Staying here, tied there: how diaspora activists navigate transnational repression through spatial orientation

• In Event: Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 13: Movements as Transnational Processes

Abstract

Why do some diaspora dissidents who flee autocratic regimes organize resistance, whereas others retreat into political withdrawal? While the literature suggests that migrants are intertwined with the processes of assimilation and transnationalism, we know less about how these dynamics shape their transnational activism. This study argues that diaspora members’ subjective spatial positions between home and host societies shape their interpretation of political threats and collective action. Ethnographic observation from diaspora Hong Kongers in the United States and the United Kingdom shows that migrants experience tension between homeland and hostland orientations. Homeland orientation views repression as an obstacle to political attachment, prompting people to address homeland issues by overtly politicizing their projects, at the risk of distancing other hostland members. Hostland orientation sees repression as a disruption to diaspora solidarity, leading members to use homeland politics to strengthen internal ties at the expense of proactive political participation. Dissidents can also be demobilized by being torn between two opposing orientations, instead of being directly suppressed. This study contributes to scholarship on global authoritarianism, diaspora activism, simultaneity, and contentious politics by showing that transnational repression is spatially interpreted through group interactions and can be a situational stimulant of resistance.

Author

• Nathan L.T. Tsang, University of Southern California