Showing papers on "Diaspora published in 2006"

Diaspora networks and the international migration of skills : how countries can draw on their talent abroad

Abstract: Network diasporas serve as bridge institutions connecting developing economy insiders, with their risk-mitigating knowledge and connections, to outsiders in command of technical know-how and investment capital. This book examines the interaction of developing-country expatriate talent with institutions in expatriates' countries of origin in an attempt to make the development potential of diasporas and their knowledge a reality.

Mobilizing in transnational space: a social movement approach to the formation of diaspora

Abstract: In this article I suggest analysing the formation of diaspora communities as an instance of mobilization processes thereby countering essentialist concepts of diaspora that reify notions of belonging and the‘roots’of migrants in places of origin. Taking the imagination of a transnational community and a shared identity as defining characteristics of diaspora and drawing on constructivist concepts of identity, I argue that the formation of diaspora is not a‘natural’consequence of migration but that specific processes of mobilization have to take place for a diaspora to emerge. I propose that concepts developed in social movement theory can be applied to the study of diaspora communities and suggest a comparative framework for the analysis of the formation of diaspora through mobilization. Empirical material to substantiate this approach is mainly drawn from the Alevi diaspora in Germany but also from South Asian diasporas.

Diaspora, identity, and the media : diasporic transnationalism and mediated spatialities

Abstract: This publication offers a comprehensive and multispatial analysis of transnational life across the highly mediated worlds where diaspora is lived and imagined In a detailed and stimulating discussion, the author unravels processes of diasporic identity construction in everyday life Media consumption and communication technologies’ appropriation become increasingly important in the formation of shared identities for populations spread across the globe In exploring the current trends and future outlooks of diaspora this book adopts a spatial approach and looks into the locations of diasporic life: the domestic, the public, the urban and the transnational space This multifaceted method reveals the complexity and tension of connections and networks within the diaspora and beyond The book has two dimensions It introduces the reader to the role of media in the construction of diasporic and migrant identities, while also revealing in empirical ways how this relation is actually initiated and sustained in everyday life and through complex spatial connections The use of rich data collected in ethnographic research over two years unfolds the complex relation between identity and the media and indicates how media become significant agents for diaspora, identity and community The research in London and New York City , the two ultimate global cities, offers a unique transnational and transatlantic contribution to the study of globalization, diaspora, media and identity

Islands of History

Abstract: This article introduces the second set of articles in the Transforming Anthropology series entitled 'Interrogating Race and National Consciousness in the Diaspora'. The three articles Kosuzu Abe's Identities and Racism of Puerto Rican Migrants in New York City: An Introductory Essay; Hideaki Tobe's Military Bases and Modernity: An Aspect of Americanization in Okinawa; and Katsuyuki Murata's Searching for a Framework for a Synthetic Understanding of Post-1965 Immigration from the Western Hemisphere presented in this issue of Transforming Anthropology originate from a research workshop held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Each of these articles shares an active engagement with critical history. My introductory article begins with a discussion of critical theory and the search for a more democratic history. After sketching out the dimensions of a critical historical practice, I highlight how each author uses an island of history, local historical events, to elucidate larger themes such as globalization, identity, imperialism, nation, and race.

Diaspora, cyberspace and political imagination: the Eritrean diaspora online

Abstract: In this article I analyse the Eritrean diaspora and its use of cyberspace to theorize the ways transnationalism and new media are associated with the rise of new forms of community, public spheres and sites of cultural production. The struggle for national independence coincided with the rise of the Internet and the Eritrean diaspora has been actively involved in the new state. Eritreans abroad use the Internet as a transnational public sphere where they produce and debate narratives of history, culture, democracy and identity. Through the web the diaspora has mobilized demonstrators, amassed funds for war, debated the formulation of the constitution, and influenced the government of Eritrea. Through their web postings, 'Internet intellectuals' interpret national crises, rearticulate values and construct community. Thus, the Internet is not simply about information but is also an emotion-laden and creative space. More than simply refugees or struggling workers, diasporas online may invent new forms of citizenship, community and political practices. Identity is not a constant and is something that is renegotiated on (a) regular basis, be it at the individual or at the national level. This is especially prob- lematic for those of us living in the diaspora, we deal with so many identities and our existence is literally schizophrenic. We want to remain actively interested in the affairs of the homeland, at the same time we live in countries that (are) careless about our internal struggles and hence our miserable dependence on mediums like Dehai for a sense of belonging and for the illusion of home that it creates. I would even venture to say that the various cyber shoutings and negative exchanges we are accustomed to in Dehai are a necessary and unavoidable aspects of being a part of such a community.

Engaging Diasporas as Development Partners for Home and Destination Countries: Challenges for Policymakers

Abstract: This publication explores different challenges posed to home and host country governments engaging with their diasporas for development purposes. How to define diasporas? How to gather data on diasporas? How to incorporate diaspora contributions into development strategies? How to identify most relevant partners within the diasporas? What incentives are conducive to diaspora contributions? What resources are available within diasporas and how can their impact on development be maximized? What is the role for policy? These are some of the questions raised in this publication.

Periodizing Modernism: Postcolonial Modernities and the Space/Time Borders of Modernist Studies

Abstract: Susan Stanford Friedman is Virginia Woolf Professor of english and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin-madison. She writes extensively on modernism, including such writers as H.d., Woolf, and Joyce. Her recent books include Mappings: Feminism and the Cultural Geographies of Encounter and Analyzing Freud: Letters of H.D., Bryher, and Their Circle. Currently, she is writing on globalization, migration, and diaspora as well as her book in progress, Planetary Modernism and the Modernities of Empire, Nation, and Diaspora. modernism / modernity volume thirteen, number three, pp 425–443. © 2006 the johns hopkins

The Politics of Passion: Women's Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora

Abstract: Preface and Acknowledgments 1. No Tide, No Tamara / Not Today, Not Tomorrow: Misi Juliette Cummings's Life History 2. Suriname, Sweet Suriname: A Political Economy of Gendered and Racialized Inequality 3. Winit, an Afro-Surinamese Religion and the Multiplicitous Self 4. Kon Sidon na mi Tapu.../ Then He Comes and Sits Down on Top of Me... Relationships Between Women and Men 5. Mati Work 6. Sexualitiy on the MoveNotes Works Cited Index

Multilingualism, diaspora, and the Internet: Codes and identities on German-based diaspora websites

Abstract: The use of the Internet in diaspora has attracted considerable interest in media and cultural studies, but little attention has been paid to sociolinguistic issues. This paper is a study of linguistic diversity on websites maintained for and by members of diaspora groups in Germany. Based on online ethnography and an interpretive approach to code-switching, the paper explores the relationships between language choices and the complex architecture of these websites, which offer edited content as well as spaces for user interaction. Language choice in edited sections, patterns of code-switching in discussion forums, and language choice for user screen names and message signatures are examined. The findings demonstrate how code choices are tailored to the requirements of different modes within a website, and how various codes are creatively employed to display and negotiate identities that are related to the diaspora and its virtual discursive spaces.

Highland Homecomings: Genealogy and Heritage Tourism in the Scottish Diaspora

Abstract: Prologue: Other Landscapes 1. Introduction 2. An Itinerant Anthropology 3. Genealogy and Heritage Tourism in the Scottish Diaspora: An Overview 4. Imagineering Home 5. Home Spaces, Homepages, Homelands 6. `Be of this Land' 7. Sites of Memory, Sources of Identity 8. Homecomings 9. Exiles and Emigrants: Negotiating the Moralities of Migrant Family Histories 10. Heuristic Journeys

Muslim Women in America: The Challenge of Islamic Identity Today

Abstract: The treatment and role of women is one of the most discussed and controversial aspects of Islam. In this volume, three respected scholars of Islam survey the situation of women in Islam, focusing on how Muslim views about and experiences of gender are changing in the Western diaspora. It offers an overview of the teachings of the Qur'an and the Prophet Muhammad on gender, analyzes the ways in which the West has historically viewed Muslim women, and examines how the Muslim world has changed in response to Western critiques. The volume then centers on the Muslim experience in America, examining Muslim American analyses of gender, Muslim attempts to form a new "American" Islam, and the legal issues surrounding equal rights for Muslim females. Such specific issues as dress, marriage, child custody, and asylum are addressed. It also looks at the ways in which American Muslim women have tried to create new paradigms of Islamic womanhood and are reinterpreting the traditions apart from the males who control the mosque institutions.

Young Muslim women's experiences of Islam and physical education in Greece and Britain: a comparative study

Abstract: Previous research suggests that Muslim women can experience particular problems when taking physical education (PE) lessons, for example with dress codes, mixed-teaching and exercise during Ramadan; and they can face restrictions in extra-curricular activities for cultural and religious reasons. The area is under-researched and there is little evidence of comparative studies that explore similarities and differences in cross-national experiences, which is the aim of this paper. Two studies conducted in Greece and Britain that explored the views of Muslim women on school experiences of physical education are compared. Both studies focused on diaspora communities, Greek Turkish girls and British Asian women, living in predominantly non-Muslim countries. Growing concerns about global divisions between ‘Muslims and the West’ make this a particularly pertinent study. Qualitative data were collected by interviews with 24 Greek Muslim women, and 20 British Muslim women. Physical education has national curriculum...

Transnational cinema : the film reader

Abstract: Introduction: What is Transnational Cinema? Introduction to Section 1: From National to Transnational Cinema Introduction to Section 2: Global Cinema in the Digital Age Introduction to Section 3: Motion Pictures: Film, Migration, and Diaspora Introduction to Section 4: Tourists and Terrorists

Diaspora and Development

Abstract: Jagdish Bhagwati's proposal for a ‘brains tax’ to be levied on the incomes of the diaspora from developing countries residing in the developed countries and the proceeds to be remitted to the countries of origin of the diaspora is well known. In recent years the voluntary contributions or remittances from the diaspora to their countries of origin have often been higher than the aid monies given to these countries. It is now increasingly recognised that the diaspora may have an active role to play in the development process of their countries of origin. They are not only a source of funds; they are also a rich source of skills and know-how. This paper analyses the potential of the diaspora as agents of change in their countries of origin and argues that the social rate of return to a unit of diaspora investments may be higher than that for a unit of foreign direct investment from non-diaspora sources.

Early African diaspora in colonial Campeche, Mexico: Strontium isotopic evidence

Abstract: Construction activities around Campeche's central park led to the discovery of an early colonial church and an associated burial ground, in use from the mid-16th century AD to the late 17th century. Remains of some individuals revealed dental mutilations characteristic of West Africa. Analyses of strontium isotopes of dental enamel from these individuals yielded unusually high 87Sr/86Sr ratios, inconsistent with an origin in Mesoamerica, but consistent with an origin in West Africa in terrain underlain by the West Africa Craton, perhaps near the port of Elmina, a principal source of slaves for the New World during the 16th century. These individuals likely represent some of the earliest representatives of the African Diaspora in the Americas. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2006. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

From Farmers to Merchants, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History

Abstract: From the end of the second century C.E., Judaism enforced a religious norm requiring Jewish fathers to educate their sons. We present evidence supporting our thesis that this change in the religious and social norm had a major influence on Jewish economic and demographic history. First, the high individual and community cost of educating children in subsistence farming economies (2nd to 7th centuries) prompted voluntary conversions, which account for a large share of the reduction in the size of the Jewish population from 4.5 million to 1.2 million. Second, the Jewish farmers who invested in education, gained the comparative advantage and incentive to enter skilled occupations during the vast urbanization in the newly developed Muslim Empire (8th and 9th centuries) and they actually did select themselves into these occupations. Third, as merchants the Jews invested even more in education---a pre-condition for the extensive mailing network and common court system that endowed them with trading skills demanded all over the world. Fourth, the Jews generated a voluntary diaspora by migrating within the Muslim Empire, and later to western Europe where they were invited to settle as high skill intermediaries by local rulers. By 1200, the Jews were living in hundreds of towns from England and Spain in the West to China and India in the East. Fifth, the majority of world Jewry (about one million) lived in the Near East when the Mongol invasions in the 1250s brought this region back to a subsistence farming and pastoral economy in which many Jews found it difficult to enforce the religious norm regarding education, and hence, voluntarily converted, exactly as it had happened centuries earlier.

The Armenians: From Kings and Priests to Merchants and Commissars

Abstract: The book traces the evolution of Armenia and Armenian collective identity, in the homeland and in the diaspora, from its beginnings to the eve of the Armenian nationalist movement over Gharabagh in 1988. The emphasis is on the modern era - the seventeenth century onwards, including the Soviet period. Panossian's overall approach is that of interpretive political and cultural history, centred around theories of national identity formation and nationalism. The cultural identity of the Armenian people - expressed in their art, literature, religious practice and even commerce - played a vital role in preserving national memory, and forms an important component of this study, as does the author's analysis of the Armenian Genocide in 1915.

The Situated Politics of Belonging

Abstract: Introduction - Nira Yuval-Davis, Kalpana Kannabiran and Ulrike M Vieten PART ONE MULTICULTURALISM, COSMOPOLITANISM AND CONTEMPORARY POLITICS OF BELONGING Belongings in a Globalising and Unequal World - Floya Anthias Rethinking Translocations Culture, Identity and Rights - Gurminder K Bhambra Challenging Contemporary Discourses of Belonging Domestic Cosmopolitanism and Structures of Feeling - Mica Nava The Specifity of London A Cartography of Resistance - Kalpana Kannabiran The National Federation of Dalit Women PART TWO: RACISMS, SEXISMS AND CONTEMPORARY POLITICS OF BELONGING Im/Possible Inhabitations - Nirmal Puwar An Inhospitable Port in the Storm - Jayne O Ifekwunigwe Recent Clandestine West African Migrants and the Quest for Diasporic Recognition Alterity and Belonging in Diaspora Space - Alice Feldman Changing Irish Identities and 'Race'-Making in the 'Age of Migration' Recognition, Respect and Rights - Louise Humpage and Greg Marston Refugee Living on Temporary Protection Visas (TPVx) in Australia Gender and Caste Conflicts in Rural Bihar - Suruchi Thapar-Bjorkert Dalit Women As Arm Bearers PART THREE HUMAN RIGHTS, MILITARY INTERVENTIONS AND CONTEMPORARY POLITICS OF BELONGING The Judgement of Evil and Contemporary Politics of Belonging - Robert Fine National Interests, National Identity and 'Ethical Foreign Policy' - David Chandler Australians in Guantanamo Bay - Zlatko Skrbis Graduations of Citizenship and the Politics of Belonging The Enemy of My Enemy is Not my Friend - Nadje Al-Ali Women's Rights, Occupation and 'Reconstruction' in Iraq Legislating Utopia? Violence against Women - Gita Sahgal Identities and Interventions

Transnationalism: Diaspora-Homeland Development

Abstract: Based on detected correlations between the strategic collaboration of U.S.-based diasporas and their respective ancestral homelands on the one hand and the socioeconomic and technological development of those homelands on the other, this paper, which provides a conceptual foundation of the correlation, attempts to ignite a new area of research on transnationalism and development in the global South. The conceptual foundation suggesting such an important correlation is ensconced in the theoretical contexts of world systems and racial formation theories. The hierarchically ranked status of a nation in some ways reflects the hierarchically ranked status of its diaspora in the United States. Strategic collaboration and brain circulation between the diaspora and the homeland can favorably affect the status of transnational communities, both within the United States and within the wider global system.

'Dad says I'm tied to a shooting star!' Grounding (research on) British expatriate belonging

Abstract: This paper analyses one British woman's everyday practices of belonging as she negotiates expatriate life in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. In doing so, it responds to widespread calls to ground research on processes of transnationalism and diaspora by drawing on eighteen months of ethnographic research and adopting a three-stranded analytical framework to reflect ont he significance of domesticity, intimacy and foreignness in expatriate belonging. The author focuses on a single research subject to draw attention to a particular British expatriate experience otherwise neglected in migration research and the paper resonates with theoretical literatures aiming to challenge the binary divisions of geographies of belonging, including attachment/detachment.

Embedded Cosmopolitanism and the Politics of Obligation: The Ghanaian Diaspora and Development

Abstract: The author analyses how identities and obligations operate within the spaces of transnational communities and how this affects development. Within spatially diffuse communities, identities are fluid and overlapping, as are the obligations to multiple others—be that kin, ethnic group, or nation—in different localities. The author is concerned with the institutions through which these identities are formed and obligations are fulfilled. These include families, clans, hometown associations, and religious organisations, which link people ‘abroad’ to people ‘at home’. The author understands these spaces as a form of public sphere involving a ‘deterritorialised’ citizenship, which has been termed ‘embedded cosmopolitanism’. In this way, obligations are not legally defined but operate as part of the moral universe of those concerned. The case study is based upon recent fieldwork on Ghanaians in the United Kingdom and their connections to other Ghanaians outside Ghana and to those at home. The ways in which these...

Mobility/Stability: British Asian Cultures of ‘Landscape and Englishness’

Abstract: This paper examines the way in which the (British) Asian diaspora creates a territory of belonging and a cultural nationalism within the British landscape. New, British Asian cultures of Englishness are figured through the experience of mobility from `other' landscapes to England. The expression of new hybrids of cultural nationalism based on cultures of Englishness and landscape are presented in the tangible forms of Asian women's drawings of `landscapes of belonging' and their material cultures at home. The Englishness that is expressed through these cultures is examined as a mobile culture that has shifted in meaning and form through the various migrations of the diaspora from sites of colonial governance. The acknowledgement of mobility reveals how new cultural nation- alisms rely on souvenirs and sacred objects, contributing to a new moral aesthetics of home and thus creating an inclusive culture of Englishness. The home incorporates a new space where the English- ness of Victoriana and textures of Indianess or Africaness are sites of memorial to mobility itself. The British Asian diaspora creates spatially transferable, mobile cultures of nationalism, expressed through material registers of English landscape aesthetics. The English landscape itself is examined as refractive of lived landscapes abroad and explored through the diasporic lens. Englishness in this paper is based on a `territory of culture', unfixed from any singular national identity, land, or discrete national culture, but located in the cultures of desire of belonging to England.

From Farmers to Merchants, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History

Abstract: From the end of the second century C.E., Judaism enforced a religious norm requiring Jewish fathers to educate their sons. We present evidence supporting our thesis that this change in the religious and social norm had a major influence on Jewish economic and demographic history. First, the high individual and community cost of educating children in subsistence farming economies (2nd to 7th centuries) prompted voluntary conversions, which account for a large share of the reduction in the size of the Jewish population from 4.5 million to 1.2 million. Second, the Jewish farmers who invested in education, gained the comparative advantage and incentive to enter skilled occupations during the vast urbanization in the newly developed Muslim Empire (8th and 9th centuries) and they actually did select themselves into these occupations. Third, as merchants the Jews invested even more in education --- a pre-condition for the extensive mailing network and common court system that endowed them with trading skills demanded all over the world. Fourth, the Jews generated a voluntary diaspora by migrating within the Muslim Empire, and later to western Europe where they were invited to settle as high skill intermediaries by local rulers. By 1200, the Jews were living in hundreds of towns from England and Spain in the West to China and India in the East. Fifth, the majority of world Jewry (about one million) lived in the Near East when the Mongol invasions in the 1250s brought this region back to a subsistence farming and pastoral economy in which many Jews found it difficult to enforce the religious norm regarding education, and hence, voluntarily converted, exactly as it had happened centuries earlier.

Indian Nurses in the Gulf: Two Generations of Female Migration

Abstract: The article, based largely on fieldwork in Gulf countries and in Kerala, focuses on female nurses from Kerala who have worked, are currently working or are preparing to work in Gulf countries. It e...

British Asians and Football: Culture, Identity, Exclusion

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Myths, Stereotypes and Discourses Surrounding the Exclusion of British Asian Professional Footballers 3. Racial Discrimination and White Privilege in English Football 4. Ethnicity, Hybridity and Cultural Capital 5. Identity, Diaspora and Citizenship 6. British Asians and Anti-Racism in English Football I: Strategies and Symbolism 7. British Asians and Anti-Racism in English Rootball II: Case Studies and Critique 8. Concluding Remarks

Mobilizing India: Women, Music, and Migration between India and Trinidad

Abstract: Acknowledgments vii Note on Usage ix Introduction 1 1. "The Indian in Me": Studying the Subaltern Diaspora 17 2. "Left to the Imagination": Indian Nationalism and Female Sexuality 55 3. "Take a Little Chutney, Add a Touch of Kaiso": The Body in the Voice 85 4. Jumping out of Time: The "Indian" in Calypso 125 5. "Suku Suku What Shall I Do?": Hindi Cinema and the Politics of Music 169 Afterword: A Semi-Lime 191 Notes 223 Bibliography 253 Index 267