This article contributes to recent scholarship on the changing nature of
fieldwork practices within migration research, focusing on the practice of
online ethnography. It makes a case for the significance of the internet and,
more specifically, social network sites, in the experience of many migrants.
I state that online togetherness is an integral part of the lives of many
migrants which also interrelates with ‘offline’ aspects of their social lives.
Therefore, I argue that current research on migration would benefit from a
more balanced combination of offline and online ethnography, taking into
account how online connectivity affects the nature of migration and the
conditions of being a migrant. Methodologically, I suggest that ethnography
is well suited for generating understandings of the significance of
the internet in the experience of migrants, but that a number of
adjustments in methods of data collection and analysis must be made.