Diaspora and Life Narratives: A Conceptual Understanding (original) (raw)

The demobilization of diaspora: history, memory and ‘latent identity’

Global Networks

In the context of sustained interest in the mobilization of diasporic identities, I consider how and why diasporic identities might be demobilized over time. I use the case of an Indian Pakistani community in the UK and the USA (sometimes referred to as 'Bihari') to examine how historical memories of conflict are narrated in diaspora and the impact this has on the presence or absence of 'diasporic consciousness'. The significance of memory in diasporic and transnational communities has been neglected, especially where the narration of historical events is concerned. The impact of forgetting has received particularly scant attention. I argue that, in the absence of this story, important lessons about the role of history in the formation of community are obscured. In this example, the 'latent' identities created on diaspora's demobilization help us to unpick the dyadic relations of 'home' and 'away' at the heart of essentialist conceptualizations of the concept.

Situating Narratives of Migration and Diaspora: An Introduction

Journal Article, 2019

The idea of the special issue “Narrating Migration and Diaspora” grew out of the current situation in the world: the word ‘migration’ often accompanied by the word ‘crises’, reaches us every day via various media channels. During the last decades the world has been increasingly defined by mobility and transnationality. To interpret and analyze these processes, international scholars from different fields focus on the aspects such as sources and methods of migration and diaspora research, history of migration and remigration, memory processes, social and cultural adoption in host countries, representation of migration and diasporic life in literature as well as the rise of xenophobic populism. The introductory article provides an outline of some central perspectives and current directions of the development of research on migration and mobility, also touching upon the ways in which theoretical argumentation in the field resonates with political initiatives of the highest international level.

Diaspora and Cultural Identity: A Conceptual Review

2021

The theorists vary in their conceptualizations of diaspora and cultural identity of immigrants. Broadly speaking, the theorizations of diaspora can be categorized into four different groups with their focus on diverse aspects of immigrants’ lives. The first classical phase describes the forced migration of immigrants including victimhood diaspora of Jewish, Africans and Armenians. The second conceptualization incorporates historical, cultural and social diversities of people living in the diaspora. Critiquing the second phase, the third group of theorists deconstructs bipolar notions of the home and host country, and celebrates the inconsistencies, and fluidities of immigrants’ identities in diasporic third space. In contrast, the fourth conceptualizations emphasizes on relevance of the origin and historical exploitation of people of poor countries. Both the historical experiences and present negotiations play decisive roles in the formation of cultural identity of immigrants. The p...

Theorising Diaspora: Nationalist Discourse in Shaping Diasporic Subjects

2023

Identities of individuals or communities undergo waves of changes and modifications of the constituents of the embodiment they are represented. Diasporic subjects play a crucial role in the process of identifying the individuals as well as the communities since they reintroduce new perspectives to approach allegiances and categorisations. The paper debates the diaspora from a theoretical perspective focalising the role of the positionality of the bearers in participating in the construction of the diasporic apprehension in light of the nationalist discourse. It probes the dispersion and detachment of the diasporic subject and the probations of developing diverse identity allegiances while associating themselves with a group or community. It presents different strategies of the individuals in reconnecting to an embodiment of articulations. The very particular elements by which one can distinguish a diasporic subject from those of the others are, themselves, open to restructuring and reformulating. Diasporic identities are not the only variable that goes through the process of development and re-articulation that introduces new aspects to the entity of diaspora. As much as the reformulations that are made to the subjects themselves, what makes up their beings is affected by changes in perspectives toward them. Therefore, the process of re-enunciation contributes to adding new dimensions to the fundamental characteristics that make them distinctive rather than simply reproducing different viewpoints on the subjects and changes to what establishes them.

The Concept of Home in Diaspora

The nature of diasporic communities is one of key areas of interests in diaspora studies. The concept of home in diaspora studies is a question of identity and belonging. The enthusiasm of migrating out of homeland, the resolve to maintain identities and the intention to extend solidarity with the local and the transnational encompass the diasporic experience. While the diasporic communities share a sentimental affection with the homeland with an eagerness to maintain their cultural identities some uphold the desire to return to their homelands. This essay is an attempt to investigate how varied diasporic experiences and the changing transnational interconnections impact and shape the concept of home in diaspora.

Redefining Diaspora through a Phenomenology of Postmemory

Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 2013

This article seeks to intervene in the debates about the definition of diaspora by attending to the way in which it is a phenomenon, rooted in a particular kind of experience and consciousness. This approach seeks to move beyond ontological definitions based on categorical criteria toward a more phenomenological definition that can help us better understand the lived experience of diasporic subjects and the formation of diasporic communities. While these groups do not exist as entities that have some common essence or nature, I insist that they do exist phenomonologically. Rather than an objective, prescriptive definition of diaspora, this essay explores the subjective, descriptive quality of diaspora when approached from the inside, as an experience. A phenomenological approach, therefore, can rescue the term diaspora from its overextensions and case-specific limitations. A key consideration will be the role of memory in creating the phenomenon of diaspora. Diaspora must be understood as a phenomenon that emerges when displaced subjects who experience the loss of an "origin" (whether literal or symbolic) perpetuate identifications associated with those places of origin in subsequent generations through the mechanisms of postmemory.

Diasporic Identities – Reflections on Transnational Belonging

The question of ‘diasporic identities’ has been a field of academic study, political debate and public controversy for a long time. Among several shortcomings in much of the existing writing is a certain identity fuzziness that should be addressed at several levels. It is of paramount importance to examine the concrete entity of diasporic identification. In this regard diasporic-ethnic, -national, and -civic identifications can be distinguished, depending on whether we consider individuals in their capacity as (a) members of the ethnic community in the country of residence; (b) having bonds with the place of origin as a nation and the people living there; or (c) being part of the state of origin with rights and responsibilities towards state institutions. Further, well-defined categories of analysis have to be adopted. For transnational activities with regard to the country of origin, self-categorization and commitment deserve particular attention. Recognizing the constructed character of ethnic, national and civic identifications, the determinants of their formation and change over time have to be examined carefully. With regard to potential or actual conflicts between multiple identifications, it is essential to re-examine critically many propositions about rival loyalties and competing identifications based on the adopted categories of analysis. Keywords: diaspora, national identity, ethnic identity, migration, transnationalism, identity theory

Special Issue on 'Refugee and Diaspora Memories'

2013

This special issue opens up a conversation between three multidisciplinary fields: memory studies, diaspora studies and refugee studies. The introductory paper articulates an analytical framework addressing various forms of memories of displacement. It defines the concepts of exilic and diasporic memories with regard to the classical and post-modern conceptions of diasporas and shows, beyond their formal opposition, the extent to which these two notions interrelate. The article continues by highlighting four themes that cut across the collection of papers in this special issue: the relationship between individual and collective memories; the diversity of actors (re) producing memory narratives; the transmission, negotiation and contestation of memory across space and between generations; and the confrontational and syncretic dynamics which between different types of memories. To conclude, the paper addresses the political implications of the production and dissemination of memories of displacement.

Introduction: Diaspora, Identities, Memories

New Review of Information Networking

Coordinating Board for Cultural Projects, Malta This special issue of the New Review of Information Networking (NRIN) brings together a selection of articles presented at the 1 st International conference The Commonwealth and its People: Diasporas, Identities, Memories, which took place in Valletta on 24-26 June 2015 (http://www. um.edu.mt/events/dim2015). The conference was conceived as an academic forum addressing topics related to the identity of diasporas and the role of memory institutions in documenting and preserving this type of complex heritage. The forum attracted participants from Albania,

Finding Home in Memory: Stories of Immigration, Diaspora, and Dis/location

The Ethnographic Edge

I chose poetic performance narratives for writing up stories shared with me. I follow J. Brunner’s (2002) proposal that, literary narrative [poetry], “subverts familiar expectations while respecting, even vivifying reality [thus poetic] narrative ‘subjunctivizes’ a subjunctivized world, though it may not be comfortable, is provocative.” (51). The poetic performance narratives create a provocative reading to seduce the reader into the “uncomfortable” Other’s world. As R. Rosaldo understands, the highest task of writing, “is not to represent the event […] but to be the event itself” (2014:102). From the perspective of a resilient Latina woman—who in the USA is also an immigrant, academic, and non-native English-speaker—this decolonizing project is a celebration of struggles, difference, agency and multiplicity. As Bhabha (2005) indicates, the mestizo is a witness who has a different take on what s/he calls decoloniality.