Women In Diaspora Research Articles

Downwardly Global: Women, Work, and Citizenship in the Pakistani Diaspora. LalaieAmeeriar. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017.

Downwardly Global: Women, Work, and Citizenship in the Pakistani Diaspora. LalaieAmeeriar. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017.

A Beacon for the Bright Future: An Identification and Application of Emancipatory Strategies for Women in Buchi Emecheta’s Double Yoke

Buchi Emecheta, a prolific literary giant, who is known for championing the cause of black women in Africa and Diaspora, has crafted more than twenty books elucidating the ordeals and the pitiable plight into which the black women have been ditched for ages. Her contribution to the literary world is widely acclaimed by many as her writings reflect her personal and community pathos comprehensively. Her versatile nature is exhibited through her multifaceted dimensions of an orator, essayist, novelist, and playwright. Her resurgence from nothingness to the pinnacle of fame is a testimony that her writings are very relevant and useful in today’s world. It would be crystal clear to anyone who reads her novels that her writings principally evolve around on twofold agendas. Firstly, it aims at exposing the harassment that women are prone to suffer under patriarchy and secondly, she crafts out series of plan of actions to overcome such hazards. It is her intellectual competency and acumen enables her to strategize effective mechanism to combat all the forces that are oppressive towards women.

Implementation of the professional training and education experience of the ukrainian diaspora girls in the content of the work of the “school of noble ukrainian women”

The article describes the essence of the implementation of the experience of professional training and education of girls of the Ukrainian diaspora in the content of the activities of of noble Ukrainian in Bolekhov (Dolynsky district of Ivano-Frankivsk region, (1996 - 2001) and Lviv (since 2009), traces their role in the national-civic formation of the Ukrainian youth, the influence of the work of this extra-curricular educational institution on the deployment of activities of similar institutions in modern Ukraine has been found out. It has been researched, that the school of noble Ukrainian women in Bolekhiv of Dolyna district of Ivano-Frankivsk region under the leadership of Larisa Darmokhval (the chairman of the Union of Ukrainian women of Bolekhiv) can be considered a prototype of creation of a network of schools for girls. It continued the best traditions of women's schools in Galicia in the late 19th - early 20th centuries, which in turn fully fulfilled their mission in emigration, became a strong support for the formation of education for women in the Ukrainian diaspora, opened a new page in the history of girls' education in the western region of Ukraine and inspired to create a network of similar educational establishments in other settlements of our state. Emphasis is placed on the activities of the Bolshevik members of the Union of Ukrainian Women in the field of Ukrainian girls' upbringing and the uplifting of spirituality of women of the region, which has been continued since 2009 by Lviv women, led by Rostyslav Fedak (Deputy Head of the Ukrainian Union of Ukraine and initiator of the establishment of the School in Lviv). Noble Ukrainian Schools in 2009/2010 testified that the purpose of the school was to educate a new generation of public figures, educated citizens, who would not only be able to build their family and protect it, but also were the basis for building a civil society, an independent state of law, a model of spirituality and culture. Emphasis is placed on the role in the professional formation of the girls-students of the school of prominent cultural and educational figures of Ukrainian emigration, the implementation of the European experience in their professional orientation. Continuing the best traditions of women's educational institutions of the Ukrainian Diaspora of noble Ukrainian even today opens new pages in the history of education of girls of the region, inspires work and service for the benefit of the Ukrainian state

Women’s voices in diaspora: hip hop, spoken word, Islam and web 2.0

This paper focuses on the artistic production of four hip hop and spoken word artists belonging to the Muslim diaspora, Poetic Pilgrimage, Alia Sharrief, Hanouneh and Alia Gabres, aiming to understand if such cultural practices can be understood as forms of political, civic and social activism, with the potential to broaden or create alternative public spheres (Fraser, 1990). It articulates a form of musical production often associated with Islam, hip hop (Alim, 2005; Miah & Kalra, 2008), with spoken word, produced by Muslim women in diaspora, migrants or descendants of migrants, with different backgrounds and different life stories associated with Islam, allowing them effective voice in their self-representation, considered from their online presence (NTI and web 2.0). The diversity of the cultural producers and their forms of expression considered in this paper is understood as an example of the diversity within Islam and also as a denial of any orientalist stereotypes (Saïd, 1979) about Muslim women.

Roots, Return Narratives, Reclaiming “European Americans”: A Review Essay

Evangelia Kindinger’s Homebound: Diaspora Spaces and Selves in Greek American Return Narratives and Theodora Patrona’s Return Narratives: Ethnic Space in Late-Twentieth-Century Greek American and Italian American Literature discuss identity-making in Greek American and Italian American texts that narrate return to the historical homeland. Their interest lies in the poetics—how the returnee Self is constructed in a text—and politics—the impact of these constructions on collective belonging. Both authors mark return as a creative, self-transformative process, a fashioning of identity that is built systematically and achieved copiously, a product of commitment and intensive investment in the value of roots. Writing return also mobilizes an interest in rendering women’s experiences visible and rewriting gender with the aim of empowering diaspora women. There is interest too in the ways in which extratextual economies, such as the publishing industry, and dominant discourses of belonging shape the meaning of roots. In this review essay, I closely analyze how Homebound and Return Narratives bring together the making of textual selves with the political implications of these constructions, and I discuss the way the two books contribute to the (re)thinking of the category “European Americans” as well as its wider social valence, including its place in the US academy. Further, I build on their approaches to the topic of roots to offer a wider reflection on what is at stake in writing and reading return. I make a case that this particular historical moment, when diaspora return is valorized by states and corporations for the purpose of development as well as nation-building, calls for an approach to return that centers on the ethics of commitments to home and homeland and a politics beyond the Self-Other dialectic. The notion of transnational citizenship offers a productive route to chart the ethicopolitical facets associated with the claiming of roots.

Cuisine and Power in the Sunjata Epic and in West Africa

This article discusses cuisine in Guinea-Conakry and its representation in the literary tradition of Sunjata. Many key events involving women in the epic of Sunjata center on their role as cooks and cuisine provides female protagonists with the resources they use to demonstrate their power and competence. Not only does cuisine take on heroic proportions in this Mande literary tradition, but it also continues to play an important social function in modern Guinea. Through the activity of cuisine, Mande diaspora women in Conakry demonstrate artistic ability that is both acknowledged and respected by men. This article explores the activity of cuisine both through library research involving comparisons of a variety of published versions of Sunjata, and through fieldwork in Guinea-Conakry where the author focused on values and perspectives regarding cuisine.

Mapping "Independent" as Feminist Empowerment via the Musical Cross-Pollination between the U.S. and Jamaica

Mapping "Independent" as Feminist Empowerment via the Musical Cross-Pollination between the U.S. and Jamaica Elton Johnson (bio) The people of the African diasporas in the New World converged in Panama to build a canal that would better connect our region physically. However, so too was a cross-cultural connection created. The metaphoric "Bridges of Sound" Brathwaite conjures in his poem "Jah" locates and centres the construction of the Panama Canal as a space of convergence—the convergence where many African diasporic cultures reunited after the divide that commenced with the middle passage (Cooper 2004). Music and music culture was a central element of the connection and the resultant exchange continued outside of the physical and temporal locality that was the building of the Panama Canal. This exchange fostered connections between the subalternized women in the African diaspora that have catalyzed the indigenous feminisms emerging from their communities. Importantly, it includes one emergent feminism indigenous to Jamaica. This feminism our paper terms dancehall feminism and frames as feminist thought that is intertextually embedded in the scribal-oral text of dancehall music. With intertextuality as our theoretic frame, this paper will map the music and music cultural exchanges between the US and Jamaica using the word "independent," including its popular use as a marker for women's empowerment and its signposting of greater exchanges in feminist thought between both localities that was instigated by the great exchange of the Panama Canal. A Summary of Musical Cross-Pollination between the US and Jamaica Discussions of cultural exchange across international borders quite often summon trepidations about the erasure of local cultures through globalization. The impact of global cultural exchange on local cultures of small island nations has been devastating. The cultural exchange between Jamaica and the US, specifically, conjures fears of Americanization, which researchers Ferguson and Bornstein (2012) frame thus: Although globalization is not necessarily Americanization, Americanization may be considered a type of cultural globalization in which there is a stronger unidirectional flow of cultural influence and products from the USA to another society than vice versa. [T]he increasing influx of U.S. culture into Jamaica sets the stage for remote acculturation. … (168–169) [End Page 23] Since the 1920s, in the aftermath of the Panama Canal, there has been an active formal exchange of music and cultures between the US and Jamaica. In other areas of cultural exchange, the fear of Americanization has been great, but musical exchange has been the exception. Exchanges in this area have largely been egalitarian. This can be accredited to the resilience of dancehall music and music culture. The nature of musical cultural exchanges between Jamaica and the US, Semaj-Hall (2021) frames as "American imitation" and "Jamaican refashioning" (45), foregrounding dancehall culture's penchant to borrow from black American music and culture but indigenise it. She highlights this process of indigenization using the career of the legendary Jamaican musician U Roy and his formative contributions to dancehall music. Influenced by the confidence of the scat-rhyming, jazzy African American radio jockeys, U Roy injected indigenous confidence into the Jamaican dance halls. With the aid of the sound system, U Roy made the dance hall into a space not only for dialect- and patwatalking Jamaicans to speak in their own everyday voices, but also for these voices to be heard loudly, which we can still hear in the music of today. (Semaj-Hall 2021, 46) Much like the Panama Canal, the two World Wars catalyzed many changes across the globe and impacted the development of music in Jamaica. Globally, the wars increased the rate at which women were entering the workforce even more than it had during the Industrial Revolution. Men were being shipped off to war and women took their place in the workforce (Griffis Johnson 1925, 612). In Jamaica, our obligations to Britain meant that many of our young men, including some of our most talented live musicians, were being haemorrhaged from the dancehall cultural space for the purpose of fighting. However, unlike the other areas of work, women did not replace men as musicians. This left a significant gap in our live music industry (Stolzoff 2000, 38). At the same time, with...

Where should the birds fly after the last sky? Images and voices of women of the Iraqi diaspora in the United Kingdom

ABSTRACTThis paper tackles the formation of identity of a group of first generation Iraqi women in the diaspora, who went to the northern city of Kingston upon Hull in England, after 2003. The paper, therefore, focuses on three identity categories, viz. religious, cultural, and linguistic to see how the diaspora women negotiate the terms of their subject position as a first generation diaspora group in the United Kingdom, UK. The researcher used ethnography and interviewing in the study. Fifteen Iraqi women were interviewed in order to understand what ‘home’ means to them. The paper also examined the Iraqi women’s understanding of ‘citizenship’ and the role social media sites had played in creating virtual spaces for them, especially by feeding into their personal and cultural identities in the diaspora. The research is situated within the sphere of feminist political philosophy of diaspora in connection with the women’s rights to have identities different from the dominant culture in their host countries. Moreover, the researcher reviews three hypotheses bearing on intercultural relations: the multiculturalism hypothesis, the integration hypothesis, and the contact hypothesis. (Berry, John W. 2013. “Intercultural Relations in Plural Societies: Research Derived from Multiculturalism Policy.” Acta De Investtigacion Psicologica 2 (3), 1122–1135) By testing the three intercultural hypotheses against the results of the conducted research, the study concludes that the Iraqi diaspora community is not a homogenous entity as it includes minorities within the minority. Therefore, there needs to be a system that respects diversity, hence the researcher supports the continuation of multiculturalism policy in hope of developing better intercultural relations.

Breaking the silences, breaking the frames: a gendered diasporic analysis of sexual violence in the DRC

ABSTRACTThe role of diasporas in fuelling conflict has been extensively studied, with much less attention being paid to their role in peace-building. It is increasingly recognised that diasporas from conflict regions are contributing to the reconstruction of their countries of origin, acting as ‘peace-makers’ rather than ‘peace-wreckers’. Women and men migrants have also been found to engage differently towards their country of origin, but attention to women’s activism is still scarce. This article addresses the issue of political activism by Congolese women in the diaspora in both the UK and Belgium. Their activities are assessed analytically through the prism of ‘mechanisms of framing’, which shape the ways in which messages are conveyed during the mobilisation process. The paper discusses diagnostic, motivational and prognostic frames to address sexual and gender-based violence against Congolese women in the protracted conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Framing strategies vary among Congolese diaspora women’s groups depending on the national context in which they are embedded (Belgium and the UK) but a variety of narratives is also discerned which transcends and is shared among Congolese women beyond national borders.

Qahwa and Kleiche: Drinking Coffee in Oral History Interviews with Iraqi Women in Diaspora

In uncovering marginalized and silenced voices of the past, feminist oral historians and ethnographers emphasize the ways that oral history subjects use their conversations with researchers to define and make meaningful their own personal and communal histories. This article explores how Iraqi diasporic women of diverse ethno-religious background use the formal ritual of coffee in oral history interviews to designate formal and informal spaces within these conversations. As I began to notice, the way in which coffee was served, and importantly when it was served, was often a silent signal that the formal interview was over and that women wanted to transition into a more intimate and informal sharing of memories – in most cases over coffee and sweets (or qahwa and kleiche, in Arabic). In tracing the historical and contemporary cultural importance of coffee, and the formal ritual of serving coffee to guests, I examine the many ways in which Iraqi women used the senses to invoke and initiate memories that are threaded with subjective and difficult pasts. Highlighting the contradictions between what is told on and off “the record,” the article contributes to feminist methods of knowledge-production that push the boundaries of “sharing authority,” and allow vulnerable migrant women to shape the interview space in order to designate “safe spaces” where they can share subjective lives.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's ‘‘Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter”: Understanding the Indian Diaspora Women in America.

This paper is a study of a first generation diaspora woman character named Mrs. Prameela Dutta, who leaves her native land Calcutta, India and immigrates to USA, to be with her son Sagar and his family. Though the diaspora subject Mrs. Dutta looks forward to a life with her son and his family in the US, once in the United States of America, she finds that she is ill-prepared for life there and consequently undergoes many trials and tribulations. The immigrant character displays the diaspora sensibilities of feeling alienated, of experiencing a sense of loss, of possessing a feeling of being displaced apart from being overcome bya sense of nostalgia. However, though she yearns for her lost home in India, yet we find that she evolves and changes and learns to accept life in the foreign land, America.

African Diaspora Women's Narratives: Politics of Resistance, Survival, and Citizenship ‐ by James Alexander, Simone A.

African Diaspora Women's Narratives: Politics of Resistance, Survival, and Citizenship ‐ by James Alexander, Simone A.

Indian Women Diaspora Working in the IT Sector: Living the American Dream

Information Technology sector has put India on the global map. It has brought about a vast and new knowledge and interaction between people of different countries. Indian Women are working in the IT Sector both in India and in many other countries. Despite being an important area of employment in India, people go abroad to work in this sector. The objective of this study is to find out the life of the Indian Women Diaspora working in this sector and living in United States of America (U.S.A). It will assess the cultural and social changes in the lives of women who have moved out of India. It looks into their role in employment, remuneration, decision making, health and participation both at work and home. The methodology of this study is to cover 100 women working in this industry between the age group of 25 and 50 years. It is based on interviews and questionnaire and the findings relate to the advancement, development, empowerment and changes in the life of Indian women living in USA. Although the Indian women Diaspora are living in many countries, work culture and home relationships are different in each country. Therefore this paper confines itself to just one continent that is USA covering the Indian women working in California in the IT Sector. The reason for interviewing women in California was that a large number of start-ups and established IT companies are situated in this State. Several Indians have moved from India and our working in large companies like Google, Apple, Qualcomm Inc., Facebook etc which are situated in California. Mobility and migration has definitely been an impact of globalization. The findings of the study are focused on women empowerment in job participation, education and financial security. What type of life do they have? What regional similarities and changes do they find in their life structure after moving from India? Some glimpses of Indian family life have been discussed in the American context.

Creating a Nation with Cloth: Women, Wealth, and Tradition in the Tongan Diaspora by Ping‐AnnAddoNew York: Berghahn, 2013. 252 pp.

Creating a Nation with Cloth: Women, Wealth, and Tradition in the Tongan Diaspora by Ping‐AnnAddoNew York: Berghahn, 2013. 252 pp.

디아스포라 여성의 지혜 : 고려인 여성의 ‘삶’으로 읽는 잠언 31장

디아스포라 여성의 지혜 : 고려인 여성의 ‘삶’으로 읽는 잠언 31장

Women in a multicultural diaspora: dilemmas of gender and culture

Redefining culture as ‘a dynamic and evolving feature of human action', feminists stress that cultures are not static, establishing the constant need to interrogate them, both in innate and distant contexts, namely when women are placed in their immediate cultural contexts or when they migrate to a new setting carrying their cultures along, wherein both events entail multiple expressions and interpretations. For instance, how is one to juxtapose instances of honour killing, dowry abuses, forced marriages, female genital mutilation with women being able to ‘transgress’ home barriers in the new (outside, foreign and external) locations, ably diluting, if not completely dismantling, the extremities of their ascribed cultural systems, and sometimes even joining at high-level posts at multi national companies (MNCs) and so on. The ‘new freedom’ from cultural specificities is attributed to the general openness and proclamations of liberty that abound the new multicultural contexts with the parallel process of a snowball-like cultural regress. Women in Diaspora then throw up the simultaneous issues of discrimination and empowerment, emerging from their distancing from and sometimes forced clinching to their regressive cultures. This gathers two responses within feminism vis-à-vis multiculturalism. The homogenized and hierarchical defining of cultures necessitates unbiased interrogation to identify the real beneficiary, for women's life – choices are not always thrust upon them by patriarchal and suppressive cultures and Diaspora offers women liberatory avenues too, despite certain crippling cultural tendencies tainting it.

French Women Diaspora : King's Daughters in Nouvelle France

French Women Diaspora : King's Daughters in Nouvelle France

Talking about Race in Cuba: Four Trans-Atlantic African Diaspora Women Share Their Experience

Descendants of the African Diaspora have encountered different challenges to well-being within their respective countries. In Cuba, it appears that while the Cuban Revolution attempted to level the outcomes for all citizens, Black Cubans remain marginalised and targets of discrimination. We, three African American and one Black Cuban women researchers, used a roundtable approach to analyse our experiences in Cuba. Using our individual reflections as data, the four of us sought to make meaning of cultural identity and expression within Cuba, and impact on well-being. Implications of this work can inform interventions for well-being of multiple African Diasporic populations in North and South America.

Witches, goddesses, and angry spirits: the politics of spiritual liberation in African diaspora women's fiction

Witches, goddesses, and angry spirits: the politics of spiritual liberation in African diaspora women's fiction

“Ain’t I A Woman”: Exploring Femininities in Diaspora in Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Angelou’s autobiography I Know Why Caged Bird Sings is significant because it unveils the diasporic identities of Black American women, challenging the essentialist notions of “blackness” and “feminine”. The representations of the women of color in the novel have been problematized because they were created on multiple axes of power. The present research focuses on unveiling these problematic representations, highlighting the subject and object positions taken by the women. The paper analyses the novel using Pessar and Mahler’s model (2003), Gendered Geographies of Power, concluding that the femininities in diaspora are created as a result of various socially stratifying factors, such as race, class, State ideologies etc which are variable and ever changing. Furthermore, the identities of the colored women could be a result of individual choices. Diaspora as such, appears as a site of various cultures, which can both empower/disempower these women. When looked at in this way, the study critiques the idea of fixed, stable and monolithic identity for the colored women in diaspora and favors the Postmodern notions of identity for these women.