Social Networking, Mobilities, and the Rise of Liquid Identities

Abstract

This research focuses on representations of mobilities and their role in social networking on Facebook. Based on an ethnographic research design embedded in a grounded theory approach, the study investigates the mobility patterns of one Generation Y network. The analysis of 50 profiles in this network, including texts, photographs, photo albums and check-ins, suggests that Facebook fosters corporeal as well as imaginative mobility, ultimately leading to the emergence of ‘liquid identities’, i.e. identities modelled on movement. Social media, specifically Facebook, have set in motion complex patterns of competition for network capital and social status based on mobilities.