Expansive Realization of the Internet in Trinidad
Expansive realization refers to the dynamic with which Internet “is viewed as a means through which one can enact – often in highly idealized form – a version of oneself or culture that is regarded as old or even originary but can finally be realized: through these new means, one can become what one thinks one really is (even if one never was)” (p.10). It is analytically useful because Miller and Slater believe that we can best understand identity concerning Internet as a means to help people realize what they already believe they are or should be rather than as a novel or unprecedented. (p.11)
An example for this dynamic is how Internet helps the Trinidadians maintain their “natural” family structure. Before the arrival of the Internet in Trinidad, its family structure, as the basic social unit, was under threat due to the widespread Caribbean emigration. According to Miller and Slater, in the vast majority of families at least one member at the nuclear level was living abroad at the time of their study. Without the Internet, this radical change due to emigration could have destroyed the family structure, which is considered natural and to the core value of the Trinidadian culture. Fortunately, there came the Internet, especially the email, which is an intuitive, pleasant, effective and inexpensive way for geographically separated family members to keep in touch, and more importantly, to fulfill their familial roles and responsibilities “that had been ruptured by Diaspora” (p. 56).
I think interviews, the major method used in this book, are appropriate for the analysis of this dynamic. To examine expansive realization, it is important to know what the Trinidadians believe they are or should be in deep. It is a belief and very subjective, and is hard to be derived from observation or second-handed data. In-depth interviews with many Trinidadians help the researchers not only get the record of their Internet use, but help them dig out what the Trinidadians hold as the core values and how Internet enabled them to preserve them.