Dana Moss, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame, presents her research on the activism of three diasporas during the Arab Spring. This event is part of the International Security Research Colloquium hosted by the Centre for International Security.
The Arab Spring revolutions of 2011 sent shockwaves across the globe, mobilizing diaspora communities to organize forcefully against authoritarian regimes. Despite the important role that diasporas can play in influencing affairs in their countries of origin, however, little is known about when diaspora actors mobilize, how they intervene, or what makes them effective in supporting social movements at home. Dana Moss' work addresses these questions, drawing on over 230 original interviews, fieldwork, and comparative analysis. Examining Libyan, Syrian, and Yemeni mobilization from the US and Great Britain before and during the 2011 revolutionary uprisings, she will present a new framework for understanding the transnational dynamics of contention and the social forces that either enable or suppress transnational activism.
Speaker
Dana Moss, PhD is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame. Her research investigates how authoritarian forces repress their critics and how collective actors resist this repression in a globalized world. To date, Dana’s work grows out of fieldwork conducted across the Middle Eastern region and among diasporas in the US and Great Britain. Her first book, The Arab Spring Abroad: Diaspora Activism Against Authoritarian Regimes, published by Cambridge University Press in 2022, and received three best book awards from the American Sociological Association. Her work has also been published in venues such as the American Sociological Review, Social Forces, and Social Problems. Dana's next book, Transnational Repression in an Age of Globalization, co-edited with Saipira Furstenburg, is forthcoming with Edinburgh University Press.
