Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Digital nomads: freedom, responsibility and the neoliberal order

  • Original Research
  • Published:
Information Technology & Tourism Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Digital nomads are individuals who, taking advantage of portable computing technologies and widespread Internet access, can work remotely from any location and use this freedom to explore the world. Using ethnographic and netnographic research, this article outlines this recent phenomenon, framing it into the lens of lifestyle mobilities and individualization theories. It adds to existing research by focusing on the new set of responsibilities and commitments entailed by the individualization process. In research participants’ explanations, disengaging from sedentary life enabled them to express an ethos of freedom, in which minimalism, uncertainty and risk replace material accumulation, stability and comfort. It is important however to pay attention to the structural constraints within which their ethos of freedom operates. The aim of the article is twofold: on one hand, it contrasts digital nomads’ sociocultural imaginaries of (in)mobility with the specific economic strategies they use to sustain their continuous mobility, including geoarbitrage and the commodification of network capital. On the other, it provides fresh ethnographic evidence on how digital nomads’ self-realization project meets the ideology of entrepreneurialism, allowing them to take advantage of privileged nationalities to navigate the global inequalities of the capitalist system. The article argues that, rather than a challenge to the system, digital nomadism is an opportunistic adaptation to neoliberal impacts.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. At the time of writing, the largest of these groups has 119,000 members, up from 6,000 when I joined. The newer female- oriented community, now has 58,471 members, and the local Chiang Mai one has about 35,000 members. Local forums generally seem to be more active and oriented to solving practicalities and organising gatherings, while general ones address questions related to the lifestyle and its challenges.

  2. Bootstrapping means to start up an Internet-based business or other enterprise with minimal financial resources.

  3. The data provided after each interview extract report the pseudonym of the interviewee, her/his age at the time of the interview, the technique of data collection, and the month and year the interview took place).

References

  • Bardhi F, Eckhardt G, Arnoud EJ (2012) Liquid relationship to possessions. J Consum Res 39(3):510–529

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauman Z (2000) Liquid modernity. Polity Press/Blackwell, Cambridge/Malden

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauman Z (2002) Individually, together. Foreword. In: Beck U, Beck-Gernsheim E (eds) Individualization: institutionalized individualism and its social and political consequences. Sage, London, pp xiv–xix

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck U (1992) Risk society: towards a new modernity. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck U, Beck-Gernsheim E (2002) Individualization: institutionalised individualism and its social and political consequences. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Benson M, O’Reilly K (2009) Migration and the search for a better way of life: a critical exploration of lifestyle migration. Sociol Rev 57(4):608–625. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2009.01864.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bonneau C, Enel L (2018) Caractériser le méta-travail des nomades numériques: un préalable à l’identification des compétences requises. Lien social et Politiques 81:138–155

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu P (1986) The forms of capital. In: Richardson JG (ed) Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education. Greenwood Press, New York, pp 241–258

    Google Scholar 

  • Braidotti R (1994) Nomadic subjects: embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theory. Columbia University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Bruckman A (2006) Teaching students to study online communities ethically. J Inf Ethics 15(2):14–17

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen SA, Duncan T, Thulemark M (2015) Lifestyle mobilities: the crossroads of travel, leisure and migration. Mobilities 10(1):155–172

    Google Scholar 

  • Cresswell T (1997) Imagining the nomad: mobility and the postmodern primitive. In: Benko G, Strohmayer U (eds) Space and social theory. Interpreting modernity and postmodernity. Blackwell, Oxford, pp 360–379

    Google Scholar 

  • Cresswell T (2002) Introduction. Theorizing place. In: Verstaete G, Cresswell T (eds) Mobilizing place, placing mobility, Special Issue of Thamyris/Intersecting, vol 9, pp 11–32

  • Cresswell T (2011) Mobilities I: catching up. Prog Hum Geogr 35(4):550–558

    Google Scholar 

  • D’Andrea A (2006) Neo-nomadism: a theory of post-identitarian mobility in the global age. Mobilities 1(1):95–119

    Google Scholar 

  • D’Andrea A (2007) Global Nomads. Techno and new age as transnational countercultures in Ibiza and Goa. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Deleuze G, Guattari F (1986) Nomadology. Semiotext(e), New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Duncan T, Cohen SA, Thulemark M (2013) Lifestyle mobilities. Intersections of travel, leisure and migration. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Elliott A, Urry J (2010) Mobile lives: self, excess and nature. Routledge, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Engebrigtsen AI (2017) Key figure of mobility: the nomad. Social Anthropology, Special issue on Key Figures of Mobility 25(1):42–54

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferriss T (2007) The 4-hour workweek: escape 9-5, live anywhere, and join the New Rich. Crown Publishers, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Forget C (2012) Vivre sur la route. Les nouveaux nomades nord-américains. Montréal, Éditions Liber, coll. Carrefour anthropologique

  • Gandini A (2016) Digital work: self-branding and social capital in the freelance knowledge economy. Mark Theory 16(1):123–141. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470593115607942

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Giddens A (1991) Modernity and self-identity: self and society in the late modern age. Polity Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Gordon C (1987) The soul of the citizen: Max Weber and Michel Foucault on rationality and government. In: Lash S, Whimster S (eds) Max Weber: modernity and rationality. Allen and Unwin, London, pp 293–316

    Google Scholar 

  • Gossnell H, Abrams J (2011) Amenity migration: diverse conceptualizations of drivers, socioeconomic dimensions, and emerging challenges. Geo J 76(4):303–322. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-009-9295-4

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grisoni D (ed) (1976) Politiques de la philosophie. Grasset, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Hannam K. (2009) The end of tourism? Nomadology and the mobilities paradigm. In: Tribe J (dir.) Philosophical issues in tourism. Channel View, Clevedon

  • Harvey D (2005) A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayes M (2014) ‘We Gained a Lot Over What We Would Have Had’: the geographic arbitrage of North American lifestyle migrants to Cuenca, Ecuador. J Ethn Migr Stud 40(12):1953–1971

    Google Scholar 

  • Hearn A (2008) Meat, mask, burden. Probing the contours of the branded “self”. J Consum Cult 82(2):197–217

    Google Scholar 

  • Hine C (2008) Virtual ethnography: modes, varieties, affordances. In: Fielding N, Lee MR, Blank G (eds) The Sage Handbook of Online Research Methods. Sage, London, pp 257–270

    Google Scholar 

  • Hine C (2015) Ethnography for the internet. Embedded, embodied and everyday. Bloomsbury, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoey B (2005) From Pi to Pie: moral narratives of noneconomic migration and starting over in the postindustrial Midwest. J Contemp Ethnogr 34(5):586–624

    Google Scholar 

  • Huete R (2009) Turistas Que Llegan Para Quedarse [Tourists who come to stay]. Publicaciones de la Universidad de Alicante, San Vicente del Raspeig

    Google Scholar 

  • Huete R, Mantecón A (2011) Introducción: sobre la construcción social de los lugares [Introduction: on the social construction of places]. In: Mazón T, Huete R, Mantecón A (eds) Construir una nueva vida: Los espacios del turismo y la migración residencial [Constructing a new life: tourism spaces and residential migration]. Editorial Milrazones, Santander, pp 11–19

    Google Scholar 

  • Huete Nieves R, Mantecón Terán A (2008) ¿De qué hablamos cuando hablamos de turismo residencial? Cuadernos De Turismo 22:101–121

    Google Scholar 

  • Kabachnik P (2010) England or Uruguay? The persistence of place and the myth of the placeless gypsy. Area 42(2):198–207

    Google Scholar 

  • Kannisto P (2016) Extreme mobilities: challenging the concept of ‘travel. Ann Tour Res 57:220–233

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan C (1996) Questions of travel: postmodern discourses of displacement. Duke University Press, Durham

    Google Scholar 

  • Karlgaard R (2004) “Outsource Yourself.” Forbes Magazine, April 19. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2004/0419/033.html. Accessed 10 Jan 2020

  • Karlgaard R (2006) “Special Report: 150 Cheap Places to Live.” Forbes Magazine, May 5. http://www.forbes.com/2005/10/31/karlgaard-broadbandtelecommuting_cz_rk_1101liverich.html. Accessed 28 Dec 2020

  • Kesselring S (2008) The mobile risk society. In: Canzler W, Kaufmann V, Kesselring S (eds) Tracing mobilities Towards a cosmopolitan perspective. Ashgate, London, pp 77–102

    Google Scholar 

  • Korpela M (2014) Lifestyle of freedom? Individualism and lifestyle migration. In: Benson M, Osbaldiston N (eds) Understanding lifestyle migration: theoretical approaches to migration and the quest for a better life. Palgrave Macmillan, Bassingstoke, pp 27–46

    Google Scholar 

  • Korpela M (2019) Searching for a countercultural life abroad: neonomadism, lifestyle mobility or bohemian lifestyle migration? J Ethn Migr Stud. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2019.1569505

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kozinets RV (2010) Netnography: doing ethnographic research online. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Kozinets Robert V (2020) Netnography: the essential guide to qualitative social media research. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Kozinets RV, Dolbec P, Earley A (2014) Netnographic analysis: understanding culture through social media data. In: Flick Uwe (ed) Sage handbook of qualitative data analysis. Sage, London, pp 262–275

    Google Scholar 

  • Langford M (2001) Global nomads, third culture kids and international schools International education: principles and practice. Kogan Page, London, pp 28–43

    Google Scholar 

  • Makimoto T, Manners D (1997) Digital nomad. Wiley, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Mancinelli F (2018) A practice of togetherness: home imaginings in the life of location-independent families. Int J Tourism Anthropol 6(4):307–322

    Google Scholar 

  • Manson M (2013) The dark side of the digital nomad. https://markmanson.net/digital-nomad. Accessed 13 July 2018

  • Martin F (2017) Rethinking network capital: hospitality work and parallel trading among Chinese students in Melbourne. Mobilities 12(6):890–907. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2016.1268460

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meyrowitz J (2003) Global nomads in the digital veldt. In: Nyiri JK (dir.) Mobile communication: essays on cognition and community. Passagen Verlag, Vienne, pp 91–102

  • Moss LAG (ed) (2006) The amenity migrants: seeking and sustaining mountains and their cultures. Cabi Publishing, Oxfordshire

    Google Scholar 

  • Mouratidis G (2018) Digital nomads: travel, remote work and alternative lifestyles, Master Thesis, Université de Lund

  • Nash C, Jarrahi MH, Sutherland W, Phillips G (2018) Digital nomads beyond the buzzword: defining digital nomadic work and use of digital technologies. Lect Notes Comput Sci iConf 10766:207–217

    Google Scholar 

  • Noyes JK (2000) Nomadic fantasies: producing landscapes of mobility in German Southwest Africa. Cult Geogr 7(1):47–66

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Reilly K, Benson M (2009) Lifestyle migration: escaping to the good life? In: Benson M, O’Reilly K (eds) Lifestyle migrations: expectations, aspirations and experiences. Ashgate, London, pp 1–13

    Google Scholar 

  • Ong A (1999) Flexible citizenship: the cultural logics of transnationality. Duke University Press, Durham

    Google Scholar 

  • Onyx J, Leonard R (2005) Australian grey nomads and American snowbirds: similarities and differences. J Tour Stud 16(1):61–68

    Google Scholar 

  • Peters JD (1999) Exile, Nomadism, and Diaspora: the stakes of mobility in the western canon. In: Naficy H (ed) Home, exile, homeland: film, media, and the politics of place. Routledge, New York, pp 17–41

    Google Scholar 

  • Putnam RD (2000) Bowling alone: the collapse and revival of American community. Simon and Schuster, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Reichenberger I (2017) Digital nomads: a quest for holistic freedom in work and leisure. Ann Leisure Res 21(3):364–380

    Google Scholar 

  • Retaillé D (1998) Concepts du nomadisme et nomadisation des concepts. In: Knafou R (dir.) La planète « nomade » . Les mobilités géographiques d’aujourd’hui, Belin, pp 37–59

  • Richards G (2015) The new global nomads: youth travel in a globalizing world. Tour Recreat Res 40(3):340–352

    Google Scholar 

  • Richards G, Wilson J (2004) Drifting towards the global nomad. In: Richards G, Wilson J (eds) The global nomad: backpacker travel in theory and practice. Bristol, Channel View, pp 3–13

    Google Scholar 

  • Rojek C (2010) The labour of leisure: the culture of free time. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Salazar NB (2018) Momentous mobilities: anthropological musings on the meanings of travel. Berghahn Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Salazar NB, Smart A (2011) Anthropological takes on (im)mobility. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 18:i–ix

  • Schlagwein D. (2018) Escaping the rat race: different orders of worth in digital nomadism. In: Paper presented at the twenty-sixth European conference on information systems (ECIS2018), Portsmouth

  • Stebbins RA (1997) Lifestyle as a generic concept in ethnographic research. Qual Quant 31(4):347–360

    Google Scholar 

  • Sutherland W, Jarrahi MH (2017) The gig economy and information infrastructure: the case of the digital nomad community. Proc ACM Hum Comput Interact 1(1):article 97

    Google Scholar 

  • Terranova-Webb A (2010) Getting down the road: understanding stable mobility in an American circus. PhD Thesis, Département de géographie, Open University

  • The Economist (2008) « Nomads at last » . The Economist, London, April 12

  • Thompson BY (2018a) The digital nomad lifestyle: (remote) work/leisure balance, privilege, and constructed community. Int J Sociol Leisure 2(1/2):27–42

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson BY (2018b) Digital nomads: employment in the online gig economy. Glocalism. https://doi.org/10.12893/gjcpi.2018.1.11

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Urry J (2000) Sociology beyond societies: mobilities for the twenty-first century. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Urry J (2007) Mobilities. Polity Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Wenger E (1998) Communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Wood PRH (2015) Creating city cyclists: understanding why people start, and sometimes stop, cycling in South London. PhD thesis The Open University

Download references

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful remarks, Dr. Susan Frekko for English language editing and generous feedback, and Alexandra Elbakyan for her contribution to disseminating knowledge. The editing of this paper received financial support by the Research Commission of the Faculty of Geography and History of the University of Barcelona.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Anthropology, University of Barcelona, Montalegre 6, 08001, Barcelona, Spain

    Fabiola Mancinelli

Authors
  1. Fabiola Mancinelli
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fabiola Mancinelli.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mancinelli, F. Digital nomads: freedom, responsibility and the neoliberal order. Inf Technol Tourism 22, 417–437 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40558-020-00174-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40558-020-00174-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation