Evrard IKONDZA MAFAMA

Thesis title: African diasporas and political participation: the case of cyberactivism among Gabonese expatriates.

Summary in French

Cyberactivism, as an innovative practice of expressing citizenship, engagement, or activism in recent years, presents itself as an initiative that aims to transform the social, economic, political, and cultural environment of the African continent. Indeed, the spectacular development of new information and communication technologies (NICTs) in recent years has opened up a new space for political participation, mobilization, engagement, and dissent in authoritarian regimes. For African diasporas, it is a question of seeing how the use of digital technology has made it possible to reinvent popular modes of participation in public debate concerning their country of origin in a migratory context. In this context, the present project aims to examine the dynamics of protest and political struggle of the Gabonese diaspora through the prism of the use of NICTs. The Gabonese diasporas mobilized here will be those that maintain cyberactivism links around the world, particularly those based in France, the United States, Canada, and Belgium, and maintain cyberactivism links in the form of political protest and denial of recognition of the ruling power and its leader. To understand the political participation of Gabonese people abroad in the digital age, analysis of this subject requires us to adopt a dynamic approach that acknowledges a concept that varies in time and space depending on the means available to individuals at a given moment. This approach allows us to observe the evolution of democratic practices, the renewal of political participation practices, and the socio-political transformations that this engenders.

Keywords in French
Gabon – Diaspora – Political participation – Mobilization – Online social movements – Cyberactivism
Thesis supervisor: Eric Savarese