ARTICLE Euromaidan Abroad: The Social Movement Motivations of Young Ukrainian Immigrants Alla Korzh, 1* Serhiy Kovalchuk 2 and Adrienne Marshall 3 1 School for International Training (SIT) Graduate Institute, Brattleboro, VT, USA, 2 International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and 3 SIT Graduate Institute, Brattleboro, VT, USA *Corresponding author. Email: alla.korzh@sit.edu Abstract This article examines the motivations of young Ukrainian immigrants to support the Euromaidan from abroad. Existing research has documented social movements within their national boundaries and the participation of young people in them. However, it has rarely examined the expansion of social movements beyond their national boundaries and the engagement of young immigrants in such movements. Drawing on a larger qualitative study, this article presents the findings about what motivated 24 young Ukrainian immigrants residing in the USA to support the Euromaidan movement of 2013–2014 and compares their motivations to those of the protestors in Ukraine. We argue that motivations of young Ukrainian immigrants to support the Euromaidan from abroad manifest themselves in symbolic or psychological causes. Our findings demonstrate that the individual motivations were driven by an ideological commitment to systemic change in Ukraine, manifested through young Ukrainian immigrants’ (1) desire to end injustice, (2) solidarity with fellow Ukrainians, (3) moral obligation to raise awareness among the US public, and, most prominently, (4) sense of agency to contribute to the long-awaited change in the homeland. Our findings also show that overall, the motivations of young Ukrainian immigrants to join the movement aligned with those of the protestors in Ukraine. Keywords: social movements; young immigrants; individual motivations; ideational cause; social change Introduction The last two decades have witnessed a surge of social movements led by young people across the world, including the Color Revolutions in post-Soviet countries (Diuk 2012; Nikolayenko 2007); the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa (Herrera 2012; Jules and Barton 2018); the Occupy Movement in the United States (Catalano 2013); the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong (Menefee 2015; Schiavenza 2014); and the Euromaidan movement (henceforth the Euro- maidan) in Ukraine (Onuch and Sasse 2016). Growing socioeconomic inequalities, unbridled authoritarianism, and violations of political, civic, and social rights led young people to rise up against political authorities in their home countries, challenge government policies and decisions, and advocate for democratic changes (Han 2015; Herrera and Mansour 2015; Jules and Barton 2018; Onuch 2014a). These social movements became a channel for young people to express their discontent and resistance to the political and social institutions that had ignored their rights and to speak out in the struggle for change (Epstein 2015; Kiwan 2014; Sarfati 2015). Existing research has extensively examined social movements within their national boundaries and the participation of young people in them (Epstein 2015; Han 2015; Herrera and Mansour 2015; Jules and Barton 2018; Onuch 2014a; Sarfati 2015). Even though numerous studies have © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Association for the Study of Nationalities. Nationalities Papers (2020), 1–13 doi:10.1017/nps.2020.59 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. 20 Oct 2020 at 14:48:42, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use.