Transnational Belonging in the Digital Age: A Comparative Social Humanities Analysis of Migrant Integration, Platformed Identity, and Institutional Inclusion in Canada and Germany

Abstract

Contemporary migration is increasingly mediated through digital infrastructures that reshape identity formation, transnational belonging, institutional inclusion, and social integration. While migration studies have traditionally examined settlement through labor markets, legal status, education, language acquisition, and citizenship regimes, digital communication now enables migrants to sustain cross-border familial, cultural, political, and affective ties while simultaneously negotiating incorporation into destination societies. This article comparatively examines Canada and Germany as two major migrant-receiving democracies with distinct integration traditions: Canada’s multicultural citizenship-oriented model and Germany’s historically more assimilationist but increasingly pluralized integration model. Drawing on social theory, migration studies, communication research, institutional analysis, and digital sociology, the article argues that digital transnationalism reconfigures integration from a linear process of incorporation into a multilayered field of belonging across platforms, institutions, communities, and national imaginaries. The study uses comparative interpretive analysis of migration policy documents, international migration reports, demographic data, platform society scholarship, and peer-reviewed literature. The findings show that digital connectivity expands migrant agency and transnational solidarity but also intensifies social segmentation, misinformation exposure, affective distance from host institutions, and contested national belonging. The article contributes to social humanities scholarship by developing a framework linking digital communication, transnational identity, institutional recognition, and social inclusion in contemporary migration societies.