Click and Kin: Transnational Identity and Quick Media

Click and Kin is an interdisciplinary examination of how our increasingly mobile and networked age is changing the experience of kinship and connection. Focusing on how identity formation is affected by quick media such as instant messaging, video chat, and social networks, the contributors to this collection use ethnographic and textual analyses, as well as autobiographical approaches, to demonstrate the ways in which the ability to communicate across national boundaries is transforming how we grow together and apart as families, communities, and nations.

The essays in Click and Kin span the globe, examining transnational connections that touch in the United States, Canada, Mexico, India, Pakistan, and elsewhere. Together, they offer a unique reflection on the intersection of new media, identity politics, and kinship in the twenty-first century.

May Friedman is an associate professor in the School of Social Work at Ryerson University and the author of the award-winning Mommyblogs and the Changing Face of Motherhood.


Silvia Schultermandl is an assistant professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of Graz in Austria.