Virtual Voices: How Iranian diaspora communities utilize cyberfeminism in the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement to form collective identity

Persistent URL of this record https://hdl.handle.net/1887/3762781

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Politicologie (BSc)

Kitamura, Wakana (2024)

Virtual Voices: How Iranian diaspora communities utilize cyberfeminism in the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement to form collective identity

Bachelor thesis | Politicologie (BSc)

The ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ Movement that started in 2022 in Iran brought another wave of women’s rights movement. The involvement of Iranian diaspora communities in cyberspace successfully transformed this movement into the online sphere. This paper seeks to answer the following research questions: How do Iranian diaspora communities construct identity through cyberfeminism in the 'Women, Life, Freedom' movement? The paper aims to explore the effectiveness of cyberfeminism and more importantly, it aims to identity the role of X and diasporic websites in constructing Iranian diaspora’s identity through an inductive approach. Frame theory is utilized as a lens to examine how Iranian diasporas frame themselves in the cyberspace and make connections between those inside and outside Iran. This paper finds three framing strategies, namely: identification of common enemies, victimization, and empowerment of women that contribute to forming a collective identity within diasporas.

Iran

Women Life Freedom movement

contentious political action