Park, SunyoungSunyoungPark0000-0003-4186-11682025-02-102025-02-102025https://fis.uni-bamberg.de/handle/uniba/106113Kumulative Dissertation, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 2025This is a cumulative dissertation comprising four articles, each delving into social integration issues at different scales of society from the perspective of migrants in the digital age. The central focus is on migrants’ identity and sense of belonging, key elements in addressing the sociopolitical constraints they face and redefining social integration in today’s diverse society. The four studies corresponding to the sub-questions from individual, relational, and institutional (social) perspectives adopt methodologies appropriate to each purpose. Notably, this dissertation employs a variety of qualitative methods embarked on comparative case study approaches: Study 1 conducts in-depth interviews (Brounéus 2011) with Korean migrants living in Germany, followed by Thematic Analysis(Boyatzis 1998) of the interview transcripts. Studies 2 and 3 focus on an online social movement that appeared on various types of online social networks, analyzing narratives by Content Analysis(Schreier 2012) and Thematic Analysis(Boyatzis 1998). Study 4 performs fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA)(Pappas and Woodside 2021), coding interviews with highly skilled migrants in Germany and the Netherlands. Synthesizing the findings from the four articles, this dissertation answers the central research question as follows: In today’s super-diversified migration landscape, migrants shape their unique identity and sense of belonging based on individualized attributes and backgrounds rather than conventional categories such as ethnicity or country of origin. This self-defining process continuously occurs while they interact with various sociopolitical conditions existing at individual, relational, and societal levels within the destination society. Especially digital technology plays a significant role in this process, serving as a conduit for effective communication, a facilitator for accessing commodities, and a coevolving social platform where migrants actively create their own networks and interact with diverse groups of people. Based on this foundation, three principal avenues of research were developed: understanding contemporary migrant identity and sense of belonging in a super-diversified society, exploring the features of highly skilled migrants in establishing their sense of belonging, and examining the role of digital technology in shaping migrant identity and sense of belonging.engMigrant IdentityMigrant Sense of belongingSocial IntegrationSuperdiversityDigital Technology300doctoralthesisurn:nbn:de:bvb:473-irb-1061132