Women In Diaspora Research Articles

Uncovering the Nexus of Identity and Forced Migration: A Collaborative Autoethnographic Study of Afghan Women’s Experiences in Diaspora

This qualitative research investigates the educational mobility of Afghan women in diaspora, particularly those who have experienced forced migration following the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in 2021. The study delves into how their intersectional identities, including gender, ethnicity, religion, and socioeconomic status, shape their educational experiences. These Afghan women's educational journeys are further complicated by the challenges posed by political and economic conditions in refugee communities, which limit their access to education and employment opportunities while increasing the risk of discrimination and violence. Using an autoethnographic approach, we leverage our personal experiences as Afghan women who immigrated to Canada during two distinct Taliban occupation eras. Through self-reflection, journaling, and daily life observation, we provide nuanced insights into the multifaceted challenges faced by Afghan women during their forced displacement and migration.

The VEGF-Hypoxia Signature Is Upregulated in Basal-like Breast Tumors from Women of African Ancestry and Associated with Poor Outcomes in Breast Cancer.

Black women experience the highest breast cancer mortality rate compared with women of other racial/ethnic groups. To gain a deeper understanding of breast cancer heterogeneity across diverse populations, we examined a VEGF-hypoxia gene expression signature in breast tumors from women of diverse ancestry. We developed a NanoString nCounter gene expression panel and applied it to breast tumors from Nigeria (n = 182) and the University of Chicago (Chicago, IL; n = 161). We also analyzed RNA sequencing data from Nigeria (n = 84) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) datasets (n = 863). Patient prognosis was analyzed using multiple datasets. The VEGF-hypoxia signature was highest in the basal-like subtype compared with other subtypes, with greater expression in Black women compared with White women. In TCGA dataset, necrotic breast tumors had higher scores for the VEGF-hypoxia signature compared with non-necrosis tumors (P < 0.001), with the highest proportion in the basal-like subtype. Furthermore, necrotic breast tumors have higher scores for the proliferation signature, suggesting an interaction between the VEGF-hypoxia signature, proliferation, and necrosis. T-cell gene expression signatures also correlated with the VEGF-hypoxia signature when testing all tumors in TCGA dataset. Finally, we found a significant association of the VEGF-hypoxia profile with poor outcomes when using all patients in the METABRIC (P < 0.0001) and SCAN-B datasets (P = 0.002). These data provide further evidence for breast cancer heterogeneity across diverse populations and molecular subtypes. Interventions selectively targeting VEGF-hypoxia and the immune microenvironment have the potential to improve overall survival in aggressive breast cancers that disproportionately impact Black women in the African Diaspora.

Quest for Identity and Difficulties of Cultural Assimilation in Bharati Mukherjee's Desirable Daughters

The emergence of diasporic literature has led to various interpretations by scholars and critics. All of the criticism of the diaspora and its vast literature revolve around issues of alienation and assimilation. The diaspora expelled from their country of origin suffers from a loss of identity as a result of the loss of culture in the past. They are forced to face the dilemma of choosing between living in permanent exile or accepting the culture of the new country through assimilation. Bharati Mukherjee's novel "Desirable Daughters" explores the struggles of Indian diaspora women in navigating their identities and cultural integration, highlighting the challenges of family loyalty and societal expectations. The novel depicts the transformation and reinvention of immigrants and exiles in American society, shedding light on the patriarchal norms and restrictions faced by women in both Indian and Western cultures. Mukherjee’s portrayal of characters like Tara, Padma, and Parvati reflects the complexities of gender roles and the quest for individual freedom within traditional and modern societies

Gaze, objectification, and identity formation in life writings of Iranian women in diaspora

Gaze, objectification, and identity formation in life writings of Iranian women in diaspora

Discursive scaling of solidarity through difference: Experiences of African women in the African diaspora

Abstract Drawing on data generated from a two-year ethnographic observation with a group of multiethnic Black women, this investigation delves into the ways they employ discursive and linguistic strategies, namely solidarity through difference and distinction, solidarity through denaturalizing difference, and solidarity through shared struggles and learning in deictically anchored interactions. The study presents a moment-by-moment analysis of culturally and socially situated conversations. These conversations allow us to see how the social actors enact different stance-taking and scaling practices to construct meanings about race that intersect with gender/transnational identities. Discursive practices show that when we closely attend to race, transnationalism, and gender, specifically considering the particularity of Black womanhood, new and more complex ways of understanding transnational identity formation emerge. Participants’ constructions indicate that women co-construct a unique brand of Black feminist solidarity that is not based on similarity but meaningfully created through differentiation and distinction. (Black immigrant women, solidarity, stance-taking, scaling and deixis difference, African diaspora, intersectionality)*

A dialogical appraisal of diasporic women’s work to impact change in Iran

How do women in the Iranian diaspora contribute to change in their homeland? Drawing on narrative accounts from activists and advocates, this paper offers insight into whether and how change occurs in relation to diasporic initiatives. The results highlight women’s perceived success in public education and awareness-raising activities that focus on procedural, discursive and legislative change. At the same time, despite enjoying freedom in the diaspora, diasporic women continue to face operational constraints like those in the homeland and must minimise risk. The findings are timely given the feminist uprisings that have engulfed Iran in 2022–2023, the coherence of which rests upon the patient and persistent work of those that have come before. This research holds significance for practitioners in diasporic communities, and researchers interested in agents and drivers of change in repressive operating environments.

Resistance Through Connections, Communities, and Friendships: Interrelational Possibilities of Educational Curriculum Design

This paper examines the transformational possibilities of educational curriculum design in fostering interrelational solidarities among mature migrant and diaspora women. It offers a brief introduction to an emerging doctoral project that engages with the educational experiences of mature migrant and diaspora women in Canada. Throughout a migrant woman’s displacement and “settlement” journey, friendships emerge as a starting point through which some women start to construct their agentic selves within and outside their homes, partners, and diasporic community. These friendships allow for a transnational self to emerge, one that can move beyond identification as the primary location for struggle, and towards shared, but different, experiences of oppression. By resisting neoliberal and multicultural immigration policies that isolate mature immigrant women and reproduce violence, these connections, communities, and friendships push settlement education systems to reckon with complicated, yet symbiotic experiences of migrant and diaspora women.

Projection of Occidental Gaze in Kartography: A Study of the Western Feminist Prism in the Diaspora Narrative

The research paper employs Kamila Shamsie’s novel Kartography as a primary text to critique the influence of occidental gaze on the diaspora female writers of Pakistan. It explores how these writers end up projecting the Pakistani women from their personal perspective of affluent, educated status mimicking the western feminist philosophy. The study uses textual analysis and closed reading methods within the post-colonial feminism and narrative theoretical framework. The discourse of the occidental gaze, representation/misrepresentation of the Orient, objectification of women, and Western feminism has been used to question the authenticity of the narratives of these diaspora writers. The purpose of this research is to highlight that the feminist theory is not monolithic and that the diaspora writers lack the authenticity to define regional feminism in Asia. In other words, they cannot shed off the influence of the western feminist philosophy and the occidental gaze because they share the same experiences of living in Western society. Since they have spent most of their lives in the West, they have been conditioned in the occidental discourse and viewpoint about their native land. This project aims to highlight variation in the feminist stance and how Asia and Pakistan specifically need a different treatment to define feminism in order to encapsulate Pakistani unique idiom and experiences and that diaspora women writers have the least credibility to develop one.

REVISITING GENDER, MYTH AND FEMALE SUBJECTIVITY IN FOREST OF ENCHANTMENT BY DIVAKARUNI

Myths depict the social decorum, ideology and beliefs of people, moral conduct of human life. Myths are the symbols of the value system that instigates people to follow prescribed moral code. The gender biased dynamics of society did not recognize the value, sacrifice of women characters. The reinterpretation of female subjectivity in mythical literature, folktales is necessary to give a new life to the marginalized class and women characters who became victim of patriarchal dominance of power and greed. This has led a great impact on our society and human life. Divakaruni rises in the spectrum of women diaspora writer unravelling the cultural conflict women face in host land and her narration designates the grandeur of Indian cultural heritage through frequent reference to mythological folktales, characters and giving it a new form to old mythical tales. This paper examines the gender biased perspective of society toward women and how the reinterpretation of the Ramayana fromSitas perspective by Divakaruni brings out the inherent strength of women characters which remained subdued, buried under the carpet of silence in the name of traditional cultural values.

Imagining collective futures in settlement education: Perspectives of Tamil-Canadian immigrant women

Literature on adult settlement and integration education in Canada documents the limits of public services supporting the settlement of female newcomers. This study provokes deeper understandings of these limitations by examining the gendered experiences of mature Tamil women who have resided in the province of Ontario, Canada for more than 10 years. Using personal interviews and archival immigration policy documents, this paper argues that despite interacting closely with settlement education programs, mature Tamil immigrant women continue to face gendered and classed barriers to social integration within and outside their communities. Settlement education policies produce temporariness in mature women by making them ineligible for services and supports, thus further scripting their lives on the fringes of their communities. However, mature Tamil immigrant women reject the essentialization of their narratives as continuous historical victims by engaging in relationships with their peers. Friendships between migrant and diaspora women emerge as a unique space to explore agentic resistance to homogenising settlement and integration structures. Theoretical frameworks of this study are anchored in literature discussing neoliberalism, multiculturalism, settlement education, and transnational feminism.

Protecting the rights of Muslim women in Indonesian diaspora marriages in Russia: An Islamic Law Perspective

This research focuses on the issue of human rights violations, particularly those affecting Muslim women in Indonesian diaspora marriages in Russia. Despite the regulations set by the Family Code of the Russian Federation, there have been reports of abuse, expulsion, withholding of documents and unilateral divorce. The purpose of this qualitative research using Smith’s phenomenological approach is to analyse the root causes of these violations and provide solutions. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, observation and documentation analysis. The results showed that domestic violence was caused by a lack of self-concern and lack of cultural, legal and legal administration literacy. This lack of literation contributes to the violation of the rights of married diaspora women in Russia. Self-protection can be enhanced by increasing faith-based marriage literacy and cultural and legal literacy. Contribution: This research provides insight into the factors contributing to human rights violations in Indonesian diaspora marriages in Russia and proposes solutions to prevent such violations. The findings of this study can also serve as a basis for future research in the field of human rights and diaspora.

Self-Rooted Belonging and “Pleasing Dislocations”

Abstract This paper examines the interplay of religion, nationalism, and Muslim womanhood in the work of Pakistani-American artist Shahzia Sikander. Specifically, I examine how Sikander’s work grapples with the problem of home and belonging for South Asian Muslim women in the face of religious, cultural, and nationalist discourses. These discourses characterize women as perpetual outsiders to the nation and as potential threats to the religion, while also objectifying women as symbols of purity whose bodies and sexuality must be strictly policed. For Muslim women in diaspora, the rhetoric and policies of the War on Terror compound this sense of unbelonging by characterizing Muslim women as potential threats to homeland security and as “the enemy within” due to their actual or perceived religious identity.

Daughter in Exile by Bisi Adjapon

Reviewed by: Daughter in Exile by Bisi Adjapon Adele Newson-Horst BISI ADJAPON Daughter in Exile New York. HarperVia. 2023. 400 pages. AN INTERESTING TREND has emerged in the decade during which African and diaspora women feature the experience of migration—outside of Africa. NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names (2013), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah (2013), Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing (2016), and Imbolo Mbue's Behold the Dreamers (2016) are among the many notable works. The various waves of African movement began with the transatlantic slave trade, the experiences of which are captured in the resistance narrative. Since that time, women have produced an impressive body of work that speaks to their conditions in the diaspora and often reveals a longing for the homeland. Daughters in Exile is an admirable addition to this body of works. The novel narrates the story of Olivia Akura Lola Oduro as she leaves Ghana to [End Page 65] work as a professional in Senegal, falls in love with a Haitian American soldier, has a son, marries a white American, has a daughter, achieves American citizenship, and ultimately returns home to Ghana. In some ways, it reads as a cautionary tale of what happens when the individual bucks tradition. But it is so much more. The novel features the clash between the traditional way of being with a modern way of being for women. The results reveal that it takes a bit of both to survive in the world of America. Interestingly, the novel begins on the day that the principal character finds out her US immigration status. Interspersed throughout the novel are letters between mother (representing Ghanaian tradition) and daughter. By turns the novel reveals how Olivia negotiates her life, first in Senegal and then in North America. And, as in the resistance narratives of the nineteenth century, naming signals a choice in the way of being in the world. Olivia hates the Western name her mother gives her and opts to call herself Lola (a Nigerian name) when she attends university. Presented in three parts, with chapters largely named for Akan adages/sayings, Lola moves from a privileged existence in Senegal, to utter poverty in America, to ultimate triumph. Like many such novels, this one addresses the relationship between Africans and African Americans, and to Adjapon's credit, she admits that "I was ignorant about the long-term effects of slavery. … I had been so absorbed with my need for survival I hadn't thought enough about my place or role as a Black person." It also features the immigrant as easy target of employer exploitation. Indeed, contrary to the myth of the gold-lined streets of American, the immigration experience for Africans is often lined with coal. The myth, Lola learns, is the result of the exportation of so-called American excellence. This novel is definitely worth reading. Adele Newson-Horst Morgan State University Copyright © 2023 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Strategies of Resistance to the Patriarchal Coercion in Najat El Hachimi’s the Last Patriarch (2008)

The focus of this paper, which is in the mainstream of cross-cultural representation, is on the resistance strategies used by Anglophone Arab women immigrant writers. Writings from the Arab diaspora in particular lay the way for challenging the binary opposition between various cultures, genders, races, nationalities, and so forth as well as the culture of exclusion and oppression. This paper argues that Arab women Diaspora writing commit itself seriously to the marginal and the oppressed where authors express their abilities to engage consciously in a political contest and willed protest against Orientalism and Patriarchy. Through a textual analysis of Najat El Hachimi’s Novel entitled The Last Patriarch (2008), this study attempts to trace the ways in which Arab female diasporic writers aim to go beyond the politics of exclusion, surpasses gender and sexual stereotypes and resists patriarchal regime in its many multiple forms and institutions. Therefore, Theories of feminism, postcolonialism and identity are used to analyze double oppression and identity formation in a context of precariousness.

Representing Post-Revolutionary Iran

During more than the last four decades, Iran has been one of the main interest areas not only in global political and strategic agenda but also in the cultural sphere as well. Most of those interests focus on analyzing the domestic and economic situation in addition to the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic. However, one observes a lack of studies analyzing the Iranian diaspora and their culture, lifestyles, and feelings in a comparative way. One such book was published a couple of months ago and authored by Hossein Nazari, an assistant professor from the University of Tehran: Representing Post-Revolutionary Iran. In his book, Nazari elaborates on a very interesting and less-studied phenomenon: which individual or socio-cultural factors and motivations drive the Iranian-American diaspora women toward authoring “memoirs” discussing the situation in the post-revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iran?

Racialized-gendered Experiences and Mental Health Vulnerabilities of Young Asian Women in Toronto, Canada

Discourses of mental health vulnerabilities of women in the Asian diaspora s are often invoked through the concepts of “culture” with little consideration of asymmetric power relations and structural influences. We used a narrative approach to explore the experiences and perspectives on culture, identities, relationships, and mental health among young Asian women living in Toronto, Canada. We engaged 14 participants in focus groups and individual interviews, and identified four overall themes: (1) racialized-gendered bodily abjection, (2) experiences of enacted racism and sexism, (3) perceptions of familial expectations, and (4) their strategies of coping and resilience. Our analysis revealed how Whiteness and structural violence shape the racialized-gendered experiences of young Asian women and perpetuate microaggressions that compromise their mental health and well-being. Critical nursing practice must question the idea of “culture” embedded in the dominant discourse of “culturally competent” care. Nurses need to achieve structural competence to dismantle systems of oppression and unequal power relations.

Role of Women in Preserving Indian Culture and Identity in Diaspora

This article focuses on the migration of indentured labor from India to various parts of the world like Guyana, Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, and Fiji. It aims to analyze the role of women in Indian diaspora as preservers of culture and identity. Indian diaspora, comprised of the ethnic groups that have left Indian borders, is having a sizeable number of women in them. Women from various socio-economic groups, castes, faiths, and classes have emigrated from India. The paper tries to analyze how the concepts of culture and identity operate in a diasporic context. Women, who contribute to half of the world population, have been rarely heard or considered in the historical record of literates and intellectuals. Further it intends to explain the significant role played by the women in the nineteenth century which facilitated transformation of many colonies of British and French Empires. The paper presents a theoretical framework in which the existence of women in small numbers facilitated marriages crossing various social barriers like caste, class and religious boundaries. In this regard, the authors suggest, however, indentured labor and specifically women in Indian diaspora acted as a bridge to maintain their links with their culture, traditions, language, religion and their past which they have left behind. They also ensure the preservation of these relations with India by celebrating Indian festivals like Holi for Hindus and Muharram for Muslims, in their traditional ways. It was women in the family, who played an important role in retaining and promoting their language by insisting on using native language for communications within the family. These women who remain integrated to their language and traditions orally played a vital role as carriers of their culture. The paper also discusses the Indian government’s cultural diplomacy, particularly under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, who has travelled to many countries in recent months to spread Indian culture and identity and reinvigorate their connectedness.

Art practices of the Chinese women diaspora: On cultural identity and gender modernity

Since the early twentieth century, Chinese women artists have emigrated to other countries. Their works are influenced and shaped by diaspora experiences, which vary across time phases. However, the world history of diasporic women is often lost in the larger historical narrative. As such, women diaspora artists also remain an under-represented segment in art realms, both within and outside of China. This is a case study of three Chinese diaspora women artists – Pan Yuliang, Shen Yuan and Pixy Liao. Their works reveal engagement in cultural identity as well as gender identity through an autobiographical approach. For cultural identity, dynamic interaction between the culture of the artist’s homeland and that of her host country play a vital role throughout their art practices. Rather than using elements of typical Chinese cultural heritage, women artists tend to engage in cultural emblems, which connect to their personal-gendered experiences. Albeit confronting the double otherness on cultural and gender identity in a foreign country, the experience of diaspora pushes women artists to pursue independence, self-awakening and broader world-views. With modern conceptions of gender, their practices, particularly the family-theme, convey reflections on the conventional ideology of the family, as well as traditional gender roles.

Female Genital Mutilation as a Social Norm: Examining the Beliefs and Attitudes of Women in This Diaspora.

In this article, we explore the beliefs, values and attitudes about female genital mutilation in the diaspora of sub-Saharan women and how the migration process has influenced these beliefs. Our qualitative analysis of the life stories and lifelines of 10 women in the sub-Saharan diaspora in light of the Social Convention Theory indicated that making public statements about the topic is complex and that the taboo permeating the practice remains intact even outside of Africa. Furthermore, we discovered that, in our context, this practice was not a requirement and did not improve the chances of marriage, with female behaviours considered 'appropriate' instead gaining value. Any interventions based on this theory must consider the broad networks that help shape marriages in this diaspora. This work opened new lines of research regarding the situation of the diaspora of sub-Saharan women and the relationship of the practice of female genital mutilation with marriage.

Crossing Boundaries: Black Women's Diaspora in Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place

Crossing Boundaries: Black Women's Diaspora in Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place