Exiles in Digital Cities

Th Philosophy of Migration in Cyberspace

DOI: https://doi.org/10.35765/pk.2026.5302.08
Keywords: migrations, digital, city, philosophy, cyberculture, metaphor, exile

Abstract

The article explores the application of migration studies to the study of cyberculture. Especially, it is interested in the figure of the exile as a metaphor for human condition in cyberspace with reference to the framework of the philosophy of migration developed by Donatella Di Cesare (2022) and the studies of exilic condition by Madelaine Hron (2010) and Abdelmalek Sayad (1999). The first part of the article discusses the experience of exile from the body, i.e. the disconnection from physicality (Sisto, 2022), while the second part deals with the exile from modernity, understood as a stable set of reference frameworks and metanarratives, and entering a symbolically disordered space (Roscoe, 2024). Both of these experiences, it is argued, are akin to the experience of migrants. Thus, migration studies bring relevant insights for the philosophy and politics of the digital spaces.

Author Biography

Anna Bugajska, Ignatianum University in Cracow

Professor at Jesuit University Ignatianum in Kraków, where she heads the Department of Language and Culture Studies and teaches courses related to utopianism, American culture, as well as ethics and technology. She is a member of, among others, the Utopian Studies Society–Europe and Asociación Filosofía y Ciudad, and is the author of numerous publications on utopias and dystopias, particularly in the context of new technologies.

References

Beloff, L. (2013). The Hybronaut Affair. In: M. More and N. Vita-More (eds.), The Transhumanist Reader. Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 132–140.

Di Cesare, D. (2020). Resident Strangers. A Philosophy of Migration. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Dickel, S. and Schrape, J.-F. (2017). The Logic of Digital Utopianism. Nanoethics 11, 47–58. doi:10.1007/s11569-017-0285-6.

Dukaj, Jacek. (2019). Starość aksolotla. Hardware dreams. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie.

Gottschall, J. (2013). The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. Boston: Mariner Books.

Han, B.-C. (2017). Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power. London, New York: Verso.

Hicks, H. J. (2016). The Post-Apocalyptic Novel in the Twenty-First Century. Modernity Beyond Salvage. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hillis, K. (1999). Digital Sensations: Space, Identity, and Embodiment in Virtual Reality. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Hron, M. (2010). Translating Pain: Immigrant Suffering in Literature and Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Martorell Campos, F. (2021). Contra la distopía. La cara B de un género de masas. Valencia: La Caja Books.

Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

May, S. (2019). The Power of Cute. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Roscoe, B. (2024). Digital Civilization Manifesto at the SSC Blockchain initiative and the digital civilisation conference in Oriel College, Oxford; https://blockchain.univ.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Bill-Roscoe-Digital-Civilisation.pdf .

Rostek, J. and Uffelman, D. (2011). Contemporary Polish Migrant Culture and Literature in Germany, Ireland, and the UK. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

Sayad, A. (1999). La Double Absence: Des illusions de l’émigré aux souffrances de l’immigré. Paris: Seuil.

Sisto, D. (2022). Porcospini digitali. Vivere e mai morire online. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri.

Taylor, C. (2021). Metaphors of migration over time. Discourse & Society, 32 (4), 463-481.

Todorov, T. (1984). The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other. New York: Harper and Row.

Zuboff, S. (2019). Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: Public Affairs.

Published
2026-06-30
How to Cite
[1]
Bugajska, A. 2026. Exiles in Digital Cities: Th Philosophy of Migration in Cyberspace. Perspectives on Culture. 53, 2 (Jun. 2026), 121-132. DOI:https://doi.org/10.35765/pk.2026.5302.08.
Issue
Vol. 53 No. 2 (2026): Movement(s) and Identity
Section
Movement(s) and Identity

Copyright (c) 2026 Perspectives on Culture

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Autor, zgłaszając swój artykuł, wyraża zgodę na korzystanie przez Wydawnictwo Uniwersystet Ignatianum z utworu na następujących polach eksploatacji:

  1. utrwalania utworu w formie papierowej, a także na nośniku cyfrowym lub magnetycznym;
  2. zwielokrotnienia utworu dowolną techniką, bez ograniczenia ilości wydań i liczby egzemplarzy;
  3. rozpowszechniania utworu i jego zwielokrotnionych egzemplarzy na jakimkolwiek nośniku, w tym wprowadzenia do obrotu, sprzedaży, użyczenia, najmu;
  4. wprowadzenia utworu do pamięci komputera;
  5. rozpowszechniania utworu w sieciach informatycznych, w tym w sieci Internet;
  6. publicznego wykonania, wystawienia, wyświetlenia, odtworzenia oraz nadawania i reemitowania, a także publicznego udostępniania utworu w taki sposób, aby każdy mógł mieć do niego dostęp w miejscu i czasie przez siebie wybranym. 

Wydawca zobowiązuje się szanować osobiste prawa autorskie do utworu.

Most read articles by the same author(s)