The experience of qualitative research on digital nomads in the online community: mobile sociality, space(s), work-life balance bachelor’s project

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FEDERAL STATE AUTONOMOUS EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

FOR HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

St. Petersburg School of Social Sciences and Area Studies

The experience of qualitative research on digital nomads in the online community: mobile sociality, space(s), work-life balance bachelor's project

Field of study: 39.03.01 Sociology

Anna Andreevna Dokish

Supervisor:

Lecturer of the Department of Sociology,

Associated research fellow of the Centre of Youth Studies

A. Sablina

Saint Petersburg 2020

Introduction

Through the last decades, the life of society and individuals has been heavily impacted by the evolving information and communication technologies: their volume of production, speed and pervasiveness of novelty spreading around the world. This global process is studied, described, and analyzed in vivid details in the corpus of literature, belonging to the niche of digital ethnography, digital economy, social studies of web-communities and web-facilitated trends. In the following research I am mainly focused on the phenomenon of digital nomadism, which is the result of changes, caused by the trends in the sphere of labor market, private practices, and mobile lifestyle, facilitated by wireless technologies. 

According to the first part of their definition, digital nomads use mobile devices and internet connection to perform their working duties remotely from the place they deliver their goods or services to. Each nomad is a freelancer, entrepreneur, remote worker or self-employed, but not every one of these professional statuses is a nomad. The metaphor of a nomad is derived from its literal meaning - traveler, wandered. Therefore, the second component to this lifestyle is spatial mobility. In the existing literature is it usually manifested through practices of leaving, moving, and travelling (Dal Fiore, 2014; Richards, 2015), and, on practice, may vary by length of staying and the period spent “on the road”. This lifestyle is distinct from being an immigrant or an expat, yet the borders between defining characteristics of one type or another might be blurred in individual experiences of travelling. Following this idea, the perception of space and place among digital nomads, strategies of space exploration, usage and its (re)defining might be an interesting scope of research and got a closer examination in the chapter `Space(s)'.

Physical space and geographical transition are not the only one type of mobility available for digital nomads. As researchers argue, one's presence online might add to the experience of belonging to more than one space at a time. Serving as a `third place', the virtual world may not only offer tools for learning new information but facilitate the emergence of bonds and friendships, the process of identity formation in web communities that adds to the experience of belonging to one or a set of places. Digital nomad groups might be found on Facebook, one of the most popular social medias, in a considerable amount, with thousands of members in them. In this paper, I select one of the groups to form a sample of digital nomads for the interview and to perform a content analysis on. Mobile sociality (Mascheroni, 2007), claimed to be characteristic for such type of lifestyle by the researchers of digital nomads, in the second focus of my research. This is a concept describing strategies of starting and maintaining communication on move and online, which I am examining it in the chapter `Mobile sociality'.

In the last few years, nomadic lifestyle has been portrayed in the media and personal blogs from two main perspectives: as a desirable choice of independence and freedom and as a lifestyle demanding in terms of resources and skills. Indeed, many articles about burnout and failed attempts to maintain the lifestyle may be found in personal blogs or online magazines. The challenge is not only to succeed at geographical transitions and relationships building, but to maintain working routines and obligations. The strategies of coping with this challenge might be different: from creating the borders between the work and “the rest of the time” to giving priority to only one sphere of life: either travel or work. However, as mentioned before, one, identifying themselves as a digital nomad is trying to combine both parts of their lifestyle into a cohesive, structural way of living, which raises a question about the practices one use to maintain the balance between work and life. Values, guiding the choice of strategies in work-life balance, strategies themselves and the experiences of burnout and `officing' are discussed in the chapter called `Work-life balance'. 

To sum up, the subject of my research is digital nomadism, its context, meanings, and practices of its representatives. The research question, which my paper explores, is `How one's digital nomadic status impacts a lifestyle in terms of practices of socialization, work-life balance, perception of space(s) and web community partaking?'. Due to a complexity of the aim, I divided it into several research objectives:

To discover the image of digital nomadism, acquired from the experience of interaction among digital nomads.

To examine the strategies of communication, formation of relationships among digital nomads.

To examine the diversity of nomadic networks: interaction between a nomad, their close ones and friends, local citizens and the other nomads in real life or a web community.

To reveal practices of exploring, owning the space(s) by a digital nomad.

To define strategies of adaptation in the sphere of work-life balance maintaining. image digital nomadism

To discover the meaning of work-life balance for the digital nomads.

To find an answer to the question, I explore my object of the study: digital nomads, and particularly, those, who are members of the Facebook community, dedicated to the digital nomadism. Qualitative methodology is widely known as the most suitable for exploring a spectrum of practices, meanings, and narratives. This type of methodology has a variety of tools to offer, but I chose semi-structured leitmotif interviews with the content analysis of the Facebook community, dedicated to digital nomadism. I form a sample based on this group, and conduct interviews remotely, via Skype or Zoom. The interviews are transcribed in the form of text, coded, and the tree of codes is analyzed in both: content analysis of a community and the thematic analysis of the interviews. This procedure and its justification are described in detail in the chapter called `Methodology. Methods'.

Chapter #1: Key concepts in the academic discourse

Digital nomadism is a quite new phenomenon. Two main discourses it might be met in are the discourse of social medias and magazines, and the academic discourse. The first one is usually divided on the individual experiences, expressed in the personal blogs, medias like Facebook or Instagram, and the image of nomadism as a product that is promoted, advertised and commodified by organizations and organizations. In the public discourse, digital nomadism is formed into a concrete image, label: it usually does not reflect all complexity of the phenomenon. There are articles like `Why I Quit Being A Digital Nomad' (Karsten, 2019) that describe the downsides of the nomadism, or advertisements of digital nomadic event, which provide information about the possibility to socialize for a digital nomad, which is not as frequently met practice among them.

This chapter is dedicated to the academic discourse, in which a phenomenon of digital nomadism has its history. While the earlier works of 2000s are usually dedicated to the technological side of the nomadism: the study of practices of using a computer, mobile phone, the studies of the later era are dominated by the leisure and tourism field: the practices of digital nomadism, which became more popular, deserved the attention of this field, which explores movements and transitions on a global scale. The most recent papers concert the routine practices of digital nomads, they re-conceptualize the phenomenon and, from the other side, study individual strategies on the micro level.

Mobile sociality

Talking about the changes that distinct internet era from the pre-internet one, some researchers mention the ambivalent status of a person. As Mascheroni (2007) argues, it splits between virtual and spatial, creating the double meaning of “distance” and “presence”. Thus, a person may be near in terms of their accessibility on-line and far - in terms of geographical location (Urry, 2002). Traditionally, communities were established as an assembly of people united by their place of living. However, with the internet communities gain the ability to exceed space keeping the same components - solidarity, communication, identity formation. One form of a community that is especially interesting to me is a community based on the same activities and interests: a professional community or a group based on the mobile lifestyles, close to the nomadic ones: expatriates, immigrants. Professionals unite in anonymous forums as well as at communities where digital self-representation is naturally made through activities of reacting and judging of others' content or creating their own. Their identity, bonded at the communal practices and gatherings, gains a chance to be transferred into the online space and be maintained through on-line presence, as argued by researchers. Building upon the author's argument, a presence of a community member becomes measured at the level of contribution, not necessarily at their status of the account telling “this user is online”. Such type of loyalty construction liberates a member of the community and might potentially provide a space for individual strategies of time and location management without a fear of being excluded or ostracized.

While forums may create the collective body of strangers, united by their occupation or lifestyle, digital communities provide grounds for close bonds, like its traditional predecessor, ensured by face-to-face meetings. Networks, one is included into, become flexible yet strong, and easier (in terms of available options) to maintain while travel, as argued by the researchers. The formation, maintenance of relationships and communication strategies among digital nomads is another part of my research. 

Space(s)

The phenomenon of the internet as a `third space' is defined by Easthope (2009) as a process of separation of a “space” from a “place”. While the latter is more concrete and geographically bonded, the former may broaden its definition on virtual dimensions. Space may include internet as well as “reality-based” networks of acquaintances, coworkers, friends or family. The space allows a loose interpretation or individual definition. Thus, the terms “home” and “office” that play an important role in mental map of an adult participating in the labor market become a product of practices of never ending (re)conceptualization and (re)construction. In the research, I am examining these ideas on the empirical data.

It is not only professional identity that may be constructed differently under the influence of mobile technologies and the internet. Explored by Colic?Peisker (2010), trans-national knowledge workers constitute the issue I am going to research. Namely, the interaction of space and identity based on belonging. They exceed state borders and define themselves as not as a citizen of several places, but rather people who belong to the “world”. Their self-identification is based on a membership at professional and friendship networks, and they are the members of their groups regardless of where they go. Ethnicity might be another phenomenon upon which identity is built. Few report “national proud”, but many find it useful and convenient to describe themselves as descendants of ethnic group. Travelling, these specialist and professionals change the economy of host countries and cities dramatically (Jarvis & Peel, 2010; MacRae, 2016). While staying at rigid communities facilitated by the internet is a legitimate practice, some nomads contribute to the local community, make new connections or participate in the market of the host country either consuming or producing. In the paper, this thesis is critiqued and broaden in accordance to a conceptualization of self as a digital nomad: explored strategies of forming place-bonded identity or its absence, practices of exploring and attribution to the space.

Work-life balance

Traditionally, work-life balance is understood as a balance between the paid employment and activities (or life) outside of it, in which well-being of a person benefits, and the decision about the balance is taken in accordance to one's values. The importance of well-defined concept and vagueness of the metaphor of work-life balance was emphasized by Guest (2002). The decision that he suggests differentiates between nature, causes and consequences of this phenomena and uses conflict theory as a basis of analysis. In my research, I explore, whether the theory, suggested by the author, is relevant in its antagonism of the spheres of life, and learn the the variety of meanings and definitions put in the concept of work-life balance by digital nomads through their practices.

Guest further critiques the idea of hours spent at work as an objective criterion measuring balance between work and home dedication, since it does not always reflect the subjective assessment of a balance achievement by the person. His early 00s research and the mostly described struggles with work-life balance at high-skilled or managerial professions occupied by women with mostly dependent children, which may arise the question, how big is the impact of socio-demographic characteristics and statuses on experience of nomadic remote workers. Flexibility that a company provides to its employees, associated with the idea of family life being compatible with job duties, was emphasized as an important factor to maintaining work-life balance by other researchers (Greenhaus et al., 2003; Crompton et al., 2005). 

Most of 00s papers are constructed around the idea of labor divided from leisure at both: time and space. However, while some professions remain the same for years, others are significantly transformed by new technologies. As discussed before, mobile devices and internet connection may affect any sphere of life, including the way one performs their job duties. Elaborating on Guest's theoretical framework, T. Nam (2014) suggests that the boundary between work and leisure time is blurred, with working activities intervene one's spare time and visa versa. Office workers may and are expected to do put extra efforts at home to solve complicated tasks, while at their workstation they may practice different strategies to shrink and take some rest in intense speed of their shift. 

Not only people with stationary workplace experience this `spillover' of their `work' into the `life'. Remote workers, entrepreneurs or self-employed people might experience struggles with systematizing their lives, because their living space can always become a workplace (Kelliher & Anderson, 2010). Not many things are needed to be able to connect with a client, boss or employee, in terms of the infrastructure. Nowadays it usually takes a laptop or smartphone and Wi-Fi or any internet access. And being a member of a complex virtual-space networks that know no rest, where one is easily accessible by a text or a call, a worker have to either experience a burnout or adapt and create special strategies of self-management suitable for them.

Based on the previously done work, several themes inside the focuses of my research were chosen: the strategies of communication on move, the separation between attitudes to the local demographics and previously build networks, transferred online, the construction of the nomadic identity, bonded to relationships with the space and work, strategies of self-management and scheduling of nomadic lifestyle. I am building the research based on the concepts and ideas suggested by different academicians: `work-life balance', `spillover effect', `burnout', `mobile sociality', and, finally, the concept pf `place' versus the concept of `space'.

Chapter #2: Methodology

Given for the purposes of illustration, the definition I made in the beginning does not reflect vagueness and variability of the understanding of the term. Digital nomadism is represented not only in the literature, but in social media, blogs, is constructed through the perspective of PR and marketologists organizing and targeting nomadic events to the digital nomads. Moreover, as it was revealed in the pilot exploration of the theme, the meanings put into the term `digital nomad' might be different even among the representatives of this movement. It might be defined as community, subculture, or an individual choice of life trajectory and a temporary practice. Therefore, one of the main focuses of my research is to reveal narratives and stories that define this lifestyle and the variety of its manifestation.

The empirical part of my research is made in the qualitative sociological paradigm. This methodology is usually found in the literature dedicated to the digital nomads, and is a standard procedure, when an aim of the researcher is to understand diversity of meanings and practices related to some phenomenon. While the overwhelming majority of academic literature in this field is written in such type of a paradigm, I argue, that it is not enough known of digital nomadism to perform quantitative analysis with the predefined categories and meanings. And the focuses of my research, while being studied separately, were rarely explored in the connection to digital nomadism. Therefore, interviews and content-analysis are the most suitable instruments that I am using in this research. 

Methods

A method I am going to use to collect meanings and contexts from the texts, that define this phenomenon is a qualitative content analysis of an open Facebook community. It contributes to the knowledge obtained from the literature and gives a comprehensive understanding of how the term `digital nomad' is constructed through community practices and social medias. Though the terms digital nomad' and `global nomad' are often used interchangeably in the literature and media, I decided to explore contexts of digital nomadism. It is exploited more frequently, does not create misunderstanding and mismatched usage, where medias and people use the term to describe something else, and, finally, it suits content analysis more.

The Facebook community was chosen for this paper because of the need in first-hand experience of digital nomads, not edited by the media owners or other interviewers. Additionally, the analysis of a community of people with the same interests might give new information about social dynamics and organized communication among digital nomads. Facebook group is usually an a networking hub with resources and infrastructure for sharing experiences and producing meanings with an imposing audience/membership, so the choice of this type of web-mediated source with a variety of materials to explore was a logical step in my research. My final sample was made from an open Facebook group of 23 thousand members, dedicated to digital nomadism. The information box described their potential audience as people, who `work while travelling or travel while working' and had a `digital nomad' term in their name. Therefore, this group was a relevant choice for me, which would be talked about more later.

Since my research is based on the particular web space of dialogue - Facebook group, I am complementing content analysis with leitmotif semi-structured interviews. This approach is quite common for understanding the practices of the movement representatives, meanings of their narratives (Cook, 2020; Kong et al. 2019; Nash, 2019; Reichenberger, 2018). Moreover, this tool facilitates a free, yet focused dialogue, which restricts those, who speak willingly and intensively, and liberates closed or shy respondents. This method allows to find new research perspective on the topic, which exploratory literature review does not. Finally, the semi-structured interview approach reflects the perspective of always changing community/lifestyle representatives with the great variety in their personal background, which further allows to explore causes and consequences rooted in their past. 

However, the method is limited by the skill of the interviewer, it is quite time- and effort-demanding. Some researchers emphasize the need to be highly conscious and accurate in the process of generalization and risks associated with subjective selectivity of the researcher during the analysis process (Diefenbach, 2009). 

The guide of the interview consists of several blocks that cover my research question. The full guide is provided in the Appendix #1.

Career background

Present job

Self-branding

Work-life balance

Travelling

Networking

Facebook communication

Nomadic identity 

All of the blocks were relevant to the experience of respondents with rare exceptions. When the following situation happened during the process of collecting interview, I tried to explore reasons and related themes to learn, which part of their life experience influenced their answer. Due to the specifics of my sample, all interviews were conducted in English.

Sample

As a sample, I recruited users from online community on Facebook, dedicated to the global nomads. 

This choice is grounded at limitations of “identity” focus of my paper. Initially, it was expected that members of the group could identify themselves with the phenomena, that the group is dedicated to digital nomad lifestyle. However, when I started collecting the interviews, some respondent did not remember being signed up for it at all. It's a common practice among people actively searching details about the lifestyle to being a part of several groups, dedicated not only to digital nomads, but quite close by the content, for example, expat groups, which I am going to talk later.

To ground my decision for taking this group for the analysis, I should describe the process of getting access to the field. Initially, I was intended to obtain the information and to form a sample based on one of the most popular Facebook groups. In most cases, they are characterized by big amount of content and fast speed to posting new information. Since in the biggest groups there were about 50 thousand members and they were quite active in the comments, I was hoping that I could recruit some respondents from there. The majority of the biggest digital nomad groups in Facebook has admins as gatekeepers and a private membership, when one's submission must be approved. Administrators of 3 closed groups denied my request either to post an ad to get volunteers for the interview or to let me contact them directly. The last group administrator permitted me to post a request, and then ask for the interview only those, who agreed to participate. However, the high speed of new post emergence did not let me to get many new respondents. I got 3 agreements, and only one person made it through the arrangement and the interview was completed. The percentage of the denials was quite high, and that fact contributed to the decision to change the community. Out of 180 letters, I got the answer from 12 people, which is about 93.4% ratio of unanswered interviews or interviews got lost of the control and did not happen.

I looked for the open membership groups then. They are usually characterized by a list of members available for exploring for non-member of the community, even by the direct search through the google engine, for example. Thus, I began to contact people from Digital Nomad Hub directly. The main method of my recruiting is the method of maximum diversity (Palinkas et al., 2015): when people are self-selected by the researcher in the way they have a diversity in important for the exploration categories, and data is collected until the empirical saturation. I tried to select an even number of males and females. I also wanted to have a diversity of age cohorts: the respondents that made it to the final research are from 26 to 50+ years old. Countries of origin and professions were also important to me, since I wanted to get a different perspective on work-life balance among different types of nature of occupations. It was not planned, but the identification of oneself as a nomad and a relation to the nomadic community (two of other focuses of my research) were also uneven. I got a perspective of newly-initiated nomads, people, who lived a digital nomad lifestyle before the emergence of the term, experienced nomads, nomads who wanted to end their journey and were looking for the options and settle down, and finally, ex-digital nomads. Their characteristics might be found in the Appendix #2.

All interviews were made via Skype or Zoom calls with rare exceptions. I tried to be persistent and ask respondents for the video calls to analyze mimics, body language, irony, and anger, not always distinguishable from audio only. Sometimes we dealt about audio format if that was more comfortable for them. A respondent was given the instructions explaining the procedure beforehand either in written or an oral form and gave their consent. 

Processing. Analysis

All details in the interviews were anonymized, the interviews were transcribed (the example of the transcript may be found in Appendix #3) and then coded according to the elements from the procedure described in the Grounded Theory by Glaser and Strauss (2017): open coding, axial coding and selective coding. Open coding was performed, and more than 100 categories were identified. They were further generalized either by the topic of narrative or by analytical concept during the axial and selective coding procedure. Finally, 18 core codes were selected.

The process of analysis consisted of categorization of codes following the procedure of thematical analysis (Clarke & Braun, 2013). Several patterns and core ideas were found in the codes, and for that, themes were assigned. These themes were formed in an analytically driven way, and the interpretation of the categories was made. Each theme was defined and the structure of the `Digital nomadic lifestyle on the example of Facebook community members' chapter was created accordingly. The process of analysis was complete, when decisions were made about the textual content of my research: what themes had to be remained and were relevant for the research question, and what findings were not. 

Among the complications of my research were struggles on the step of recruiting. Unexpectedly high rate of denial and failed trials to get an access or recruit in the most popular communities changed the perspective of the content analysis. Unlike bigger communities, open and small ones that I explored before choosing to stay in one of them, were characterized by lower speed of publication updates, yet more involvement of members of the communities into the posting and commenting. 

One of the limitations is that these type of sampling is that the Facebook community that I have chosen might be mostly populated by people, highly interested in this nomadic lifestyle, or people that intentionally chose to avoid biggest, mainstream communities. As a member of most popular ones, I also noticed a lot of convergence in the groups where a potential informant and I participate. Therefore, the perspective of the data I got from interviews or the results of content analysis might reflect these features and relationships to the digital community and give special, characteristic results.

Chapter #3. Digital nomadic lifestyle on the example of Facebook community members

The major share of my respondents were people came from the countries, traditionally defined as the First World. They had some degree of higher education, and usually had a well-paying job, which they liked. All of them were Facebook community members. However, the perception of own nomadic status was different and did not always coincide with being a member of the community. There were active nomads, people, who are only starting to live a lifestyle and those, whose relationships with the space leaded them to the decision to settle down. They had a variety of `digital nomadic' periods in their lives: from several months to many years. Sometimes mobile lifestyles were blended in their experience to the point they could not identify exactly when digital nomadism came into their lives.

Anticipating the following chapter, these characteristics of the sample that make it homogeneous and diverse at the same time in different aspect worth mentioning. The variety of age of the respondents is reflected in the section called `Generations', while their status of First-World citizens (formally) might be a useful detail in the part called `Financial stability', and explain some of their attitudes and priorities.

Mobile Sociality

Relationships. 

The topic of communication and relationship with locals, close ones and other nomads was a fertile field for identifying common practices and strategies in the overall interpersonal communication. In the context of this topic I talked with respondents about the ways they manage their communications on move, whether they maintain remote relationships, what are their strategies of interacting or not interacting with local culture, local people. There was little information that could allow me to make a uniform conclusion about the broad digital nomad specifics of communication. Their practices varied on a grand scale, and the impact of their age and generation was noticeable in the process of ongoing or expected socialization, which I am going to talk about later.

However, some conclusions about the process of networking could be made. Thus, 4 main strategies for building relationship and networks were revealed in the interviews. First two of them are not necessarily located on the opposite sides of the spectrum, while with the second pair a respondent usually picks one of them as a more preferable than another. 

Going with the same interest was a quite common practice. This type of communication reduces random cases and includes several systematic strategies: for example, looking for the places where one may encounter allies, whether this interest is connected to the nomadic lifestyle or not, or looking for online-based organized meetings. The second strategy is a `cascade', when one meeting leads to the others. Choosing second strategy means one should have a certain point of entry to the local community, being introduced to the local population by someone. One of the examples to illustrate this statement is the strategy of meeting locals who own some type of property, while doing house-sitting, and being introduced then to other acquaintances and friends of this first hub of communication. An experienced house-sitter reported the case of meeting English-speaking property owners based, however, not in the European country where the property is located, but being the citizens of the US or Canada. This insight might be further developed for the research of the property market and house-sitting strategies across the Europe.

Most of the people that we are house-sitting for, are usually American, Canadian or UK. British people. And so, there's no language barrier, because American is the model linguistic, unfortunately, and so `okay! We can talk'. And we had that advantage, because we're house-sitting, they're introducing us to their friends.

(online English teacher, female, 50)

Second dimension of 2 characteristic strategies is determined by the nature of communication: whether an intentional strategy is chosen to be spontaneous or planned. While some respondents decided to have no plans at all and “being open to the new experiences”, others might choose to organize meetings online, learn about local places before actually attending them or organize the root of travelling beforehand. Some respondents perceive this strategy to be innate in the individual character and conditioned by psychological features (like `openness' from the Big Five traits), other explain the choice by the nature of the place they are in:

From the States it's so easy.. Like, they are so outgoing, they are easy to bring to the relations. Like, they are very social.<> And in Asia I don't think they are social. They are closed. ...They.. most of the time you won't make new friendships. It's better to look online person - meetups… Yeah. You need some planning. All planning.

(writer, female, 36)

All meetings and network-building activities that are used by digital nomads interested in the getting to know the local community, might fit in the matrix built by these 2 dimensions. 

The conclusion specific to digital nomadism, however, is their preference to build relationships with locals or not doing that. While some might be willing to learn about the culture first-hand from the local community with the mindsets, diverse from the nomad's own perspective, other digital nomads are interested in the socialization within the circle of common and shared knowledge, which are `same interest' and `cascade' strategies accordingly. In the reality, these practices might be blended, with a network of a digital nomad in the certain place being represented as a patchwork of acquaintances and friends. An interesting case of the combination of `shared interest' experience and `new culture exploration' is a strategy of a nomad-entrepreneur to connect with the providers of facilities one uses. House owners, restaurants, where one goes and shop owners, where one buys food or cloth might become providers of both: knowledge about the specifics of local culture and traditions, and the solidarity of business practices. 

Otherwise, the strategy of alienation from the local community and communication based on the shared interests, is also met among digital nomads. At the first glance, it might bring one to the conclusion that the most preferable, common and effective type of building friendships is networking online. Indeed, geographical position becomes less important when it comes to the planned strategy of communication based on the common interests. A common practice is that a digital nomad becomes a part of internet communities related to the career issues or professional development (for example, entrepreneurship and business groups or F.I.R.E - Financial Independence, Retire Early - movement), or communities and blogs dedicated to the nomadic lifestyle. 

Web community.

Several aspects to the web communities are characteristic for the nomads and are commonly described in the frames of nomad-to-nomad interaction. First, a Facebook community might become an archive and a search engine for storing, sharing information and advice about the nomadic lifestyle. Thus, tax advice, travelling experience, cultural shocks, information about location's infrastructure is demanded and created inside these communities. While standard Google search engine might describe universal solutions, Facebook groups and contributing society might offer more personal information, empathy and support.

While on lock-down our family is thinking of where t move next. <>The following are so far short-listed: Barcelona, Florida, Bangkok Berlin <> What do you think of these places? We are a family with four kids, love the outdoors and swimming!, both parents are DN.

(group content-analysis

post date 14.04.20)

Web communities are commonly used as an initial point of entry to the nomadic lifestyle, however, an infrastructure for building relationships and organizing meetups usually is extended beyond the Facebook group. There is a place for some personal initiative in terms of organization of meetings. However, administrators rarely intervene (in my particular case of the digital nomad group) to create a shared experience that might bring the community to the solidarity. Meetings, organized by the representatives of this online community usually lead a potential member to the personal brand pages or groups, related to the digital nomadism, yet too specific and distinct to be represent the digital nomad community itself. Some examples from the interviews might be expat communities, which are advised for the particular location and general communities about freelance and remote work. 

The cases I came across during the content-analysis of posts in the Facebook group leaded me to the conclusion that this is a quasi-community: a digital “space”, which is used as a callboard and a hub, where hyperlinks to the diverse components to the digital nomadic lifestyle meet. Usually, there is some information about travel, and some information about work, but most of the users were willing to learn more at the “extending” resources. This aspect becomes a problematic, when the whole perspective of shared experience among digital nomad is discussed through the interviews. 

It looks like virtual experience is not enough for building the community in the case of digital nomads. Some travel only to Asia, others prefer Europe, some prefer infrastructure that is facilitated while working remotely, others enjoy freedom of controlling own time while building business. Travelling while organizing oneself's own day, infrastructure and trying to improve the career is a too abstract yet a very narrow part of person's experience. To illustrate this statement, there are two opposite opinions about the concept of digital nomadism in my interviews. 

It's not a movement, it's not a particular group of people, it's not a community, all it is.. it's just like working remotely, travelling a bit. All that existed [before].

(virtual assistant, female, 46)

I think, it's something unique about ours.. culture even. It's like a subculture or something.. Where everybody is just in a group together, they are happy, connecting. 

(entrepreneur, male, 32)

Digital Nomads

All of my respondents were members of the Digital Nomad Facebook community, but there was one person, who did not identify himself as a digital nomad. The definitions of digital nomadism varied: some justified their belonging to the lifestyle describing their practices of managing time, others mentioned work and travel dualism, third party used more broad categories, such as freedom. While this exceptional case had all features of a nomadic lifestyle, which usually became the reason why nomads identify themselves as ones, he refused to be associated with this term and explained his position. I remained his narratives in the corpus of texts used for the analysis for the variability of perspectives, and his ideas contributed to the understanding of how digital nomadism is understood.

However, the sample I created is not homogeneous in terms of the experience in this lifestyle: I talked to people, who started travelling from the young age and remained mobile throughout of their lives, and newly introduced to the digital nomadism. Their perception of difficulties and benefits of a nomadic lifestyle did not always coincide with their actual real-life experience: some did research before starting a nomadic path, others had lived as digital nomads even before they knew that term. The experience of nomadism was constructed differently among the respondents and in the most cases was not equal to the actual amount of time spent on move.

I talked to the meaning-makers, whose opinions might be influential for the web nomadic community and lifestyle representatives all over the world, and ordinary digital nomads. In this paper I partially concern the subject of hierarchy or the relationships with information about digital nomadism, however, this topic might demand further exploration.

From what being said, digital nomadism has quite vague borders of its definition. People living a mobile lifestyle might exploit and change this term, adjusting it to their needs or use it for other mobile strategies, comparable, but not equal to being a digital nomad. This arises the need for critique of this term and further study of people, identifying themselves as digital nomads. Main conclusions about the context of digital nomadism that allows the representatives of different practices unite themselves under the same label might be found below, in the chapter `Summary'.

Community or individual practice?

Background experiences of the respondents from the previous chapter that leaded them to their conclusions also worth noticing. The second opinion is grounded in the experience of a businessman in organising real-life events targeted at digital nomads. They try to define digital nomads as a homogeneous audience, being in the role of a marketologist. They describe their target very concrete: these are businessmen or owners of a self-brand, who are willing to live a life of `freedom'. A very important aspect of this statement that this includes financial freedom. 

I wanna help people define this word and make sure they know that it isn't about living day-to-day, living on the road, trying to live cheap. I want digital nomads to be known more luxury and more enjoying a lavish lifestyle, because you set up systems in your business and your life to allow you to really live a life of freedom. 

(entrepreneur, male, 32)

This person narrows economic and professional characteristics of a digital nomad to create a product (organize an event), which might be suitable for this category. And this definition of a community is not shared by everyone. Financial issue and the importance of having a stable career that pays one's lifestyle is a common topic, which we are going to talk about later. But at the same time, practices of building career, socializing and creating clientele are too diverse. Usually, they are unsystematic individual practices, rather than common feature of a whole organism. 

During the content-analysis I barely noticed any “creative core” or periphery to analyze this Facebook group in terms of post-subcultural, “scene” approach. Digital nomadism lacks performative, distinctive and universal features. In some extreme cases, when I asked about stereotypes about digital nomads in attempt to reveal some aspects of nomadic image, the “I” versus “they” statement revealed the behavior in the local place to be a defining characteristic: “Most of the digital nomads that are looking for the experience of just relaxing and being at the beach and hang out, and playing..<> drinking colorful drinks.” (writer, female, 36) 

Another problem of heterogeneity of the digital nomad term, and diversity of its members, is that his type of geographic mobility is competing with more widespread terms and practices: expatriance, travelling, going on vacations, doing business trips. And sometimes respondents mentioned that they rather call themselves `location independent', `expat', travelling academic, than a digital nomad. 

Generations.

The aspect of age and experience appeared to be an influential one in terms of forming diverse attitudes and choosing strategies and practices among digital nomads. Two main aspects that are under the influence of this parameter are practices of mobility (settled-down versus being a traveller) and socialization process (being married, with kids and home and having married friends in 30s versus continue to travel for education in). A certain mainstream and a perceived dominating practice was revealed, and the experienced struggle of social pressure was especially relevant for the nomads of elder age.

While respondents often normalize the situation of having a settled-down lifestyle, family and an established career, as a widely acceptable one, the outcomes for each age cohort are different. Representatives of an older generation might associate themselves with this normative behavior, and expect their social surrounding to behave accordingly, while preparing themselves to be settle down. Representatives of the younger generation, in their term, might be associated by older ones with this type of common practice, and experience the lack of role models of their age, who managed to be nonconforming to these mainstream ideas.

Even the strategies of socialization might be different for the diverse age cohorts or periods of life:

In their twentieths they are focusing everything on their career or … trying to make 6 figures or they're focusing everything on travelling just for the sake of travelling. And they're not using that precious time to really make friends. And what they don't realize ... is that the opportunity to make friends … disappears when you hit your thirties. These people start having families and kids and settling down. And everybody's busy, and you just don't have time to hang out with people anymore.

(virtual assistant, female, 46)

This judgment might be dictated by the values acquired through the process of ageing and not being shared with other age cohort. From their experience, this respondent translates the socializing experience of their epoch. Socializing is perceived as impossible at a certain age. The social order to be revealed here is the practice that is perceived to be common and being an integral part of someone's growth. That is, having family, settling down and being loyal to old friends and not socializing anymore, giving the priority of one's time to one's family. The same situation was experienced by the single parent I have talked to. Once child is newborn, it becomes the absolute priority before the career. Several strategies adjusting one's schedule to the needs and values might be applied. For example, creating borders between the time socializing with friends or a partner and working hours - by switching off the phone, or setting a certain amount of hours to work, and managing the rest of the day to take care of the family.

My daughter is taking care right now of my work-life balance [laughs]. It means that I have to manage my time these 3-4 hours I have every day -<> focused on the important stuff to do. Not to loose the time during the day.

(writer, female, 36) 

However, i'll talk about the values influencing one's strategies and priorities of choice later. Another respondent reports also to be under the influence of this common strategy of socializing: “i'm coming closer to the age where people settle down and have their family and stop doing all these things. One part of me wanted a bit more stability, but the other part of me is kind of looking, craving for something more.” (interpreter, 26) This type of inner choice or a pressure of common societal practices might be a cause of major stress for the younger generation. Moreover, one of the respondents reported the lack of role models in the process of becoming a digital nomad - people of younger age who have experienced all the difficulties and managed to solve them. One of the generational differences that is reported is the changed labor market: 

The difficulties that my generation currently faces [differ] from the difficulties of his generation. Because he, straight after university, he could find... a full-time stable job at the university that pays his health insurance, that pays his holidays, they pay for him if he has to take paternity leave... And, you know, it's much easier to be a nomad when you have a big parachute on your back. ... I would've loved doing that, but I found myself with.. much fewer opportunities for stable jobs that could be that parachute. Even though i've always wanted to be a university lecturer. And so, in my case, I was forced to keep going and keep looking.

(interpreter, female, 26)

While the younger party is struggling with choices, older generation or experienced travellers find themselves unaccepted, unappreciated and invisible. Some might be facing loneliness because the community of digital nomads is web-based and might be experienced as invisible: 

The reason why I chose to sign up for this program and pay a pretty penny for it, is that I wanted the opportunity for the community. I want to meet other digital nomad entrepreneurs as well. And I want to learn their experiences and, you know, may be able to help them out with what i've done with my business. But I do honestly, I wanna meet like minded people, because I just haven't really done that yet. As I travel, I tend to connect with more retired expats. 

(Math materials creator, female, 40)

Space(S)

The situation with COVID-19 influenced the narratives I got: some respondents were under the extreme stress of their work transformation and finance loss. But most importantly, they lost the possibility to be mobile for some time, which is the defining characteristic of the digital nomadism. This frustration impacted the interviews, when we were talking about travelling experiences, but for some of them it was an opportunity to reflect on their nomadic lifestyle and report about the decisions they kept aside for a while.

Being trapped in the houses, some of my respondents started to think about how it is suitable personally for them: to be settled in one place for a while.

Relationships of a digital nomad to a space vary on the grand scale. I decided to concentrate on those, which belong to the categories of local and global spaces: the first part was studied in the context of places they stay at and the perception of a concept of `home', while the second one reflected their mobile lifestyle on a global scale: for example, transnational movements.

Home.

To generalize the narratives, there were 2 major ways to experience home among the respondents. First one is a physical space. The attribute of this aspect are always connected to the presence of a person in a particular room: