Online forums look like an obvious instrument for a scattered population: people separated by oceans can talk to each other in real time, hold on to a shared identity abroad, and act together on behalf of those still in the country. Writers on diaspora have gone so far as to describe new public spheres forming online, though Parham notes they seldom connect this to the existing theoretical literature on the public sphere.

She applies that literature to a case, examining how members of a forum called Haiti Global Village actually used it. Her verdict is mixed. The forum did give participants room to argue about public questions and a workable structure for building contacts.

What it could not do was carry those gains into action offline, a failure Parham reads as evidence that ties rooted in physical place still matter. Other Haitian forums, she finds, point the same way.