Diaspora

Hanging Out in Desi: Straddling Multiple Universes Through Second Life

by Devayani Tirthali

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Vancouver, BC. 2012

“Traditions, Trajectories and Transformative Migrations: The Multifarious Diasporic Contextualities of Nair, Nazareth and Vassanji’s Fictions.” Journal of the African Literature Association 6.2 (Winter 2011/Spring 2012): 61-82.

by Aaron L. Rosenberg

The fictions of Moyez G.Vassanji, Mira Nair and Peter Nazareth
represent a crucial commodity. These two writers... more The fictions of Moyez G.Vassanji, Mira Nair and Peter Nazareth
represent a crucial commodity. These two writers and one filmmaker’s works are manifestly utilitarian in our attempt as literary scholars and citizens of the world to understand what is meant by the ‘African Diaspora.’ Their narratives interrogate the racialized and divisive accounts of East Africans that consciously
and chauvinistically self – define as African or Asian. While all of the texts make clear that there is a certain risk involved in attempting to construct systems of identity formation along syncretic lines, they also make explicit the dangers of the formation and defense of exclusive communities based on skin color. These artists are attempting, and succeeding in exploding the myth of a monolithic racial imperative for African cultural citizenship. This myth of racial uniformity as a prerequisite for African authenticity has been constructed and exploited by
members of numerous ethnic communities throughout East Africa at one time or another in order to further their political or economical goals (Gregory: 161).What the artists dealt with in this paper are seeking to do is to counteract such immutable inscriptions of identity and concomitant allegiance and, in their own cases to reinscribe their self – identificatory auras with an identity which can best be described as “Afro-Asian.’ The immediate importance of this endeavor is illustrated by the historical atrocities and terrorism visited upon Afro –Asians
by their fellow countrymen. The seemingly unquestioning or ambivalent attitude of the academic community toward these questions represents, albeit through an absence of discursive activity rather than an excess of aggression, a serious
impediment to an understanding of the realities of cultural diversity in East African contexts. These Afro-Asian diasporic narratives can illuminate such situations and broaden our understanding of what it means to be ‘African’ in East Africa.

Existential Tourism and the Homeland: The Overseas Chinese Experience

by Alan A. Lew

Published with Alan Wong (2005) In Cartier, C. and Lew, A.A., eds., Seductions of Place: Geographical perspectives on globalization and touristed landscapes, pp. 286-300 (Chapter 18), Abingdon, UK: Routledge. (pre-publication version)

This chapter explores conditions of existential tourism among overseas Chinese, focusing on relations with their... more This chapter explores conditions of existential tourism among overseas Chinese, focusing on relations with their ancestral homeland areas in China. Like other disaporic ethnic groups, overseas Chinese migrants, in both historic and contemporary times, have followed long established paths, bound by ‘networks of ethnicity’, which “extend the group’s identity spatially, and are an important facet of social and economic organization, particularly within migrant communities” (Mitchell 2000: 392). Highly structured ethnic networks support existential tourism to China and several major fields of influence shape this structuration process, overlapping in different ways. Overseas Chinese institutional structures support ideas about traditional Chinese values, thereby working to enable and maintain a sense of ‘Chineseness’. ‘Traditional values’, however, have also adapted to meet the special conditions of the migrant/diasporic community, as migration creates both ‘outsider’ and ‘home out there’ experiences, the evolution of multiple homes, and the need for mechanisms to overcome geographic spaces between old, new and transitory homes (Leung 2003). The influence of space-shrinking technologies and globalizing modernity provide further realms of influence, shaping the form and experience of both migration and ‘Chineseness, by, for example, enabling closer relationships and easing the strain of return visits.

“ Diasporas as Peacemakers:Third Party Mediation in Homeland Conflicts”,

by Bahar Baser

with Ashok Swain. International Journal on World Peace 25, 3, September 2008.

"Island is not far". Zur Konstruktion von Insularität, Ausschluss und Exil auf Angel Island, 1910-1940

by Ruth Mayer

forthcoming in: Literatur und Exil. Neue Perspektiven. Hg. Doerte Bischoff, Susanne Komfort-Hein. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012]

Der Aufsatz geht von der Negativität des Exilsbegriffs im kulturwissenschaftlichen Diskurs der Gegenwart aus, die sich... more Der Aufsatz geht von der Negativität des Exilsbegriffs im kulturwissenschaftlichen Diskurs der Gegenwart aus, die sich einer weitaus positiveren Semantik des Diasporischen entgegenstellt. Ein exilischer Diskurs soll im engen Bezug auf die Situation der chinesischen Diaspora in den Vereinigten Staaten im frühen 20. Jahrhundert herausgearbeitet werden. Der Diskurs des Exilischen kann als Versuch verstanden werden, dem zeitgenössischen dominanten Diskurs zur chinesischen Präsenz in den USA zu begegnen. In den literarischen Zeugnissen chinesischer Einwanderer der 1910er bis 40er Jahre, den Gedichten von Angel Island – wird die Kondition des Exilischen aufgerufen, um eine eingeklammerte, prekäre, unbestimmte Position zwischen den Fronten zu evozieren, eine Situation, die als nicht-normal, außergewöhnlich und instabil präsentiert wird. Dabei geht es nicht nur darum, einen Anspruch auf Integration zu erheben, sondern die Situation des Exilischen wird hier auch zunehmend totalisiert – die Außenseitersituation wird in ihren subversiven und bedrohlichen Implikationen affirmiert, das Exil zeitigt Widerstand. Die Semantik des Exils weist in sämtlichen Varianten – klagend oder aggressiv – auf den Versuch, die Situation der Ausgrenzung konzeptuell anders zu 'rahmen' als der zeitgenössische politiko-juridische Diskurs der USA es tut. Dennoch bleiben die Gedichte im spannungsreichen Bezug zu diesem hegemonialen Diskurs – sie vermögen ihn kritisch zu beleuchten, aber sie zeigen sich auch von ihm gefangen. 

Unlocking the Potential of the Kashmiri Diaspora in the Big Society for Development and Just Peace

by Sardar Aftab Khan

The people of Jammu and Kashmir are homogeneous in their broader national and territorial identity, but very diverse... more The people of Jammu and Kashmir are homogeneous in their broader national and territorial identity, but very diverse in their cultural, linguistic and racial identities. The Kashmiri diaspora has always been recognised for their qualitative strength of mutual cooperation, self-help support mechanisms and strong links with their place of origin through family structures, business and inheritance interests in Jammu and Kashmir. In addition, the
quantitative strength, contribution and capacity of the Kashmiri diaspora to influence change in the development of their chosen places of abode and origin needs recognition and in-depth
study to unlock their real potential.
This paper will identify the common bonds of identity and traditions of those people in UK whose ethnic heritage comes from the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The paper will further
look at the impact of the non-recognition and non-inclusion of the Kashmiri community in British ethnic monitoring systems at the national level and ask how this will influence their
social mobility.
The paper particularly focuses on their role as a diaspora community and explores what role the Kashmiri diaspora leadership plays in community development in the ‘big’ society and what strategies they employ to influence policy and change in their current places of abode and in Jammu Kashmir? Therefore, the Kashmiri diaspora community in the United Kingdom will be the community of interest as a case study in this paper for the broader question of diaspora
engagement for development and peace.

The European Context of the Greek Great Idea: The suggestions of a Greek Newspaper in London [Vretanikos Astir (The British Star), 1860-1862)

by Elpida Vogli

published in the Proceedings of the 26th Hellenic Historical Conference, (Thessaloniki, 28-29 May 2005), Thessaloniki, pp. 143-154 (in Greek)

A study of 1 Peter 3: 18–4: 6. An investigation into the historical background of the doctrine of Christ's descent into Hades

by marietjie du toit

Feeling diasporic

by Lauren Wagner

Available in the Tilburg Papers in Cultural Studies, #21

The Legal Adaptation of British Settlers in Turkey

by Prakash Shah

Co-authored with Dr. Derya Bayir

This article is based on a fieldwork project conducted by the authors in the Muğla region of western Turkey. The... more This article is based on a fieldwork project conducted by the authors in the Muğla region of western Turkey. The region is the locale for a significant level of settlement by British people, within the wider context of settlement by groups of other EU nationals in western Turkey. Based on a series of interviews with British settlers and Turkish locals, it examines the factors which affect the process of legal adaptation of the former group. It identifies and discusses the place of British settlers within the larger Turkish legal order, their integration into Turkish life, and the extent to which different socio-legal disabilities and advantages affect this process. The article also casts some light on the extent to which, given the level of British immigration into the area, Turkish officialdom is prepared for their presence.

Frayed Connections, Fraught Projections: The Troubling Work of Shirin Neshat

by Lindsey Moore

Women: A Cultural Review 13 (1). pp. 1-17. ISSN 1470-1367 (electronic) 0957-4042 (paper)

Glocal Imaginaries

by Lindsey Moore

Voice After Exit: Diaspora Advocacy

by Carylanna Taylor

Richard Woodfield: Ernst Gombrich and the problem of being a Viennese art historian in London

by Richard Woodfield

Background material for a lecture that was given in Melbourne, August 13th, 2010. Modified 31.10.2010, 7.03.2011 and 28.12.2011

Gombrich’s fame as an art historian rested upon his popular book The Story of Art but he didn’t see himself as a... more Gombrich’s fame as an art historian rested upon his popular book The Story of Art but he didn’t see himself as a professional art historian. At the Warburg Institute, where he worked, he asserted his identity as a historian of Italian Renaissance culture and denied any attachment to academic art history. His publications take the form of a commentary on academic art historical practice, in the Viennese tradition of the Kunstgeschichtliche Anzeigen and Kritische Berichte. Many of the problems that he addressed originated in the milieu of Julius von Schlosser’s ‘Vienna School of Art History’. He was hostile to grand theories and master narratives and adopted a piecemeal approach to their critique. Although he wrote in a plain style, his thought was far from plain as it was embedded in a network of problems foreign to Anglophone scholarship. His work was profoundly alien to his English colleagues and frequently misunderstood.

“Du Lishi Xiaoshuo ‘Xia Nanyang’ 读历史小说 《下南洋》[Reflections on Reading the Historical Novel Migration to Nanyang”], Zhonghua dushubao 中华读书报 (China Readings Weekly) (27 Oct 2010), p. 10.

by HUANG Jianli 黃坚立

Book review of Tan Ta Sen, Cheng Ho and Islam in Southeast Asia 郑和与东南亚的回教 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009), 291pp., in Journal of Southeast Asian Studies东南亚研究学报, 42.1 (Feb 2011): 171-172.

by HUANG Jianli 黃坚立

"The 'Chinese-educated' Political Vanguard: Ong Pang Boon, Lee Khoon Choy and Jek Yeun Thong 华校生圈内的政治先驱者：王邦文、李炯才、日润堂," (Co-authored) in Lee's Lieutenants: Singapore's Old Guard 李光耀的得力助手：新加坡的第一代领袖, edited by Lam Peng Er and Kevin Tan (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1999), pp. 132-168.

by HUANG Jianli 黃坚立

“Writings on Sun Yat-sen, Tongmenghui and the 1911 Revolution: Surveying the Field and Locating Southeast Asia 有关孙中山、同盟会及东南亚华人参与辛亥革命的研究概况,” in Tongmenghui, Sun Yat Sen and the Chinese in Southeast Asia: A Revisit 再读同盟会、孙中山与东南亚华人, edited by Leo Suryadinata (Singapore: Chinese Heritage Centre, 2006), pp. 61-107.

by HUANG Jianli 黃坚立

“Remembering World War II: Legacies of the War Fought in China 第二次世界大战的回忆：中国战争的遗产,” in Legacies of World War II in South and East Asia 第二次世界大战在南与东亚的遗产, edited by David Koh Wee Hock (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2007), pp. 117-137.

by HUANG Jianli 黃坚立

"History and the Imaginaries of 'Big Singapore': Positioning the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall 历史与‘大新加坡’的想象：孙中山南洋纪念馆的定位," (Co-authored) Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 东南亚研究学报, 35.1 (Feb 2004): 65-89.

by HUANG Jianli 黃坚立

The establishment of the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall marks the PAP government’s charting of a revolutionary,... more The establishment of the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall marks the PAP government’s charting of a revolutionary, modernising genealogy of seismic proportions for the fashioning of a ‘Big Singapore’ as the political, economic and cultural focus of the Chinese diaspora. Such effort in reorienting history is problematic and the ethnicisation of national identity is contested, not least by Singapore’s Chinese-language intellectuals.