#CentralAmericanTwitter: Witnessing and Belonging in Digital Diaspora

• In Event: Digital Diasporas

Abstract

Social media has undoubtedly and indelibly shifted social, cultural, and political landscapes in the 21st century. Twitter, a microblogging social media platform, has been unique in the way it organizes, catalyzes, and amplifies broader social, political, and cultural conversations. Further, social media has been an organizational and discursive tool to fuel the organizational capacities of social activists across the globe. This paper seeks to understand the transformative possibilities present within social media collective formation by honing in on the development and meaning of #CentralAmericanTwitter. Specifically, this presentation will examine the current generation of U.S. and Isthmus-based Central Americans' dynamic employment and creation of a digital diasporic space via #CentralAmericanTwitter to lay witness to violent episodes of Central American history and their reverberations in the present.

Author

• Alejandro Villalpando, California State University, Los Angeles