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How do the Global South Diasporas Mobilize for Transnational Political Change?

Dipto Das, Afrin Prio, Pritu Saha, Shion Guha, Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed

TL;DR

This study investigates how Global South diasporas mobilize for transnational political change, focusing on non-resident Bangladeshis during the 2024 quota-reform movement. It advances a four-phase model of mobilization and introduces diasporic superposition to describe hybrid positionalities that enable political and economic leverage across borders, including remittance boycotts and platform-enabled coordination. By integrating postcolonial computing, CSCW, social computing, and FinTech perspectives, the paper shows how digital platforms and informal financial infrastructures reframe diaspora involvement as active homeland politics rather than mere host-country integration. The findings offer design and policy implications for remittance technologies that support care, resilience, and political agency while acknowledging surveillance and governance constraints, thus contributing to the broader understanding of transnational activism in Global South contexts.

Abstract

This paper examines how non-resident Bangladeshis mobilized during the 2024 quota-reform turned pro-democracy movement, leveraging social platforms and remittance flows to challenge state authority. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, we identify four phases of their collective action: technology-mediated shifts to active engagement, rapid transnational network building, strategic execution of remittance boycott, reframing economic dependence as political leverage, and adaptive responses to government surveillance and information blackouts. We extend postcolonial computing by introducing the idea of "diasporic superposition," which shows how diasporas can exercise political and economic influence from hybrid positionalities that both contest and complicate power asymmetries. We reframe diaspora engagement by highlighting how migrants participate in and reshape homeland politics, beyond narratives of integration in host countries. We advance the scholarship on financial technologies by foregrounding their relationship with moral economies of care, state surveillance, regulatory constraints, and uneven international economic power dynamics. Together, these contributions theorize how transnational activism and digital technologies intersect to mobilize political change in Global South contexts.

How do the Global South Diasporas Mobilize for Transnational Political Change?

TL;DR

This study investigates how Global South diasporas mobilize for transnational political change, focusing on non-resident Bangladeshis during the 2024 quota-reform movement. It advances a four-phase model of mobilization and introduces diasporic superposition to describe hybrid positionalities that enable political and economic leverage across borders, including remittance boycotts and platform-enabled coordination. By integrating postcolonial computing, CSCW, social computing, and FinTech perspectives, the paper shows how digital platforms and informal financial infrastructures reframe diaspora involvement as active homeland politics rather than mere host-country integration. The findings offer design and policy implications for remittance technologies that support care, resilience, and political agency while acknowledging surveillance and governance constraints, thus contributing to the broader understanding of transnational activism in Global South contexts.

Abstract

This paper examines how non-resident Bangladeshis mobilized during the 2024 quota-reform turned pro-democracy movement, leveraging social platforms and remittance flows to challenge state authority. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, we identify four phases of their collective action: technology-mediated shifts to active engagement, rapid transnational network building, strategic execution of remittance boycott, reframing economic dependence as political leverage, and adaptive responses to government surveillance and information blackouts. We extend postcolonial computing by introducing the idea of "diasporic superposition," which shows how diasporas can exercise political and economic influence from hybrid positionalities that both contest and complicate power asymmetries. We reframe diaspora engagement by highlighting how migrants participate in and reshape homeland politics, beyond narratives of integration in host countries. We advance the scholarship on financial technologies by foregrounding their relationship with moral economies of care, state surveillance, regulatory constraints, and uneven international economic power dynamics. Together, these contributions theorize how transnational activism and digital technologies intersect to mobilize political change in Global South contexts.
Paper Structure (31 sections, 3 figures, 1 table)

This paper contains 31 sections, 3 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Literature Review
  3. Digital Platforms and Collective Action in Crisis and Protest
  4. Digital Diasporas' Resource Leverage and Transnational Political Agency
  5. Remittance as Sociotechnical Arrangements of Care and Contestation
  6. Research Context
  7. Bangladesh's Political Protest Culture and the Road to 2024
  8. The 2024 Protests: From Quota Reform to Democracy
  9. Methods
  10. Authors' Positionality
  11. Recruitment
  12. Interview
  13. Data Analysis
  14. Ethical Considerations and Limitations
  15. Results
  16. ...and 16 more sections

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: Timeline of Bangladesh's recent political past leading to the 2024 uprising and tentative timeline of the remittance boycott.
  • Figure 2: A collage (collected from islam2025abu) of widely circulated photos of a student standing with chest exposed and arms outstretched while the law enforcement agents shot him.
  • Figure 3: Diasporic superposition as oscillatory negotiation of agency and vulnerability.