Framed in relation to diaspora this collection engages with the subject of how cultural difference is lived and how complex and shifting identities shape and respond to spatial politics of belonging. Diaspora is understood in a variety of ways, which makes this an eclectic collection of papers. Authors use various theoretical frameworks to explore diverse groups of people with a variety of experiences in a wide range of settings. They are making sense of the experiences of women and men from a range of ethnic backgrounds, negotiating identities through family, work and education. The micro dynamics of the everyday offer an evocative 'bottom up' means of understanding the tensions implicit in living multiple belongings. The common thread for the collection comes from the glimpses these authors provide into the remaking of our globalized world. The aim is to shed light on racism, dislocation and alienation on the one hand, and on the other hand, to consider how the complex power relations within the everyday mediate a sense of resistance and hope. The papers are arranged around four themes; 1. Multiple Belongings, 2. Representing a Way of Being, 3. Sexualised Identifications and 4. Marriage and Family.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, millions of Romanians emigrated in search of work and new experiences; they became engaged in an interrogation of what it meant to be Romanian in a united Europe and the globalized world. Their thoughts, feelings and hopes soon began to populate the virtual world of digital and mobile technologies. This book chronicles the online cultural and political expressions of the Romanian diaspora using websites based in Europe and North America. Through online exchanges, Romanians perform new types of citizenship, articulated from the margins of the political field. The politicization of their diasporic condition is manifested through written and public protests against discriminatory work legislation, mobilization, lobbying, cultural promotion and setting up associations and political parties that are proof of the gradual institutionalization of informal communications. Online discourse analysis, supplemented by interviews with migrants, poets and politicians involved in the process of defining new diasporic identities, provide the basis of this book, which defines the new cultural and political practices of the Romanian diaspora.

This book questions the relationship between what Nigerian migrants in the diaspora eat, their self-perception and how they engage with outsiders. Yet, food plays a prominent role: on the one hand, it contributes to the affirmation of Nigerian feelings, and on the other hand, food serves as a means of communication with the host country.

African Diaspora Identities provides insights into the complex transnational processes involved in shaping the migratory identities of African immigrants. It seeks to understand the durability of these African transnational migrant identities and their impact on inter-minority group relationships. John A. Arthur demonstrates that the identities African immigrants construct often transcends country-specific cultures and normative belief systems. He illuminates the fact that these transnational migrant identities are an amalgamation of multiple identities formed in varied social transnational settings. The United States has become a site for the cultural formations, manifestations, and contestations of the newer identities that these immigrants seek to depict in cross-cultural and global settings. Relying mostly on their strong human capital resources (education and family), Africans are devising creative, encompassing, and robust ways to position and reposition their new identities. In combining their African cultural forms and identities with new roles, norms, and beliefs that they imbibe in the United States and everywhere else they have settled, Africans are redefining what it means to be black in a race-, ethnicity-, and color-conscious American society.

This book examines how African, Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin American diasporas use media to communicate among themselves and to integrate into European countries. Whereas migrant communities continue employing print and broadcasting technologies, the rapidly growing applications of Internet platforms like social media have substantially enriched their interactions. These communication practices provide valuable insights into how diasporas define themselves. The anthology investigates varied uses of media by Ecuadorian, Congolese, Moroccan, Nepalese, Portugal, Somali, Syrian and Turkish communities residing in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK. These studies are based on research methodologies including big data analysis, content analysis, focus groups, interviews, surveys and visual framing, and they make a strong contribution to the emerging theory of diasporic media.

Gender has a profound impact on the discourse on migration as well as various aspects of integration, social and political life, public debate, and art. This volume focuses on immigration and the concept of diaspora through the experiences of women living in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Through a variety of case studies, the authors approach the multifaceted nature of interactions between these women and their adopted countries, considering both the local and the global. The text examines the “making of the Scandinavian” and the novel ways in which diasporic communities create gendered forms of belonging that transcend the nation state.

Featuring essays by world-renowned scholars, Diasporas charts the various ways in which global population movements and associated social, political and cultural issues have been seen through the lens of diaspora. Wide-ranging and interdisciplinary, this collection considers critical concepts shaping the field, such as migration, ethnicity, post-colonialism and cosmopolitanism. It also examines key intersecting agendas and themes, including political economy, security, race, gender, and material and electronic culture. Original case studies of contemporary as well as classical diasporas are featured, mapping new directions in research and testing the usefulness of diaspora for analyzing the complexity of transnational lives today. Diasporas is an essential text for anyone studying, working or interested in this increasingly vital subject.

This collection of papers discusses the impact of diasporas on the articulations and practices of legal, political, cultural and social citizenship in their country of origin. While the majority of current citizenship debates focus on the challenges and directions in which diasporic and migrant communities impact on the citizenship regime in their country of settlement, the papers in this volume approach the study of citizenship from the perspective of the link between the sending state and its diasporic communities abroad. The papers discuss the role of language, religion, kinship, and other ethnic markers in diaspora politics and trace their implications for the articulations and practices of citizenship. Through discussing cases across political and geographical spectrums, and from different historical epochs the book broadens and enriches the debate on citizenship by demonstrating important ways in which diasporas impact on the delineation of citizenship regimes and the politics of national identity in their homeland. This links to the continued use of language as an ethnic marker, but also one which may be learned, allowing a certain degree of choice and shifting affiliations amongst putative members of a diaspora. This book was published as a special issue of Nationalism and Ethnic Politics.

Memories establish a connection between a collective and individual past, between origins, heritage, and history. Those who have left their places of birth to make homes elsewhere are familiar with the question, "Where do you come from?" and respond in innumerable well-rehearsed ways. Diasporas construct racialized, sexualized, gendered, and oppositional subjectivities and shape the cosmopolitan intellectual commitment of scholars. The diasporic individual often has a double consciousness, a privileged knowledge and perspective that is consonant with postmodernity and globalization. The essays in this volume reflect on the movements of people and cultures in the present day, when physical, social, and mental borders and boundaries are being challenged and sometimes successfully dismantled. The contributors - from a variety of disciplinary perspectives - discuss the diasporic experiences of ethnic and racial groups living in Canada from their perspective, including the experiences of South Asians, Iranians, West Indians, Chinese, and Eritreans. Diaspora, Memory, and Identity is an exciting and innovative collection of essays that examines the nuanced development of theories of Diaspora, subjectivity, double-consciousness, gender and class experiences, and the nature of home.

The Indian American community is one of the fastest growing immigrant communities in the U.S. Unlike previous generations, they are marked by a high degree of training as medical doctors, engineers, scientists, and university professors. American Karma draws on participant observation and in-depth interviews to explore how these highly skilled professionals have been inserted into the racial dynamics of American society and transformed into “people of color.” Focusing on first-generation, middle-class Indians in American suburbia, it also sheds light on how these transnational immigrants themselves come to understand and negotiate their identities. Bhatia forcefully contends that to fully understand migrant identity and cultural formation it is essential that psychologists and others think of selfhood as firmly intertwined with sociocultural factors such as colonialism, gender, language, immigration, and race-based immigration laws. American Karma offers a new framework for thinking about the construction of selfhood and identity in the context of immigration. This innovative approach advances the field of psychology by incorporating critical issues related to the concept of culture, including race, power, and conflict, and will also provide key insights to those in anthropology, sociology, human development, and migrant studies.