Diaspora Studies Research Articles

Local impacts, global consequences: assessing the mass displacement and migration tied to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

ABSTRACT Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the region’s dynamics have shifted considerably calling for an interdisciplinary assessment of the reverberating effects at home and abroad. This special issue of Canadian Foreign Policy Journal contributes to contemporary public affairs, refugee, migration, and diaspora studies by offering an overview of the broad impacts underway. The issue’s international authors give readers an opportunity to listen to voices addressing all levels of the invasion’s challenges–socially, politically, and economically–uniting thematic and regional expertise on this urgent topic while making linkages between Canada and the region. Their contributions bridge the disciplines of history, geography, political science, architecture, sociology, public policy, and philosophy. This introductory text provides an initial reflection on the pressing issues, summarizing the broad consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while outlining each author’s distinct contribution. In addition to discussions of the invasion's consequences, it also begins to frame the resultant openings—and challenges—of greater regional pluralism moving forward, as refugees and internally displaced persons leave their homes and interact with new host societies, both domestically and internationally. This special issue looks across the affected region while offering a unique view overseas into the impacts here in Canada.

Memory, Identity and Consciousness in the Sound of One Hand Clapping—In a Diaspora Study

Memory, Identity and Consciousness in the Sound of One Hand Clapping—In a Diaspora Study

Exiles on Main Street: The Centrality of Exile in Transatlantic Relations

This article explores the meaning of exile in political theory and its importance within our understanding of political organization and more specifically transatlantic relations. Attention for the political ramifications of the movement of people across borders is divided among the study of diasporas, forced migration, and cultural transfer, as well as exile. The article covers the definition of the term and its use in the Western political tradition, focusing on its meaning and its relevance for conceptions of political progress under modernity. By examining the use of “exile” in relation to Latin American politics, the article puts forward a contrasting critical sketch of exile in transatlantic relations through the 20th century.

Self-Fashioning and Ambiguities of Revolution in Austin Clarke's "Initiation"

This is a paper on Austin Clarke’s short story from his collection of short stories titled, In This City. The story can be seen as being a part of Diaspora Studies, Immigrant Literature and Black Studies. The paper critically scrutinizes the short story based on the text and the context to argue how there was an absence of sustainable structures in the public sphere for black immigrant masculinities to sufficiently express themselves in a white heteronormative culture. Sociological ideas of Toby Miller and Erving Goffman are used to understand how black immigrant identities could only sufficiently be expressed in alternate sub-structures that remained isolated from the dominant white and heteronormative status quo. The central subject of “white space” of the issue is highly relevant to the paper’s exploration of how the systems of self-fashioning and revolution that exist in the public imagination are “incomplete” in their lack of reliability and sufficiency for black immigrants in Canada. Hence, their position in relation to aspirations of self-fashioning and revolution is one of ambiguity as the title of the paper itself states.
 
 The paper lays bare how these ambiguities are manufactured based on the chasm that exists between the ways in which the characters want to act and the ways of self-fashioning that society approves for them. It also explores how the systems of revolution are incomplete for them as there is an absence in terms of a revolutionary process that ensures stability and self-preservation.
 

ՀԱՅԿԱԿԱՆ ՍՓՅՈՒՌՔԻ ՁԵՎԱՎՈՐՄԱՆ ՊԱՏՃԱՌՆԵՐԻ ԵՎ ՑԵՂԱՍՊԱՆՈՒԹՅԱՆ ՄԻՋԱԶԳԱՅԻՆ ԻՐԱՎԱԿԱՆ ՀԻՄՆԱՀԱՐՑԵՐԻ ՄԱՍԻՆ/ON THE CAUSES OF THE FORMATION OF THE ARMENIAN DIASPORA AND INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ISSUES OF GENOCIDE

The article is dedicated to the causes, stages and main features of the formation of the Armenian Diaspora. The author mentions that the Armenian Diaspora is one of the largest Diasporas in the world in terms of the proportion of people living in the Homeland and in the Diaspora, as 2/3 of the nation lives outside the borders of the nation state. Historically, it mainly arose as a result of the Armenian Genocide, and in Diaspora Studies it is accepted as a Diaspora with a victim status, such as the Jewish and Palestinian Diasporas. Reference is made to the legal status of the Armenian Diaspora in different states. It is registered as a constitutional community (Lebanon), a religious community (Iran), nongovernmental organization (Western Europe, America), a national minority (Eastern Europe) and so on. Reference is also made to the issues of international legal responsibility for the Armenian Genocide. The conclusion is drawn about the need to review and supplement the international law to an extent that its norms are applied on an imperative basis. If a UN member state commits a crime, violates international norms and fails to fulfill its obligations, then it should be subject to international responsibility, regardless of its natural reserves and resources. The author analyzes the three forms of reimbursement of damages caused by an international offense: restitution, compensation and satisfaction. The challenges faced by the Diaspora and the problems of preserving the national identity are discussed, ways of confronting and solutions to these problems are proposed.

Postmemory and Hybridity in Ariel Sabar’s My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Father’s Past

In his memoir, My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Father’s Past (2009), Ariel Sabar narrates the story of his father and how he has survived a double exile. In and through his memoir, Sabar aimed to explore his father’s lost past and his own connection to this past. However, in this exploration, Sabar uncovers a greater history, transforming his personal journey of self-discovery into a quest to resurrect the lost history of Jewish Kurds, a “unique diasporic ethnic group” in the Middle East (Bahar Basher and Duygun Atlas, “Once a Diaspora, Always a Diaspora? The Ethnic, Cultural and Political Mobilization of Kurdistani Jews in Israel.” Politics, Religion Ideology 22, nos. 3–4 (2021): 302–328, 2021). Drawing on Marianne Hirsch’s concept of postmemory, this article introduces Ariel Sabar’s as the postmemory of Jewish Kurds. More significantly, it argues for the diasporic and hybrid nature of this work of postmemory, as well as its multidirectionality as a work of memory. This hybridity—of cultural identity, sense of place and belonging, as well as memory—can be traced back to Sabar’s inherited history within the Jewish Kurdish context, transmitted over place, time, and generation. Also, relying on cultural studies, diaspora studies and mobility studies, this article reveals how the identity of Sabar’s father, and his subsequent generations, bear markers of different ­cultural belonging and senses of place(s) due to the multiple “uprootings and regroundings” they have experienced over time.

Policy differentiation and the politics of belonging in India’s emigrant and emigration policies

ABSTRACT India is the largest emigrant origin country in the world. The majority of Indian emigrants work in low-wage employment in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. This paper contrasts India’s policy responses directed at migrants living in the Gulf countries with policies targeted at those in the Global North. India has extended substantive rights and symbolic inclusion to Indian citizens and (descendants of) former citizens residing in the Global North. However, while it established a social protection framework for low-wage emigrants in the Gulf, these emigrants are often unable to access other substantive citizenship rights and are mostly ignored at the symbolic level. Through critical approaches to the study of diasporas and the lens of boundary work, this article analyzes how emigrant origin states (re-)define belonging through differentiated emigration and emigrant policies. It shows that the Indian state links inclusive/exclusive boundaries of (symbolic) national membership, inherent in emigration and emigrant policies, to classifications regarding emigrants’ social identities, in this case class and religion.

The Interpretation of “diaspora” in Chinese Language: its Diversity and Influence on Social Theory and Practice

Introduction. The Chinese language, unlike Russian, has several terms, denoting different statuses of Chinese migrants, but there is no term such as “diaspora”. These features are interpreted by the authors along the lines of social ontology as independent sociological concepts, constructing particular migrant groups. The article’s oobjective is to show their internal coherence and correlation with the notion of “diaspora” as well as to outline the difficulties and problems occurring as the result of the interaction between researchers dealing with the topic. The relevance of the study stems from the fact that researchers have paid little attention to differences in national academic discourses that are meanwhile very important because intercultural differences can only be negotiated if there is an understanding of what they are. With regard to diaspora discussions, this understanding has yet to be developed. The article shows that in diaspora studies there is a language barrier, which at the moment is currently an impassable obstacle for authors who write about the diaspora in different languages.Methodology and sources. To work on the article, the authors used a discursive analysis of academic texts on Chinese migration and Chinese migrants, as well as dictionaries and official documents such as the Large Chinese-Russian Dictionary, the Tsihai Dictionary (辞海 ci hai – Sea of words), the Large Russian Encyclopedia, State Council resolutions, and Chinese legislation.Results and discussion. The treatment of 10 terms replacing the notion of “diaspora” in Chinese language is disclosed. The authors describe characteristic features of each group. It is illustrated that there is a linguistic asymmetry, as a result of which the European notion of “diaspora” receives specific connotations when translated into Chinese that cannot account all the features of this community, thus in the Chinese academic discourse the substitution with the most important from the translator and editor's point of view equivalent (the situation “instead of diaspora”) is made.Conclusion. It is concluded that in Chinese, through translation, the author expresses important features of the migrant community, emphasising either its closeness, or its distance to the “diaspora” status.

An Investigation into the Relationship between Diaspora and Identity with Reference to the Iranian Diaspora

Abstract The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between diaspora and identity with reference to the Iranian diaspora as a case study. Although there has been a recent growth in the study of ideational factors and their effects on sociopolitical issues, identity remains understudied within the mainstream literature on diaspora studies, international relations (IR) and foreign policy analysis (FPA). The aim is to challenge the purely realist and power-based explanations that have dominated the discourse by introducing the notion of identity and exploring it in relation to the Iranian diaspora. The paper’s novel approach lies in its categorisation of Iranian diaspora identity into three main components: nationalist (ancient Iran) tendencies, religious (Islamic-Shiite) tendencies and secular (Western) tendencies. The identity components of Iranians abroad and their interaction with the homeland are relatively comparable to those of their compatriots at home, showing intersecting areas of commonality and difference.

Chronotopes of Immigration: The Configurations of Spatio-temporal Relations in Mohammad Abdul-Wali’s novella They Die Strangers

ABSTRACT ‘Space’ and ‘time’ have been frequently discussed in diaspora studies. Yet, these studies generally approach the temporal and spatial dimensions of diaspora as separate issues, filtering them through postcolonial insights. Following in the footsteps of 7Mikhail Bakhtin, who first highlighted the mutual interdependence of ‘space’ and ‘time’, calling it ‘chronotope’, this paper traces the configuration of spatio-temporal relations in Mohammad Abdul-Wali’s novella of immigration, They Die Strangers (2001[1971]). Studies of immigration narratives that have referenced Bakhtin’s theory focus mainly on one dominant or minor chronotope of immigration. Moving research forward, the present study examines the multiple chronotopes that have been devised in They Die Strangers. It shows that within this narrative of immigration, we can trace various and highly artistically expressed forms of chronotopes. We call them ‘chronotopes of immigration’, because they determine to a significant degree the generic distinction of immigration narrative. The present study reveals that the theory of ‘chronotope’ is fundamental to understanding the spatial and temporal connections in the narrative of immigration, is critical for comprehending immigration literature, and interestingly aligns with diaspora studies.

Cypriot Youth Views Matter: Comparison of Diaspora and Islander Youth’s Views on Peace

ABSTRACT This contribution compares the perception of peace of Cypriot youth, who live on the island and in the United Kingdom, and is based on interviews with them. Even though Cyprus has a large diaspora community compared to its population, diaspora studies have been unable to garner attention to the role of the Cypriot diaspora in peacebuilding in their homeland. Ignorance of young people both on the island and in the diaspora has prevented the inclusion of Cypriot youth in politics and peace processes. However, the role and perceptions of young people either in diaspora or on the island are quite important to reach sustainable peace. Youth’s readiness for peace and willingness to co-exist would affect the outcome of a process. Accordingly, this contribution of the collection offers a two-part contribution to the literature: first, focusing on the neglected youth dimension in peace and conflict studies, and second, providing a comparative analysis of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot diaspora youth in the diaspora studies.

BELONGING AND UNBELONGING SPACES OF THE TRIPURA BENGALIS: AN ANALYTICAL STUDY OF SELECT POEMS FROM THE MYSTIC MOUNTAIN-AN ANTHOLOGY OF TRIPURA- BANGLA POETRY IN ENGLISH

The former princely state Tripura, and its history stands different than other Bengali state like West Bengal. Their complex dynamics of belonging have been relegated to the margins until very recent times. There are various literary works which focuses upon the upheavals of Bengalis belonging to West Bengal or those who took refuge in West Bengal, but the situation of Tripura Bengalis is very less known. Hence the introductory segment of the paper might highlight the facts related to Tripura Bengalis, their arrival, and their stories of settlement. However, the purpose is to examine an epistemological study of history, the entire process of partition, their memories of lost home, and their settlement in Tripura. Partition was treated as an unwanted anomaly in the narrative of the otherwise successful national movement. It is the 'human dimensions' of the partition and its consequences on Tripura Bengalis has been taken up in the current Study. The Bengali population of Tripura still is struggling to define their identity, reflecting on the constant oscillation between past and present, amidst change and continuity. The human cost of the multiple migrations in Tripura and its impacts will be attempted to redefine and explore through the concepts of ethnographic approaches, textual analysis, and Diaspora studies. The text taken up by the researcher include: The Mystic Mountain-An anthology of Tripura Bangla Poetry in English, focusing on Nostalgia, Identity- crisis and a sense of belonging.

From Intersectionality to Interstitiality: Pathways in Italian Race, Migration, and Diaspora Studies

In recent years, the study of Italy’s contemporary migrant “crisis” has broadened into explorations of national biopolitics in transhistorical and transnational contexts. This article suggests some useful pathways between critical race theory and postcolonial theory to explore pressing questions related to race-based cultural politics and Italian national identity. It highlights critical race theory’s potential to enrich analyses of racializing discourses: for example, the concept of “interest convergence” is harnessed here to describe and understand the mechanisms of Italy’s “New Risorgimento,” i.e. its recent psychic unification through race-paranoia. The article also investigates possible applications of the widely (mis)used term “intersectionality” and explores some of the limits of both critical race theory and postcolonial theory, especially the ever-present risk of slippage back into preexisting essentialist identity categorizations. To avoid such slippages, the article suggests further exploration of theoretical conceptualizations of hybridity by two of postcolonial theory’s foundational scholars, Edward Said and Homi K. Bhabha, due to their emphasis on discourse analysis and “interstitiality” rather than intersectionality. It urges further examination of Italy’s questione della razza via interstitiality in order to introduce urgently-needed nuance into analyses of race, nationality, power, and cultural discourse. Finally, the article emphasizes the importance of deploying multiple theoretical approaches and stresses the need to work within a public-facing “global humanities” framework to explore and expose how racializing discourses generate detrimental manufactured anxieties and hate in contemporary societies. Creating a “sense of the commons” via such transnational and comparative approaches to analyzing biopolitical conflicts would build both inclusivity, and therefore strength, within democratic nations, institutions, and societies, thus allowing them to thrive once again.

Research inquiries for digital diaspora and digital diasporic media

Diaspora and diasporic media have been studied consistently. As research subjects, however, their transition to, or creation on, digital platforms makes it increasingly ambiguous to distinguish digital diaspora from digital diasporic media. This study examines literature on digital diaspora and digital diasporic media and explores this ambiguity by looking at how these two research subjects have been conceptualized and methodologically approached. Referring to Candidatu, Leurs and Ponzanesi’s typology of digital diaspora research, this study concludes that the ambiguity is associated with shifting research paradigms in both internet and digital diaspora studies. The study further offers new insights that digital diaspora and digital diasporic media diverge on the projects each pursues and the nature of content each delivers, but converge on ‘media’ in the age of social media and the increasingly transcultural initiatives of these media. The study also offers the areas of further research that emerge from this ambiguity.

LOCATING LIFE WRITING IN THE DISCIPLINE OF GLOBAL INDIAN MIGRATION AND DIASPORA STUDIES

As institutional scholarship commands academic inquiry, the sponsored status bemoans its contingency. This pattern is quite evident in global academic entrepreneurship, e.g., the study of Indian Writing in English, an accidentally forced evolution of English Studies. A similar pattern can be observed in the evolution of studies of Indian migration and diaspora in the Humanities and Social Sciences. This paper attempts to investigate the contingency integral to the evolution of the Department of Migration and Diaspora studies in India followed by a solemn consideration of the sheer absence of Life Writing in the field of migrations and diaspora research. Hence, the inquiries recorded in this monograph will unfold two critical issues - first, to what extent migration and diaspora scholarship has evolved and expanded, and second, why Life Writing texts remained a pariah in the Humanities and Social Sciences research on migration and diaspora. A detailed horizontal and vertical study of the development of the discipline has been attempted to deal with the first issue. A critical survey of Indian Life Writing in English has been presented with relevant examples to explicate the second issue.

A STUDY OF NEW MEDIA AND NEW INDIAN DIASPORA

The emergence of new media platforms has transformed the way people communicate, connect, and form communities, especially for those living away from their homeland. In the case of new Indian diaspora communities, new media has become an essential tool for maintaining transnational connections, building identity, and negotiating cultural boundaries. This paper aims to explore the role of new media in new Indian diaspora communities and its impact on their social and cultural practices Also, how the Indian diaspora mould the new media according to their own way. The study utilizes secondary data from academic literature and reports to examine the use of new media platforms and their influence on the sense of belonging, identity, and transnational connections among Indian diaspora communities. The paper concludes that new media has played a crucial role in shaping the social and cultural practices of new Indian diaspora communities and has facilitated the creation of hybrid identities that bridge the gap between the homeland and the host country.

EXPLORING THE DIASPORIC CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE POETRY OF AGHA SHAHID ALI

Diaspora is much talked and celebrated discourse across the disciplines. Confrontation of diasporic community with native community gives rise to multi-dimensional problems. Diasporic community thus undergoes different levels of realities that change their perceptions as a person who migrated from his/her homeland in search of new opportunities. Their perception as a segment in foreign land is marked with the sense of alienation, hybridity, identity crisis and many other mental and physical, cultural-religious, and spatial-geographical turmoil. In a sense they come across the diasporic reality. Diasporic reality is a combined study of Diaspora and problems of migrants. This paper explores the meaning of diaspora through the definitions of different writers and the problems of migrants. It specifically attempts to trace the problems of identity crisis and hybridity as confrontation with different often contradictory socio-cultural, religious, and different historical backdrop in which diasporic community is located in.

It Is Our Motherland Too

Abstract Foregrounding fluid processes of group identity re/formation, this article advances the debates on the nature of collective mobilisation among diasporas. Specifically, it contributes to a relatively underexplored diaspora studies sub-field: the role of religion in diasporic identity formation. Empirical material from the immigrant group Muslims of Sri Lankan origin in the United Kingdom indicates that religious identities play a key role in the process of formation of political identities and framing under the concept of one ummah. Further, critical events and crisis situations in places of origin mobilise these groups to form social and solidarity movements. This article contributes to ongoing debates on the constructivist approach to diaspora engagement, which goes beyond the conventional ways of understanding diasporas as ‘dispersed victims’. To this end, I argue that the diasporic characteristics are contingent upon the collective experience and embodiment of crisis situations at home and host sites.

Healing of Wounds, Return of the Soul -----A Study of the African Diaspora in Toni Morrison's "Beloved" from the Perspective of Postcolonial Theory

In the 1990s, there was a big explosion in diaspora literature, and black literature became more active in academia. Beloved, one of the historical trilogy of African American writer Tony Morrison. This paper will use the research methods of "text reading" and "thematic content analysis" to analyze and explain the diaspora of the novel " Beloved". Especially the shaping of characters in the novel and the exploration of African-American identity, in the pursuit of the origin of the lack of identity and the exploration of the return of identitythat is, the hybridization of identity. And from the post-colonial theory to be analyzed. It is not difficult for us to find that only by loving ourselves and actively integrating into the black community can we face the ghost of history, rediscover the meaning of history to reality, smash the unspeakable otherness attached to the past, and embark on the road of gaining the status of subjectivity.

Jasmine in the Search of Identity through a Postcolonial Diaspora Lens

Abstract Applying a postcolonial diaspora lens through Homi K. Bhabha’s theory of the ‘third space’ to Bharati Mukherjee’s novel Jasmine (1989), this paper aims to demonstrate how diasporic women negotiate for an identity in their struggle for a better life in the host land. Having ‘no home’ and ‘no host’, Mukherjee’s protagonist, Jasmine, whose life represents that of the postcolonial immigrant woman, finds an identity in the intercultural process, the ‘third space’. A discourse analysis of this novel and current knowledge of diaspora studies are applied to understanding immigrants’ challenges, postcolonial identity and diaspora-related cultural issues. The paper closely examines cultural hybridity, third space and women’s search for identity in these confrontations. It throws light on a widow’s life and how she tries to get away from the restrictions of home and redesign her identity in a third space in the context of feminism, diaspora and culture in a postcolonial and diasporic world.