Precariously Beyond Border: The Life of a Digital Nomad. An ethnographic exploration of the tensions in selfmaking and being made in the remote working community in Lisbon, Portugal

Abstract

This thesis explores the tensions between self-making and being made by digital nomads and remote workers in relation to their experiences with precariousness in Lisbon, Portugal. Digital nomads are workers that perform labor remotely in another country through the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Previous research has shown that digital nomads have many characteristics of a precarious worker under capitalism: performing gig work, entering short-term contracts, and being subjected to a lack of social security. The findings of this thesis were gathered through the methods of participant observations, semi- and unstructured interviews, and online ethnography during my fieldwork between February and April 2023. The findings of the thesis were derived from the tensions identified in the fieldsite – investigating the norms and values about labor, mobility, and freedom that shape the work digital nomads engage in and the lifestyle they lead. It also explored how global inequalities are reproduced on a local level by reflecting on digital nomads’ financial position vis-à-vis the Portuguese. This thesis aimed to show that digital nomads and remote workers experienced both opportunities and challenges: a healthy work-life balance and a threat of overworking, attempting to integrate with the local population and enforcing existing inequalities, and dreaming of a life of both freedom and settlement. They entered the lifestyle with certain expectations, and when reality turned out to be different, they had a choice between accepting the changes or abandoning the dream.