David Dalton, “Migrant Nations in Mexico: Digital Community Building in the Central American and Haitian Diasporas in Tijuana"”

David Dalton is Professor of Spanish and Director of Latin American Studies at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. 

Professor Dalton will discuss his new book on Mexico’s rich history of digital activism, which is among the most vibrant of any country in the Hispanic world. Digital Activism in the Mexican Nations begins with a discussion of the Zapatista uprising of 1994—which is widely understood as the first digital social movement in the history of the world—and ends with a discussion of the digital strategies of migrant communities trekking through Mexico into the present.  Dalton conceptualizes (digital) activism in dialogue with Brecht’s binary of cathartic and transformative performance. He argues that the most successful digital social movements seek strategies to build connections with allies who can help them to shift state policy.

Sponsored by the UCI Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies and the Departments of History, Latin American & Iberian Cultures, and Chicano-Latino Studies.