During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, digital communication technologies played a crucial role in enabling people to forge and maintain personal, familial and social connections. They functioned as lifelines at a time when physical travel was impossible due to hard lockdowns, cross-border shutdowns, and travel restrictions. Individuals separated locally and transnationally relied heavily on digital devices to forge and maintain connections. Importantly, both traditional and digital technologies became critical sources of news information and other COVID-19 related information. However, in Australia, the advent of the pandemic has revealed structural and digital inequalities faced by migrants. In the first instance, not everyone had digital access and competencies (Kennedy, Holcombe-James, & Mannell, 2021), especially among ageing migrants (Cabalquinto, 2022b). Furthermore, migrant communities grappled with unrelatable and inaccessible COVID-19 information produced and circulated by the government (Mamalipurath & Notley, 2022). Media representations showed ageing migrants as at-risk individuals as opposed to young people who were presented as being more agentic (Cook et al., 2022).
This essay focuses on how leaders of organisations for older Asian Australians in Victoria implemented and led interventions in enabling a sense of connection and belonging among their community members during a series of lockdowns in Victoria. Broadly speaking, Australia has an ageing migrant population. According to the 2016 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), there were 1.2 overseas-born older Australians, representing 37% of the entire aged 65 years and over Australians (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2024). The most common regions of birth were North-West Europe, Southern and Eastern Europe, and South-East Asia (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2024). During the pandemic, with over 250 days from 2020 – 2021, Victoria had the longest lockdown in the world. In 2020, people were only allowed to leave their houses for four reasons, including performing caring duties, buying essential goods, exercising for a limited time, and work and study when it was impossible to do so at home. In 2021, in addition to these four factors, Victorians were allowed to leave their house to receive their vaccination.
People from migrant backgrounds raised their concern about the quality of COVID-19 information produced and circulated by the Australian government. Reports showed that the COVID-19 information was not relatable and accessible to migrants and their communities (Mamalipurath & Notley, 2022). In some cases, the information was produced to weaponise and discriminate migrant groups, such as Muslims (Mamalipurath & Notley, 2022) and Chinese (Ang & Mansouri, 2023). Given the disruptions and tensions triggered by the pandemic as well as the deficit of the government on producing culturally-tailored information, leaders of migrant organisations stepped up and utilised digital technologies to facilitate fellowship and a sense of belonging among members. For instance, leaders of Muslim groups used social media to facilitate interactions and circulate accessible and relatable information (Mamalipurath & Notley, 2022). Additionally, several leaders of migrant organisations utilised online channels to engage their members and foster social capital building activities (Ratnam, Keel, & Wickes, 2022).
This essay focuses on the case of older Asian Australians or migrants from Asian backgrounds for three reasons. First, most of the participants of the study, who also happened to be leaders of organisations, were from Asian backgrounds. At the time of the interviews in 2020 and 2021, these leaders were active members of organisations and were elected by their members. Second, the prominence of these migrants also stemmed from the demographic reality of Australia’s growing migrant population (Colic-Peisker & Farquharson, 2011), such as ageing Asian Australians. In fact, Wilson, McDonald, Temple, Brijnath, and Utomo (2020) note that there is a clear shift of an ageing population in Australia “from being European dominated to now being Asian dominated” (p. 15). The projection shows that by 2056, the 65+ Asian-born groups together will contribute 19.1 per cent (up from 6.0 % in 2016) to Australia’s total older population (Wilson et al., 2020). Third, this work aims to contribute to a growing body of scholarship on the use of digital technologies by older Asian Australians in enabling a diverse range of connections and a sense of belonging. Studies have shown how this cohort of people (Baldassar, Stevens, & Wilding, 2022; Gamage, Wilding, & Baldassar, 2022) use digital devices and online networks to maintain familial and social connections. I highlight how they utilise digital technologies to support their community members in combatting isolation during the lockdowns and keep them informed about the global health pandemic. I will also show how sio-technological factors shape personal communicative challenges and the exclusion of community members.
It is important to highlight the crucial role played by digital technologies for facilitating connections among ageing migrants during the pandemic. In my works, I have highlighted how ageing migrant utilised mobile devices and online channels to forge and sustain personal and familial connections (Cabalquinto, 2022a, 2022c). Notably, pre-pandemic studies have shown that ageing migrants use technological apparatuses to maintain local and transnational connections, paving the way for a sense of inclusion and security (Baldassar et al., 2022; Baldassar, Wilding, & Worrell, 2020; Gamage et al., 2022). Baldassar et al. (2020) coined the term ‘digital kinning’ to illustrate the ways digital technologies facilitate the performance of cultural identity and social connectedness among ageing migrants. For instance, ageing migrants consumed news on Facebook (Baldassar et al., 2020) as well as access homeland contents (Selwyn, Johnson, Nemorin, & Knight, 2016) to reconnect to their roots. These outcomes activate the maintenance of old and new connections (Karaoglu et al., 2021), digital belonging (Marlowe, Bartley, & Collins, 2016) and digital togetherness (Marino, 2015). Building on these studies that have underlined the fundamental role of digital media use for belongingness among ageing migrants, this essay centres on the digital practices of leaders of organisations for ageing Asian Australians and how they deploy digital technologies to support their community members during the pandemic. The data is drawn from my remote interviews – by Zoom and telephone calls – with ageing migrants in 2020 – 2021 (for more details on the methods, see Cabalquinto & Ahlin, 2023).
For older migrants, the onset of the pandemic, lockdowns, and uneven access to digital resources compounded their experiences of marginality. Given the limited mobility, older migrants in Australia relied heavily on their networks as well as mobile devices to stay connected and redress isolation. This is on top of other physical activities while staying at home, such as maintaining their garden (see Image 1). Looking into the practices of the leaders of organisations for older Asian Australians, this essay reveals the communicative challenges they handled. This analysis reflects a report on how community organisations and digital mentors grapple with remote digital assistance and training among older Australians who do not have access to internet-connected devices at home (Good Things Foundation Australia, 2023). At an individual level, older Asian Australians negotiated care and intimate co-presence at a distance due to the lack of access to a stable internet connection, technological competencies to use certain devices, and engaging with the transnational network’s precarious resources (Cabalquinto, 2022a, 2022c; De Souza et. al., 2020). Such findings complement a recent study by the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (2024), underlining how older migrants experience the digital divide due to cultural differences and digital illiteracy. As will be shown, leaders of organisations for older Asian Australians contend with the communication barriers encountered by themselves and their members.
I deploy the lens of ‘diaspora as method’ (O. Khoo, 2019) to understand the ways leaders of organisations for older Asian Australians used digital technologies to support their community members and enact belongingness. This conceptual lens has been applied to rethink approaches and interventions on ‘problematising Asia’ by focusing on the diverse creative and collective practices of Asian Australians (Khoo, 2019). Khoo (2019) productively wrote: “In its emphasis on mobility and beyond the nation, the Asian Australian diaspora dismantles a singular concept of nation and instead foregrounds heterogeneity within and beyond the nation-state” (p. 292). Importantly, the lens also positions diaspora as a practice capturing the shared concerns and priorities of Asian Australians, operating as vantage points for forming solidarity and advocating for inter-referencing diasporic communities (O. Khoo, 2019; Lo, 2006). This point has been reflected in the ways networks for Asian Australians utilise digital spaces to create connections, affective solidarity, and a sense of community (T. Khoo, 2017). ‘Diaspora as a method’ has also been applied to critically reflect the practices of scholars, activists, and artists of Asian descent (O. Khoo, 2019; T. Khoo, 2017; Lo, 2006). Indeed, the reach, connections and generative solidarities in digital spaces allow Asian Australians to exchange ideas, develop collaborations and advance advocacies (T. Khoo, 2017). Additionally, during the pandemic, digital spaces have also been utilised by Asian Australians to fight back against racism and abuse by creating contents under the hashtag #COVIDRacism (Abidin & Zeng, 2020).
Leaders of organisations for older Asian Australians are key pillars in enabling a sense of community and belonging. Prior to the pandemic, they typically organised cultural gatherings for their community members, including religious engagements, food and cultural events, and day trips elsewhere. The activities allowed members to get together in various places, share food, participate in dance activities, and even exercises. However, these activities were curtailed during the lockdowns. As a result, leaders of organisations for older Asian Australians utilised digital technologies and online channels to re-stage these ritualistic and cultural activities. Leaders used online platforms commonly accessed and utilised by members. For instance, I spoke to Dorothy, a 70-year-old Filipina-Australian, who is leader of one of the organisations for older Filipino-Australians. She highlighted the use of telephone calls and multiple groups on Facebook Messenger to mobilise cultural activities and ensure that no one is isolated during the lockdown. For the ageing Filipino-Australians, Facebook was commonly used. She explained:
We do some prayers. But because they’re not all Catholics that’s why we have separated groups. Mostly talking, and mostly like saying, as we have a project, ‘This is how you do the planting. This is how you do the flower arrangements.’ Just those things.
On top of connecting on Facebook Messenger, Dorothy was reaching other members through telephone calls. These individuals were often not technologically savvy. She would check on how they were faring or if they received the grocery as part of their home care package. As she noted, “Just calling them up is a big deal for them because you can hear how excited they are hearing someone […] People are concerned about them.” In this example, we can see how digital technologies and online media have been appropriated for supporting community members.
For the ageing Chinese-Australian, WeChat was used. This was the case for Vic, the 70-year-old leader of an organisation for older Chinese-Australians. As he explained, “So we have a lot of committee members and they want to do group chat so we connect everyday, just to say good morning, just chatting about the news. It’s coming from China so it nice quite a lot too. We’re using this [referring to WeChat].” Vic also added that members of the group shared news information in the group chat by accessing a range of sources, “A lot of contacts share the news you know. They look on the television, from the newspaper the news.” In these statements of Vic, we can see the participatory and transnational dimension of belonging. This echoes the point of Baldassar et al. (2020) on digital kinning, underlining how homeland connections shape social connectedness and belonging. Notably, during the interview, Vic also elaborated on the types of news shared by his peers:
Mostly from Australia. Hong Kong too you know. But I mean what’s so interesting what happened in Hong Kong especially last few years you know. But of course, you’re living in Australia, your number one concern is in Melbourne, Australia.
Despite the benefits enabled by digital media use among leaders to facilitate connections and belongingness, a range of issues emerged. This reflects the limits of digital media use for building and sustaining networks among Asian Australians (T. Khoo, 2017). For my study, the leaders highlighted the socio-technological factors that impacted the exclusion of other members in a range of online activities. First, digital access constrained some members to participate online. For instance, Vic, who is managing an organisation with 300 members, highlighted that some members of the organisation did not have digital access. He said, “At the moment – Zoom, one or two members. Not everyone is connected. […] The rest you got to call them by phone you know, that’s a big problem.” In some cases, digital literacy impacted digital participation. As Vic said “…we must talk over the phone and tell them what to do, which button to press you know. But you need physical contact to do that, that’s the problem.” Similarly, Dorothy pointed out why she opted using the videoconferencing feature of Facebook Messenger instead of Zoom. She said, “The password and the ID are so hard for the elderly to retain or even to write it down. Even if they know how to write it down, they tend to forget where they wrote it. So, it’s gone.”
Communicative barriers are also shaped by cultural backgrounds and relations (Baldassar et al., 2020; Worrell, 2021). In 2020, I interviewed Maly, the 60-year-old leader of the organisation for older Cambodian-Australians. She works part-time, three days a week for the organisation. She develops and submits grants as well as help organise a range of events for the organisation. In the interview, she pointed out how English literacy created digital exclusion among some members. In the interview, she reiterated, “Not only they can’t use technology but because they also can’t understand English.” I asked her to explain, and she said “They’re scared. They’re scared. The technology is quite scary if you really don’t know how to use it, especially for them.” In some instances, transnational relations impact the non-participation of community members in online events. This was highlighted by Dorothy, saying “Sometimes people don’t want to join because they don’t have the load (referring to mobile data).” I asked what she meant by this. She said, “They’re supporting other family members financially. That’s why they don’t want additional expenses.” In her statement, connecting transnationally, as shaped by asymmetrical living conditions of dispersed family members (Cabalquinto, 2022a; Leurs, 2014; Madianou & Miller, 2012), undermined connections in the host country.
In addition to addressing the communicative barriers of the members, the leaders of organisations for older Asian Australians also dealt with personal digital issues. For instance, technical literacy was one of the challenges that Dorothy faced. She particularly highlighted language barrier in understanding technical information on device use:
Some of us are struggling with English. These things are really technical. Some of the terms are really too hard for them just like me. Personally, I already have experience with computer, even when I was in the Philippines. But when I came here, different brands, different processes, just like if I have this one.
She also added that calling technical support can be a problem, “I have a problem. Say for instance, ‘I lost this. How can I put it back?’ So they will say, ‘You just press blah, blah, blah,’ or if I say, ‘I would like to do this but I don’t know how to do it,’ they will tell me how. Or they say, ‘Don’t do that. This is the easiest way to do it,’ something like that.” In such a case, Dorothy prefers a face-to-face interaction. Similarly, language barrier impacted the ways Maly used digital devices to engage with her community members. In the interview, she reiterated that she preferred the email instead of a call via her mobile phone. She said:
For me I really don’t like to use the mobile phone because sometimes when you ring, you talk on the telephone, because English is my second language, I can’t understand everything. Sometimes I say, please send me an email. Even I work for the Cambodian Association, when everyone wants to contact me regarding the Cambodian Association, I say, please send me an email so I have time to read, and I also have time to respond. But sometimes when people ring you they forget that English is your second language. and they [makes buzzing sound], I just could not understand.
Indeed, the experiences of Dorothy and Maly show that even leaders of organisations for older Asian Australians negotiate communicative barriers. Such outcomes add to the challenges they manage on top of addressing the digital constraints encountered by the members of organisations. For example, they used alternative channels to accommodate the needs of their members. A case in point is Dorothy, who utilised Facebook Messenger instead of Zoom in facilitating online activities for the members. As she said, “That’s why I don’t want to use Zoom because the time is limited, and it is paid. I don’t want to use the fund of the clubs for that. That’s why I’m just doing the Messenger chat.” She also added, “…These people, they want only something like intimate talking, so have only smaller groups. That’s why I was able to create seven chat in group”. Meanwhile, Maly sought the help of younger community members to use technologies in providing support to older members. Maly was managing the organisation’s Facebook page, particularly on the production and distribution of information. She worked with younger members to create and post contents on the group’s Facebook page. She explained:
…because I’m a little bit older I have much experience and the younger people they like to listen to our advice. But we also listen to their advice regarding technology because they are very smart. So that’s why it’s important that we work together. I don’t know how to post all information on Facebook, but I would be checking how the content is produced, and young people use the technology. We work together as a team.
At a time when the government was struggling with communicating tailored COVID-19 information the public (Grey, 2020; Mamalipurath & Notley, 2022), Maly helped in the translation of information from English to Cambodian, and sharing the information on the group’s Facebook page.
I have presented some insights on how leaders of organisations for Asian Australians used digital technologies and online channels to re-stage cultural activities as well as share COVID-19 information. Importantly, their interventions present how leadership is enacted by creating culturally-tailored interventions that support the needs of their community members especially during a crisis, as other studies have shown (Mamalipurath & Notley, 2022). Their approach demonstrates the cultural and collective practices of Asian diaspora (O. Khoo, 2019) in a digital realm.
However, it is worth noting that they also experienced personal and community-based communicative challenges, as shaped by the digital access, literacies, and living conditions of their members. Noting these digital constraints, it is important to further reflect on the overlapping burdens that leaders for older Asian Australians navigate especially in digital spaces. Indeed, culturally-tailored digitalised interventions must not be treated in ‘silos’ but as integrated into and shaped by government efforts to foster multiculturalism and belongingness. There is a need to not only acknowledge and learn from the practices of leaders of organisations for older Asian Australians but also address personal and community-based digital needs in the wider Australian society. This can be achieved by revisiting policies on everyday multiculturalism (Colic-Peisker & Farquharson, 2011) that consider how social and digital conditions impact personal, familial and social relations of migrants and their communities. There is also a need to capture and understand the ways older migrants, as leaders or members of organisations, experience and navigate the digital divide (Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria, 2024). In doing so, belongingness is enacted through an inclusive and generative digital citizenship (Millard, Baldassar, & Wilding, 2018) that is attuned to cultural systems and socio-digital living conditions (Baldassar & Wilding, 2019).
This study has engaged with four leaders. Thus, the insights generated cannot be used to generalise the role of leadership in enacting practices and spaces of belonging for all older Asian Australians. More research is needed to further determine and examine the heterogenous benefits and limits of deploying digital technologies in harnessing community support, building and belonging in and beyond pandemic times. Nevertheless, zooming into the ways leaders of organisations for older Asian Australians utilised digital technologies to support their community members during turbulent times shows us how cultural values, camaraderie and leadership foster connections and belongingness. Despite the challenges and limitations, interventions through digital and online spaces provides a much-need support especially among individuals who grapple with an increasingly digital, multicultural and dynamic society.
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