Political spheres of transnational activism: merging social movements and migration theories

Migration theorists have analysed diaspora mobilisation largely focusing on three main features, the roles of the homeland, the hostland and the diaspora acting as a collective and relatively homogenous social group (Østergaard-Nielsen 2003, Müller-Funk 2016). On the other hand, social movement theorists looking at migrant mobilisation, portray migrants as agents engaging in politics with the aim to gain rights and improve their precarious living situation in their hostland (Varela Huerta 2008). This scholarship emphasises the instrumental and identity reasons that inspire migrants to engage in political activism, predominately in their receiving society (Klandermans, Van der Toorn, and Van Stekelenburg 2008).
Both the literature on migration and on social movements have contributed to the better understating of the initiation, development and success or eventual decline of political activism. Nevertheless, there are several theoretical gaps in each literature that can be covered by transferring some analytical tools from the other. In this essay, I aim to develop a framework to analyse transnational political activism in times of an ongoing conflict using key elements from both literatures.
I merge elements of migration and social movements theories in order to recognise the role of migrants as rational and emotional individuals engaging in transnational protests concerning the politics of their country of origin. I also consider the role of international political regimes, emigration and immigration policies, and the constitution of a diaspora aiming to act collectively from abroad. To do so, this essay argues that migrants engaging in a conflict situation in their homeland interact and make use of five different interconnected and interdependent spheres of political activism: the transnational, the diaspora, the hostland, the homeland and the individual. These five political spheres manage to capture the complexity of the different phases of political engagement, the motivations and political opportunities sustaining the movements, the geographical spaces where protestors interact and the predominant role of emotions and subjectivity animating transnational political activism.