Extraordinary everydayness: Young people's affective engagements with the country of origin through digital media and transnational mobility

Literature on transnational families has established that both digital media and visits are important to maintaining relationships across distance. While studies foreground family ties and adult perspectives, few have focused on how young people create and experience affective engagements with the country of origin. This is largely because youth mobility has either been ignored or studied retrospectively from the country of residence. This study investigates youth mobility as it unfolds and explores what transpires during country-of-origin visits. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Belgium and Ghana with 25 young people of Ghanaian background, I argue that young people experience an 'extraordinary everydayness' during visits to Ghana. Young people build affective connections with people and places through digital media before, during and after visits. The resulting everydayness is extraordinary as it takes place in an unfamiliar space with peers previously only known in the online sphere.