Showing papers on "Diaspora published in 2015"

Transnationalism, Multilingualism, and Identity

Abstract: Applied linguistics is a field concerned with issues pertaining to language(s) and literacies in the real world and with the people who learn, speak, write, process, translate, test, teach, use, and lose them in myriad ways. It is also fundamentally concerned with transnationalism, mobility, and multilingualism—the movement across cultural, linguistic, and (often) geopolitical or regional borders and boundaries. The field is, furthermore, increasingly concerned with identity construction and expression through particular language and literacy practices across the life span, at home, in diaspora settings, in short-term and long-term sojourns abroad for study or work, and in other contexts and circumstances. In this article, I discuss some recent areas in which applied linguists have investigated the intersections of language (multilingualism), identity, and transnationalism. I then present illustrative studies and some recurring themes and issues.

Migrants as agents of development: Diaspora engagement discourse and practice in Europe

Abstract: This article analyses how European governments and civil society actors engage diasporas in Europe as agents for the development of their countries of origin. Through a critical examination of diaspora engagement discourse and practice in various European countries, we identify three implicit understandings. First, development is conceived of as the planned activities of Western professional development actors; second, diasporas are seen as actual communities rooted in a national ‘home’ and sharing a group identity; and third, migration is regarded as binary mobility. We argue that these interpretations are informed by notions of ethnic or national rootedness in given places and that they lead to further assumptions about why, and in pursuit of what goals, diasporas engage. We conclude that such essentialized understandings limit the potential of diaspora engagement as a means of innovating the development industry by broadening understandings of what development entails and how it can be done.

Pain, Pride, and Politics: Social Movement Activism and the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora in Canada

Abstract: Pain, Pride, and Politics is an examination of diasporic politics based on a case study of Sri Lankan Tamils in Canada, with particular focus on activism between December 2008 and May 2009. Amarnath Amarasingam analyzes the reactions of diasporic Tamils in Canada at a time when the separatist Tamil movement was being crushed by the Sri Lankan armed forces and revises currently accepted analytical frameworks relating to diasporic communities. This book adds to our understanding of a particular diasporic group, while contributing to the theoretical literature in the area. Throughout, Amarasingam argues that transnational diasporic mobilization is at times determined and driven as much by internal organizational and communal developments as by events in their countries of origin, a phenomenon that has received relatively little attention in the scholarly literature. His work provides an in-depth examination of the ways in which a separatist sociopolitical movement beginning in Sri Lanka is carried forward, altered, and adapted by the diaspora and the struggles that are involved in this process.

Diffusion of Diaspora Enfranchisement Norms A Multinational Study

Abstract: States have increasingly granted voting rights to their citizens overseas. Traditional accounts of franchise extension suggest that governments’ motivations are either political (new voters are expected to support the incumbent government) or, in the case of citizens abroad, materialist (a fortified link to migrants encourages remittance flows). Although these factors doubtless matter, they overlook the tendency for liberal norms to diffuse through the international system, as competition with and learning from neighbors motivate the adoption of relevant policies and institutions. We use large-N cross-national hazard models to examine whether a similar pattern holds for diaspora enfranchisement and find that neighbors’ recent enactment of overseas voting nearly doubles the chance that a country will enfranchise its own diaspora. This suggests a role for international norms in determining national voting policies.

The Age of Trade: The Manila Galleons and the Dawn of the Global Economy

Abstract: Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: The Philippines before the Spaniards Monsoons, Islands, and the "Rim of Fire" Native Peoples on the Shores Barangays and the Age of Commerce after 1405 The Mountain Peoples The Gold of the Visayas and the Harvest of Cowries The Mediterranean Connection and the Long Post-1400 Trade Boom China and the Islands before Spain Chapter Two: The Origins of Spanish Settlement in the Philippines Manila and the Origins of World Trade Atlantic Silver in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries China and the Global Market in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries The Discovery of the Sea: Iberians and Spices The Military Revolution and the 35 Percent of the World The Portuguese and the Vasco da Gama Era Ferdinand Magellan Spanish Expeditions to the Spice Islands Miguel Lopez de Legazpi Spaniards in Luzon Exploration of Luzon Chapter Three: Spanish Settlement in the Philippines The First Decades of the Colony and "The China Enterprise" Settling Down in the Philippines The "Magellan Exchange" and the Islands A New Agricultural Regime Reorganizing the Territory The Colony's Finances Native Contributions to the Colonial Economy The Situado The Role of Manila in the New Territorial Arrangements Indirect Rule: The Principalia Colonial Administration Chapter Four: The Seventeenth Century The "Little Ice Age" The End of the Silver Cycle The Eighty Years' War with the Netherlands The Philippines and the War with the Dutch The Moro Wars Japan and the Friars The Portuguese in Manila The European Companies The Armenian Diaspora The New Christians' Mercantile Diaspora The End of the Century Chapter Five: The Galleons The Line The Voyage Officers and Sailors Acapulco Chapter Six: The Economy of the Line China and Silver in the Modern Era Textiles and the Galleons Galleon Line Regulations A Royal Inspector's Visit Chinese Merchants: The Sangleys The Chinese Rebellion of 1603 The Rebellion of 1640 Chapter Seven: The Eighteenth Century and the Galleon Line A New Ecological Regime The Mexican Silver Cycle The Tea and Opium Cycle The War of Jenkins' Ear and the Manila Galleon The Seven Years' War in the Philippines The Chinese in Eighteenth-Century Philippines Reforms in the Philippines The Moro Wars in the Eighteenth Century Changes in Spanish Imperial Policy The End of the Galleon Trade The End of the Line Notes Bibliography Index About the Author

Digital Passages: Migrant Youth 2.0: Diaspora, Gender and Youth Cultural Intersections

Abstract: Increasingly, young people live online, with the vast majority of their social and cultural interactions conducted through means other than face-to-face conversation. How does this transition impact the ways in which young migrants understand, negotiate, and perform identity? That's the question taken up by Digital Passages: Migrant Youth 2.0, a ground-breaking analysis of the ways that youth culture online interacts with issues of diaspora, gender, and belonging. Drawing on surveys, in-depth interviews, and ethnography, Koen Leurs builds an interdisciplinary portrait of online youth culture and the spaces it opens up for migrant youth to negotiate power relations and to promote intercultural understanding.

Mobility and International Collaboration: Case of the Mexican Scientific Diaspora.

Abstract: We use a data set of Mexican researchers working abroad that are included in the Mexican National System of Researchers (SNI). Our diaspora sample includes 479 researchers, most of them holding postdoctoral positions in mainly seven countries: USA, Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Canada and Brazil. Their research output and impact is explored in order to determine their patterns of production, mobility and scientific collaboration as compared with previous studies of the SNI researchers in the periods 1991–2001 and 2003–2009. Our findings confirm that mobility has a strong impact on their international scientific collaboration. We found no substantial influence among the researchers that got their PhD degrees abroad from those trained in Mexican universities. There are significant differences among the areas of knowledge studied: biological sciences, physics and engineering have better production and impact rates than mathematics, geosciences, medicine, agrosciences, chemistry, social sciences and humanities. We found a slight gender difference in research production but Mexican female scientists are underrepresented in our diaspora sample. These findings would have policy implications for the recently established program that will open new academic positions for young Mexican scientists.

The Diaspora Within: Himalayan Youth, Education-Driven Migration, and Future Aspirations in India

Abstract: Economic change has driven parents across the Indian Himalayan Region to send their children to major Indian cities for higher education. Himalayan students' urban experience and understanding of t...

‘Mabhurandaya’: the Malawian diaspora in Zimbabwe: 1895 to 2008

Abstract: i Acknowledgements iii Abbreviations and Acronyms vii Glossary of Terms ix List of Tables, Maps, Posters and Photographs xi CHAPTER ONE: DOCUMENTING THE MALAWIAN DIASPORA IN ZIMBABWE: SOME HISTORIOGRAPHICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 Migrants or Diasporas? Malawians and the Broader Theoretical Context ........................... 6 Malawian Diasporic Communities in Zimbabwean Historiography: Strengths and Silences .............................................................................................................................................. 15 Tracking Diasporic Subjects: Research Methodology and Sources ..................................... 24 Some Reflections on Oral and Archival Research ............................................................ 25 Structure of the Thesis ........................................................................................................ 29 CHAPTER TWO: ULENDO: MALAWIAN (NYASA) MIGRATION INTO ZIMBABWE C. 1895 TO 1952 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 33 Maravi Communities in Pre-colonial Zimbabwe ................................................................. 35 Mthandizi: Nyasas and the Colonial Labour Migration System ........................................... 38 Machona, Nyasa Juveniles and Women .............................................................................. 46 Ulendo wakuRhudhisha: The Journey to Southern Rhodesia .............................................. 51 Industrial Ethnicity: Nyasa Spatial and Occupational Inclinations in Southern Rhodesia ... 70 Tripartite Labour Agreements and the Politics of Remittances .......................................... 74 The Second World War and Migrant Labour Constraints ................................................... 81 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 83 CHAPTER THREE: CHIGWIRIZANO: SOCIAL TENSIONS AND NUISANCE IDENTITIES DURING THE FEDERAL AND EARLY UDI YEARS Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 85 The Central African Federation: A Brief Review .................................................................. 87 For the Love of the Njinga (Bicycle): Federal Stimuli and Ramifications on Nyasa Migration .............................................................................................................................................. 91 Kufa kwaMbwidi Mombe Zalowa: Inter-Marriage Dynamics and Social Tensions ............. 99 Ringleaders and Troublemakers: Nyasa Involvement in Unionism and Politics ............... 107 State, Labour, Nationalism and the Discrimination of Alien Natives: Late 1950s and 1960s ............................................................................................................................................ 116 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 124 CHAPTER FOUR: WALKING A TIGHTROPE: MALAWIAN ENCOUNTERS WITH THE ZIMBABWEAN LIBERATION STRUGGLE: 1966 TO 1979 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 125 Migrant Malawian Encounters with Chimurenga .............................................................. 128 Collaborators and Sell-outs: Malawian Diaspora and Chimurenga-induced Identities .... 143 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 156 CHAPTER FIVE: POST-INDEPENDENCE ANXIETIES, SYNCRETIC CULTURAL EXPRESSION AND PROMINENCE: 1980 TO 1999 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 157 Migrant Anxieties over Belonging, Gukurahundi, Drought and ESAP ............................... 158 Cultural Motifs and Syncretic Expression: Rites, Dances and Kindred Societies .............. 165 Nyau Secret Societies and Gule Wamkulu Dances ........................................................ 167 Military Mimicry and Beni Dances ................................................................................. 176 Post-1980 Mutual Aid Societies ..................................................................................... 178 Chinamwali: Male and Female Circumcision Rites ........................................................ 181 Golden Age: Prominent Mabhurandaya in Independent Zimbabwe ............................... 183 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 197 CHAPTER SIX: THE ZIMBABWEAN CRISIS THROUGH THE EYES OF MALAWIAN DIASPORA: C.2000 TO 2008 Introduction: Problematizing the Zimbabwean Crisis ........................................................ 199 In the Shadows of the Third Chimurenga: The FTLRP and Malawian Livelihoods on Farms ............................................................................................................................................ 205 Citizenship and Suffrage Politics in the New Millennium .................................................. 215 The Quest for Belonging: Agency in Renouncing a Citizenship One Never Had ........... 234 ‘Everywhere is a Heroes Acre; Anywhere I will die is Home’: Malawians and the Idea of Home ................................................................................................................................. 237 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 243 CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION ................................................................................................... 245 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................... 261

Network Benefits for Ghanaian Diaspora and Returnee Entrepreneurs

Abstract: Objective: The objective of this paper is to investigate how diaspora and returnee entrepreneurs use networks in the country of origin (COO) and country of residence (COR) and which benefits they gain from such networks. Research Design & Methods: In the face of the early state of research and the complexity of the subject, exploratory case study research was chosen. One case was conducted with a Ghanaian diaspora entrepreneur in Germany and the other with a Ghanaian returnee entrepreneur back from Germany. Face-to-face semi-structured interviews with both of the entrepreneurs were conducted to identify their network dynamics. Findings: Ghanaian diaspora entrepreneurs benefit mainly from networks in the COR and Ghanaian returnee entrepreneurs from networks in the COO. These findings are not fully consistent with the assumption of previous scholars that diaspora and returnee entrepreneurs intensively use both COO and COR networks. Implications & Recommendations: The network usage of diaspora and returnee entrepreneurs varies to a large extent depending on industry, personal background and human capital. It is necessary to research more intensively the heterogeneity within diaspora entrepreneurship. Contribution & Value Added: This paper contributes to the development of understanding of heterogeneity in diaspora and returnee entrepreneurship. The cases present that the degree and balance of mixed embeddedness of returnee and diaspora entrepreneurs in COO and COR may differ to a large extent and they influence how they benefit from different type of networks in both countries. This difference may arise from the physical absence/presence of entrepreneurs in the country or the structure of their business. We identified several dimensions to be considered in future research.

Indians in Kenya: The Politics of Diaspora

Abstract: Working as merchants, skilled tradesmen, clerks, lawyers, and journalists, Indians formed the economic and administrative middle class in colonial Kenya. In general, they were wealthier than Africans, but were denied the political and economic privileges that Europeans enjoyed. Moreover, despite their relative prosperity, Indians were precariously positioned in Kenya. Africans usually viewed them as outsiders, and Europeans largely considered them subservient. Indians demanded recognition on their own terms. Indians in Kenya" chronicles the competing, often contradictory, strategies by which the South Asian diaspora sought a political voice in Kenya from the beginning of colonial rule in the late 1890s to independence in the 1960s.Indians intellectual, economic, and political connections with South Asia shaped their understanding of their lives in Kenya. Sana Aiyar investigates how the many strands of Indians diasporic identity influenced Kenya s political leadership, from claiming partnership with Europeans in their mission to colonize and civilize East Africa to successful collaborations with Africans to battle for racial equality, including during the Mau Mau Rebellion. She also explores how the hierarchical structures of colonial governance, the material inequalities between Indians and Africans, and the racialized political discourses that flourished in both colonial and postcolonial Kenya limited the success of alliances across racial and class lines. Aiyar demonstrates that only by examining the ties that bound Indians to worlds on both sides of the Indian Ocean can we understand how Kenya came to terms with its South Asian minority."

Territories of the Soul: Queered Belonging in the Black Diaspora

Abstract: Nadia Ellis attends to African diasporic belonging as it comes into being through black expressive culture. Living in the diaspora, Ellis asserts, means existing between claims to land and imaginative flights unmoored from the earth—that is, to live within the territories of the soul. Drawing on the work of Jose Munoz, Ellis connects queerness' utopian potential with diasporic aesthetics. Occupying the territory of the soul, being neither here nor there, creates in diasporic subjects feelings of loss, desire, and a sensation of a pull from elsewhere. Ellis locates these phenomena in the works of C.L.R. James, the testy encounter between George Lamming and James Baldwin at the 1956 Congress of Negro Artists and Writers in Paris, the elusiveness of the queer diasporic subject in Andrew Salkey's novel Escape to an Autumn Pavement , and the trope of spirit possession in Nathaniel Mackey's writing and Burning Spear's reggae. Ellis' use of queer and affect theory shows how geographies claim diasporic subjects in ways that nationalist or masculinist tropes can never fully capture. Diaspora, Ellis concludes, is best understood as a mode of feeling and belonging, one fundamentally shaped by the experience of loss.

Ukraine: Democratization, Corruption, and the New Russian Imperialism

Abstract: A definitive contemporary political, economic, and cultural history from a leading international expert, this is the first single-volume work to survey and analyze Soviet and post-Soviet Ukrainian history since 1953 as the basis for understanding the nation today * Integrates late-Soviet and post-Soviet history to explain the continuity of the legacies of the USSR on contemporary Ukraine * Provides alternative and original insights into Ukrainian politics that provide an original perspective different from standard frameworks * Includes an extensive range of interviews with leading Ukrainian politicians, civic activists, and businesspersons as well as Western policymakers and leaders of the Ukrainian diaspora who provide unique insights into contemporary Ukrainian politics * Shares biographical entries that reflect the author's three decades of personal involvement in contemporary Ukraine * Draws on a wide range of primary and original sources * Features original and previously unseen photographs

Bridges to Cuba / Puentes a Cuba

Abstract: Through personal essays and poetry, short fiction and painting, book reviews, interviews, performance pieces, and hybrid creations of text and image, Bridges to Cuba/Puentes a Cuba opens a window onto the meaning of nationality, transnationalism, and homeland in our time. For more than thirty-five years U.S.-Cuban relations have been couched in terms of the Cold War, often pitting Cubans in the diaspora against Cubans who remain in their homeland. Bridges to Cuba/Puentes a Cuba celebrates the informal networks that Cubans in both countries have maintained through artistic, academic, family, and other ties. The book brings together for the first time in English Cuban voices of the second generation, both on the island and in the diaspora. The multivocal and multigenre collection includes both scholarly and creative writing and an impressive range of visual art. The participants are earnest, angry, witty, and hopeful. They are sometimes visionaries, but they are not deluded about Cuban or North American realities. Their voices offer testimony to the continuing efforts of Cubans and Cuban-Americans to look beyond the animosities and failings of their respective societies and find possibilities for personal and international reconciliation, dialogue, and renewal. Ruth Behar, as editor of Bridges to Cuba/Puentes a Cuba, leaps across conventional intellectual boundaries in an effort to show the complexity of nationhood, exile, and revolution in the Cuban experience of the last thirty years. An important book about the possibility and impossibility of building cultural and political bridges.--Arcadio Di az-Quin ones, Princeton University Behar narrows the straitsof Florida with a richly textured dialogue of voices in and out of Cuba. Bridges to Cuba is sure to make history.--Liz Balmaseda, Miami Herald A vital and interesting anthology about contemporary Cuba.--Oscar Hijuelos, author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love Bridges to Cuba is the first U.S. anthology that looks at Cuban creativity from an integrated perspective, refusing to kneel before the painful and often arbitrary divisions that have split the voices of this passionate culture into forever separate bands. The results are magnificent. Read this book and get a long overdue understanding of contemporary Cuban literature and art.--Margaret Randall, author of Women in Cuba: Twenty Years Later In order for memory to be recovered, there must be a community that remembers and tells the story. . . . Bridges to Cuba displays a wealth of insights that leave the reader with a sense of having experienced first hand the intricate web of thought and feeling that is Cuban life.--Latino Review of Books Ruth Behar's anthology represents one of the most important and moving bridges yet published on contemporary Cuba and its condition as the island that is still absent from the Western world. Bridges to Cuba is an extraordinary example of the faith and ability of Latin American intellectuals to cross true bridges, bridges of solidarity.--Marjorie Agosi n, Wellesley College Ruth Behar is author of Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza's Story and coeditor, with Deborah Gordon, of Women Writing Culture. She has been the recipient of awards from the MacArthur and Guggenheim foundations."

Black British intellectuals and education: multiculturalism's hidden history

Abstract: Of late there has been a resurging interest in the black British intellectual. This has not only seen an increased desire to recognize seminal thinkers across the African diaspora, but also a reinv...

The Viking Diaspora

Abstract: The Viking Diaspora presents the early medieval migrations of people, language and culture from mainland Scandinavia to new homes in the British Isles, the North Atlantic, the Baltic and the East as a form of ‘diaspora’. It discusses the ways in which migrants from Russia in the east to Greenland in the west were conscious of being connected not only to the people and traditions of their homelands, but also to other migrants of Scandinavian origin in many other locations. Rather than the movements of armies, this book concentrates on the movements of people and the shared heritage and culture that connected them. This on-going contact throughout half a millennium can be traced in the laws, literatures, material culture and even environment of the various regions of the Viking diaspora. Judith Jesch considers all of these connections, and highlights in detail significant forms of cultural contact including gender, beliefs and identities. Beginning with an overview of Vikings and the Viking Age, the nature of the evidence available, and a full exploration of the concept of ‘diaspora’, the book then provides a detailed demonstration of the appropriateness of the term to the world peopled by Scandinavians. This book is the first to explain Scandinavian expansion using this model, and presents the Viking Age in a new and exciting way for students of Vikings and medieval history.

Identity and language: Korean speaking Korean, Korean-American speaking Korean and English?

Abstract: The identity formation of a diaspora community is complex. The present study examines native language maintenance and ethnic identity of first-, 1.5-, and second-generation Korean-Americans in the United States, through the lenses of various identity construction and sociolinguistic theories. Identity and language are closely linked, and this relationship is bound by social contexts. Both identity and language are viewed as dynamic and mutable. The study also identifies social factors that affect linguistic behaviors and identity formation. The study further provides detailed analysis of the issues relevant to the conflict of identity in a current setting where pluralist ideology is strongly discouraged, as in the case of the United States. The perspective of English as an international language, and its power and influence on the formation of ethnic identity in the United States and Korea, are also addressed.

Diasporas and Homeland Conflicts: A Comparative Perspective

Abstract: As violent conflicts become increasingly intra-state rather than inter-state, international migration has rendered them increasingly transnational, as protagonists from each side find themselves in new countries of residence In spite of leaving their homeland, the grievances and grudges that existed between them are not forgotten and can be passed to the next generationThis book explores the extension of homeland conflicts into transnational space amongst diaspora groups, with particular attention to the interactions between second-generation migrants Comparative in approach, Diasporas and Homeland Conflicts focuses on the tensions that exist between Kurdish and Turkish populations in Sweden and Germany, examining the effects of hostland policies and politics on the construction, shaping or elimination of homeland conflictsDrawing on extensive interview material with members of diasporic communities, this book sheds fresh light on the influences exercised on conflict dynamics by state policies on migrant incorporation and multiculturalism, as well as structures of migrant organizations As such, it will be of interest to scholars of sociology, political science and international studies with interests in migration and diaspora, integration and transnational conflict

The Case for Diaspora: A Temporal Approach to the Chinese Experience

Abstract: This article revisits the criticisms of “diaspora” by Wang Gungwu, Ien Ang, and Shu-mei Shih, and urges a return to the concept with an attention to temporality. Focusing on the story of Lim Boon Keng (1869–1957)—an Edinburgh-educated baba Chinese who led a Confucian revival in Singapore in the 1890s, clashed with May Fourth writer Lu Xun in China in the 1920s, and has been celebrated since the 1990s—this article argues that diaspora is less a collection of communities than a series of moments in which reconnections with a putative homeland take place. By considering how “diaspora moments” emerge and create actors, scholars may ask why and for whom essential ties become useful, and how the history of mass emigration foregrounds a contingent Chinese identity. Temporally inflected, diaspora is a process to reckon with a world in flux, hence a useful paradigm for analysis.

Singing in 'The Peg' : the dynamics of Winnipeg singing cultures during the 20th century

Abstract: The research begins by establishing Winnipeg, as a city comprised of many different European immigrant communities where the dominant British-Canadian culture reflected the Canadian national consciousness of the early 20th century. After an outline of early musical life in the city, four case studies demonstrate how the solo vocal and choral culture in Winnipeg represents a realization of the constitutive, continuously forming and mutable relationships between peoples of differing identities. In all of these case studies, I investigate how this culture has been shaped by social and political actions through transnational connections over the 20th century. The first two case studies are underpinned by the theories of cultural capital and gender. The first focuses on the Women’s Musical Club of Winnipeg (1900-1920s), an elite group of Brito-Canadian women who shaped the reception of high art singing among their peers primarily through their American connections. The second investigates the Men’s Musical Club of Winnipeg (1920s-1950s), a dynamic group of businessmen and musicians who sought to reinforce Brito-Canadian cultural supremacy by developing a choral culture and establishing a music competition festival based on British models and enforced by British musical associations. The third and fourth case studies are examined through the lens of diaspora and identity, underpinned by social capital. One examines the changing perspectives towards vocal repertoire and its performance in the urban Mennonite community from the 1950s until the end of the century, and how this has shaped high art vocal culture in Winnipeg. The final case study investigates the mutable political and social transnational relationships between diaspora Poles and those in the homeland, as reflected through the activities of the choir of Winnipeg’s Sokol Polish Ensemble. This thesis contributes to the knowledge on transnational musical relationships that shape urban and diaspora musical cultures in Canada.

Religious transnationalism of the Yārsāni community in Sweden

Abstract: Concepts of diaspora concerning related factors of social transformationhave been investigated with respect to religion and attempts to preserve ethnicidentity in society without abandoning group identity.The main objective of this study is to examine the ethnic and religious narrative of the Yārsānis in diaspora and how the dynamics of religious transformation become apparent in a description of diaspora.Reference will be made to the theoretical framework developed by Steven Vertovec and Peggy Levitton diaspora, transnationalism, and migration in their relation to religion. The article follows two major theoretical premises: How Yarsanis‘ changing attitudes in new cultural settings necessitate adaptations that affect their religion and culture, and the effects of integration in Sweden due to the ritual encounters between Yarsanis and the, apparently, „secular“ Swedish values.How do these new contexts create open space for narrating “Yārsāni-ness”?

The roots tourism experience of diaspora Africans: A focus on the Cape Coast and Elmina Castles

Abstract: Ghana is one of the countries visited by diaspora Africans seeking to trace their roots and reconnect with their kith and kin. However, promoting roots tourism to the African diaspora is a delicate undertaking. There is a need to understand the factors which are of importance to the roots tourism experience as this will help to package the roots tourism product appropriately to meet the expectations of tourists. This study therefore sought to examine the factors that underlie the roots tourism experience of diaspora Africans in Cape Coast and Elmina in Ghana. A cross-sectional survey of 264 diaspora Africans within the Cape Coast and Elmina Castles was conducted using convenience sampling procedures. The study identified four factors that underlie the roots tourism experience of diaspora Africans namely, host–guest relationship, authenticity, emotion and appearance of the slave castles. It is recommended that the roots tourism product is repackaged to include welcome ceremonies, visits to communities, re-...

Material and Immaterial Bodies: Diaspora Studies and the Problem of Culture, Identity, and Race

Abstract: In Atlantic world diaspora studies, culture and identity have been foundational concepts in analysis of the meaning and significance of diaspora. This essay argues that the centrality of these concepts is signal in reproducing a contradiction in diaspora theory that undermines its contemporary revisionist intentions. On the one hand, there is emphasis on hybridity and fluidity, while, on the other, diasporas are often encapsulated as discrete, implicitly or explicitly racialized groups, notably African and Indian or Asian. The essay considers key theoretical approaches in diaspora studies and their relationship to this contradiction, compares the deployment of culture and identity in Afro and Indo/Asian diaspora studies, and suggests that looking at the differences and compatibilities between material bodies (diasporic humans and their made objects) and immaterial bodies (diasporic spirits) is a potentially fruitful direction in recognizing the limits of culture and identity and their relationship to racial discourse in diaspora studies.

“I’m not Afropolitan — I’m of the Continent”: A conversation with Yewande Omotoso

Abstract: Since the end of apartheid, South Africa has become a new home for many immigrants and refugees from all over the African continent. Engaging with this “new season of migration to the South”,1 South African writers are increasingly including migrants from elsewhere on the continent into their casts of protagonists. Moreover, in autobiographies and works of fiction, African migrants themselves have begun to reflect on their experiences of living in South Africa. In this interview, Yewande Omotoso discusses her emigration from Nigeria to South Africa in the early 1990s. She argues that her family’s choice to remain on the African continent, rather than emigrating to the UK or the US, as so many contemporary Nigerian writers did, has given her a distinct diasporic experience. As the interview unfolds, she emphasizes that the notion of Afropolitanism does not capture this experience. She also discusses recent developments in contemporary South African publishing and literature, stressing that the country’s li...