Evrard IKONDZA MAFAMA

Thesis title: African diasporas and political participation: the case of cybermilitancy among Gabonese living abroad.

French summary

In recent years, cybermilitancy has emerged as an innovative way of expressing citizenship, commitment and activism, with the aim of transforming 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 offers a new space for political participation, mobilization, commitment and discordant discourse in authoritarian regimes. For the African diasporas, the aim is to see how the uses of digital technology have made it possible to reinvent popular modes of participation in the public debate concerning their country of origin in a migratory context. With this in mind, the present project aims to examine the dynamics of protest and political struggle in the Gabonese diaspora through the prism of the use of NICTs. The Gabonese diasporas mobilized here will be those who maintain cyberactivism links across the world, notably those based in France, the USA, Canada and Belgium, and maintain cybermilitancy links in the form of political protest and denial of recognition of the ruling power and its leader. To grasp the political participation of Gabonese 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 according to the means available to individuals at a given moment. This approach enables us to observe the evolution of democratic practices, the renewal of political participation practices and the socio-political transformations this engenders.

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