Mediated Nationalism Under Crisis: Digital Mobilization and Pan-Kurdish Unity During the Rojava Crisis

This article examines how the Rojava crisis of 2025–2026 generated transnational Kurdish mobilisation and how pan-Kurdish unity was publicly enacted across broadcast media, digital platforms, demonstrations, and symbolic repertoires. Drawing on a multi-sited qualitative design, the study analyses televised fundraising campaigns by Kurdish satellite channels, especially Rudaw and Channel 8, a curated corpus of highly engaged Facebook Reels, and publicly documented demonstrations across Kurdish regional and diaspora settings. The findings show that humanitarian fundraising was transformed into ritualised nationhood; moral narratives framed support as obligation; symbolic repertoires made belonging affectively recognisable; digital circulation amplified unity narratives; transregional mobilisation linked uneven political spaces; and mourning deepened the moral gravity of collective response. They also show that, within the mediated arenas examined, unity operated as a dominant public frame rather than as evidence of uniform public opinion, and that this frame was shaped by competing Kurdish imaginaries of self-determination. The article argues that, in stateless and territorially fragmented settings, nationalism under crisis can be assembled without a sovereign state through hybrid communication environments that make solidarity visible, actionable, and emotionally compelling. It further shows how such unity remains conditioned by uneven geopolitical visibility and unresolved tensions between democratic-confederal, humanitarian, and more conventional nationalist repertoires.