Diasporas and the role of social media on militant/political activities: The Basque diaspora in Argentina in the spotlight

Abstract

www.intellectbooks.com 77 ABSTRACT The role of politically motivated and engaged diasporas go beyond the mere reinforcement of state nationalism or states itself, but also promotes and supports subnational/sub-state ethnic groups’ agendas, both reinforcing and weakening states’ nationalist agendas. Sub-national/sub-state political groups, such as of Kurds, Uyghur, Tamil minorities, among others, tend, in many cases, to find support over its diaspora to advance a specific political agenda (such as greater autonomy, independence, etc). Also, such groups and related diasporas appropriate the Internet as a tool for political engagement, communication, financing, lobby and even moral support. In this article, I seek to understand and conceptualize such appropriation(s) having the Basque case (focusing on its diaspora in Argentina) as the main object of analysis.