Bordering the digital: Between placeless imagination and national practices

Once celebrated for enabling exchanges beyond national territories, digital technologies are now integral to border and migration control. Alongside this digitalization of borders, another shift has taken place: the growing alignment of the digital realm with national logics, or what we call the bordering of the digital . While research on this transformation has expanded, little is known about how it is understood and experienced by ordinary citizens. To address this gap, this study draws on interviews and diaries with 30 participants from the UK, Brazil and Ukraine. Findings reveal a sharp disjunction between a placeless imagination of the digital world and practices rooted in national territories and networks. We discuss the factors underpinning this disjunction and its implications for the power struggles between states and tech corporations, the pursuit of digital sovereignty and the future of nationalism in increasingly digitalized societies.