Reading :: Remote and Roaming

 Remote and Roaming: Practices, Meanings, and Politics of Digital Nomadism

By Mari Toivanen

This 2025 book examines digital nomadism, beginning before the pandemic but examining the deep shift during and after it. Accessibly written, the book examines the phenomenon of digital nomadism. “A digital nomad can broadly be defined as an individual who travels while working, and whose mobile lifestyle is enabled by such remote mode of work” (p.6). The author was first sensitized to this lifestyle when discussing a coworking space in Thailand to which people from other countries traveled for work. Toivanen conducted interviews with them and many others, focusing on “three aspects — work, travel and lifestyle” (p.13). She adds:

In this book, digital nomadism is not defined as an isolated phenomenon or merely a personal endeavour, but rather as a form of lifestyle mobility deeply embedded in broader societal, economic and technological transformations. These include the digitalisation of work and economic restructuring, shifting values related to lifestyle and conceptions of ‘the good life’, and the structural forces that shape global mobility regimes and their hierarchies as well as the global inequalities in economic privilege that enable access to this way of life. (pp.13-14)

She asks questions such as:

“What does the digital nomad lifestyle look like at the level of practices?”

”What meanings are attached to the digital nomad lifestyle?”

”How do the politics of digital nomadism come about?” (pp.20-21)

She investigates these questions with 70 semi-structured interviews as well as observations (p.22). (I really appreciated her appendix on material and methodology.) But she also goes deeply into the antecedent conditions, examining how the digital nomad’s lifestyle is structured by their relationship with the nation-states and markets in which they work. The result is a comprehensive, well-written, and accessible discussion of the conditions that make digital nomadism what it is.

If you’re interested in digital nomadism or related issues, such as coworking or adhocracies, I recommend this book.