016). Portuguese migrants and Portugal: Elite discourses and transnational practices. In N. Green & R. Waldinger (Eds.), A century of transnationalism: Immigrants and their homeland connections. Urbana: University of Illinois. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Perrino, S. (2007). Cross-chronotope alignment in Senegalese oral narrative. Language and Communication, 27(3), 227–244. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Polanyi, L. (1979). So what’s the point? Semiotica 25 (3–4).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosen, C. (2007). Virtual friendship and the new narcissism. The New Atlantis, 17, 15–31.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schiffrin, D. (1981). Tense variation in narrative. Language, 57(1), 45–62. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silverstein, M. (1976). Shifters, linguistic categories and cultural description. In K. Basso, H. Selby (Eds.), Meaning in anthropology (pp. 11–55). Albuquergul, NM: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1993). Metapragmatic discourse and function. In J. Lucy (Ed.), Reflexive language (pp. 33–57). New York: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2000). Whorfianism and the linguistic imagination of nationality. In P. Kroskrity (Ed.), Regimes of language (pp. 85–138). Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2003). The whens and wheres – as well as hows – of ethnolinguistic recognition. Public Culture, 15(3), 531–557. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2005). Axes of evals. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 15(1), 6–22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stirling, L., & Manderson, L. (2011). About you: Empathy, objectivity, and authority. Journal of Pragmatics, 43/6, 1581–1602. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tsuda, T. (2009). Diasporic homecomings: Ethnic return migration in comparative perspective. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Urban, G. (2000). Metaculture: How culture moves through the world. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van De Mieroop, D. (2014). On the use of ‘we’ in Flemish World War II interviews. In S. Pavlidou (Ed.) Constructing collectivity: ‘We’ across languages and contexts. (pp. 309–330). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2015). Social identity theory and the discursive analysis of collective identities in narratives. In A. De Fina & A. Georgakapoulou (Eds.) Handbook of narrative Analysis (pp. 408–428). Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wagner, L. B. (2011). Negotiating diasporic mobilities and becomings: Interactions and practices of Europeans of Moroccan descent on holiday in Morocco (Doctoral thesis). London: University College London.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Whitt, R. J. (2014). Singular perception, multiple perspectives through ‘we’: Constructing intersubjective meaning in English and German. In S. Pavlidou (Ed.) Constructing collectivity: ‘We’ across languages and contexts. (pp. 45–64). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wolfson, N. (1979). The conversational historical present alternation. Language, 55(1), 168–182. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wortham, S. (1996). Mapping participant deictics: A technique for discovering speakers’ footing. Journal of Pragmatics, 25(3), 331–348. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2001). Narratives in action. New York: Teachers’ College Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

De Fina, Anna
2021. Doing narrative analysis from a narratives-as-practices perspective. Narrative Inquiry 31:1 ► pp. 49 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue