Insurgent Communities: How Protests Create a Filipino Diaspora

Sociologist Sharon M. Quinsaat sheds new light on the formation of diasporic connections through transnational protests.

When people migrate and settle in other countries, do they automatically form a diaspora? In Insurgent Communities, Sharon M. Quinsaat explains the dynamic process through which a diaspora is strategically constructed. Quinsaat looks to Filipinos in the United States and the Netherlands--examining their resistance against the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, their mobilization for migrants' rights, and the construction of a collective memory of the Marcos regime--to argue that diasporas emerge through political activism. Social movements provide an essential space for addressing migrants' diverse experiences and relationships with their homeland and its history. A significant contribution to the interdisciplinary field of migration and social movements studies, Insurgent Communities illuminates how people develop collective identities in times of social upheaval.