What Is a Global Native, Anyway?

On the world’s largest, invisible diaspora.

I was ten years old when I first learned the word “refugee” in school. The teacher explained it carefully, as if she were handling something fragile: someone forced to leave their country because of war, persecution, or danger. A refugee wasn’t someone who chose to leave, she explained, but someone who had no choice.

That afternoon, I sat at the kitchen table, my textbook open in front of me, waiting for my father to come home. I had been piecing things together all day, tracing what I knew of his story back to the definition I’d learned. When he walked through the door, I asked, “Are you a refugee?”

He stopped mid-step, frowning. “No,” he said firmly. “I’m from Iran.”

His tone made it clear the conversation was over, but I couldn’t let it go. Later, when the kitchen was quiet, I asked again. “But you left because of the revolution, right? And it wasn’t safe to stay?” He paused before answering. “Yes.”

I didn’t understand why he denied it. According to the definition, he was a refugee. But he refused the label, as if the concept carried something heavier than its meaning. “Refugee sounds like something you are forever,” he said eventually. “I am more than that. I made a life here. I became something new.”

His words stayed with me, resurfacing whenever I heard other labels: immigrant, expat, outsider. Each carried its own weight, its own history. But what about new categories? Ones that aren’t about what we left behind, but about how we move forward?

A new category for a new reality

Naming something gives it weight. It turns the abstract into the visible, the shapeless into the understood. Without the right language, we can miss what’s right in front of us—a growing movement of people who belong not to borders, but to connections; not to a single place, but to the spaces between.

“Global natives” isn’t yet a mainstream term, but it describes something millions of people are already living. Rather than being defined by where they come from, global natives are shaped by how they view the world and how they move through it. We're a diaspora born not of displacement, but of connection; an emerging group of people untethered from geography, finding home in the overlapping threads of cultures, ideas, and technology.

At a startup retreat, a Brazilian engineer shares stories over drinks with a Finnish designer. In a coworking space in Bali, a French writer and a Bosnian coder compare strategies for navigating time zones as remote workers. In Lisbon, a Spanish entrepreneur pitches an American investor at the kitchen table of a coliving space. These moments aren’t incidental—they’re the fabric of global native life.

We belong everywhere and nowhere at once, weaving connections across the world while living on the internet and working across borders. We gather offline in coworking spaces, coliving hubs, and pop-up villages, shaping a world not constrained by the systems of the past, but alive with the possibilities of the present.

The spectrum of global natives

Global natives exist on a spectrum, with identities shaped by unique experiences but brought together by a shared mindset:

• Third-culture kids: Raised between cultures, they grew up fluent in hybrid identities, moving easily between worlds.

• Digital nomads: The most visible, they travel the world while working remotely, moving from cafes in Chiang Mai to coworking spaces in Medellín.

• Remote workers: They’ve traded proximity to an office for quality of life, working for companies based in one place while living in another.

• Expats: Often associated with privilege, expats relocate to explore opportunities, embracing the optionality and privileges of global mobility.

• Immigrants and migrants: These terms carry connotations of struggle and resilience, yet many global natives share the experience of starting over in a new place.

• Crypto enthusiasts: This niche group experiments with decentralisation and has birthed the network state movement, rethinking identity, governance, and community in a digital-first world.

• Netizens: The original digital natives, they embraced the internet as a place without borders, laying the groundwork for today’s global culture.

While these identities differ, they share a common thread: they navigate a world where mobility is both an opportunity and a challenge, shaped by factors like passports, policies, and privilege—but also by the connections they forge in digital spaces and the creative solutions they develop to navigate borders, policies, and community-building in a fragmented world.

Shared mindset, shared values

Global natives share a set of values shaped by their lifestyles:

• Freedom comes first: Choosing where to live, how to work, and who to connect with is the foundation of their lives.

• The internet as a home base: They don’t just use the internet—they live on it, building identities and communities that transcend borders.

• Multicultural by nature: They don’t just navigate cultures; they integrate them, forming hybrid identities.

• Efficiency as a necessity: They demand frictionless systems—tools, visas, and policies that reflect how they actually live.

• Meritocracy matters: They believe skill and effort, not birthplace, should determine success.

• Connection above all: They prioritise meaningful relationships, building networks that bridge online and offline worlds, redefining what it means to belong.

Join the movement

If you see yourself in this, you’re not alone. Global natives are everywhere—but we’re often invisible. This newsletter is about making us visible, shaping the conversation, and building a community around the future we’re already living.

Global natives aren’t just adapting to change. They’re creating it. They’re the innovators, connectors, and builders shaping what comes next. Governments and businesses often fail to recognise them, but the world will need to adapt to their realities as more and more people join their ranks.

This is just the beginning of the conversation. I’ll be exploring this identity and these ideas more in upcoming posts, and I’d love your suggestions about what you want to see covered.

🗣️ What does being a global native mean to you? What does my definition over-emphasise—and leave out? Leave a comment or send me your thoughts—I’d love to read them.

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