Vicarious Politics in Transnational Social Movements in the Case of Protests by Iranians in Los Angeles

TSUBAKIHARA, Atsuko

After the Iranian Presidential Election in 2009, nationwide civil protests on the streets of Iran drew worldwide attention. This was due to the new repertoire of the social movement, which was using social media to mobilize people and posting eyewitness reports from street protestors on the internet. The series of uprisings known as the "Green Movement" have also involved Iranians living outside Iran in the transnational movement. Previous studies of transnational social movements or long-distance nationalism have paid more attention to effects on people in the homeland than on those in the diaspora. More examination is needed to understand the mutual effects on people at home and abroad, not in a center-periphery schema, but in the actors' interaction mediated by technology. In this paper, I focus on the localization process of the transnational social movement and illustrate how Iranians in Los Angeles became involved in the movement. Images and narratives in cyberspace and on Persian satellite TV have been retrieved, copied and circulated in people's daily communications. This cultivated in LA Iranians a strong attachment to the protestors in Iran and mobilized them toward a "vicarious politics" of claiming democratic rights on behalf of the people inside Iran. However, LA Iranians interpreted the abstract notion of democracy in their own context, including elements such as pluralism and direct democracy. Participants at rallies in LA did not have firm objectives and claims; rather, they generated their ideology through participation.

Vicarious Politics in Transnational Social Movements in the Case of Protests by Iranians in Los Angeles

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