Role of Diaspora Movements 11 revolution was doomed to fail, Syrians at home and abroad joined forces to rebel against iron-fisted totalitarianism and support the victims of Assad’s scorched-earth response. Yemenis abroad also mobilized to support the thousands of protesters who poured onto the streets over the course of 2011. Self-appointed lobbyists in Washington, DC, and London demanded that world powers and the United Nations force president Saleh to resign. Activists demonstrated outside the Saudi and Yemeni embassies to demand an end to violence against civilians. Activists held photography exhibitions to educate the public about the uprising and organized fundraising banquets for Islamic Relief’s aid work in Yemen. Local leaders also challenged the inertia of their community organizations by demanding that regime sympathizers vacate their posts and make way for new leadership. From her university’s cafeteria in Birmingham, a young organizer named Shaima exalted that the Arab Spring had induced “a revolution in the UK, without a doubt!” by bringing community members together for hope, democracy, and dignity as never before. 1.3 the role of diaspora movements in contentious politics Not all emigrants “keep a foot in two worlds” and retain ties to people and places at home (Levitt 2003; Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004; Waldinger and Fitzgerald 2004). The feeling of belonging to the country of origin, as sociologist Roger Waldinger (2015) argues, is subject to fray as later generations become incorporated into their receiving society. Transnational practices may also be “blocked” by home-country conflict and inaccessibility (Huynh and Yiu 2015). Yet, as Waldinger and other social scientists such as Peggy Levitt and Nina Glick Schiller (2004) have demonstrated, first-, 1.5-,8 and secondgeneration cohorts often retain some meaningful connection to their places of origin, whether through video chats with their relatives or through their selfprofessed identities (Brinkerhoff 2009). Equipped with insider knowledge, multilingualism, and a personalized stake in home-country politics, these ties become even more precious when the home-country is insulated from the global media and caged by a repressive regime. Under such circumstances, personalized connections to loved ones at home may be the only way to gather reliable information that circumvents state propaganda and international isolation. Diaspora members influence homeland affairs by transferring a myriad of resources homeward. Not all diasporas are equally wealthy, but even poor migrants from countries such as Haiti, Tajikistan, and Honduras send millions of dollars homeward every year. In 2017, migrants sent an astounding $613 8 Members of a 1.5 generation typically refer to those who emigrate to a new country by the age of fourteen and come of age in another territory. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press