Diaspora Studies最新文献

Voting is predominantly understood through resident citizens’ viewpoints. Many resident citizens are nervous about the perceived consequences of voting by resident noncitizens. Although New Zealand is the only Western democratic host country that currently allows noncitizens to vote in national elections, citizens have concerns about how noncitizens use this right. This study investigates noncitizen voting from noncitizens’ viewpoints, by exploring the journeys and experiences of Sri Lankan immigrants in New Zealand. Based on 26 interviews with Sri Lankans in Auckland and Wellington, the study found two dimensions—temporal and transnational—that shape immigrants’ views in a different way from those of resident citizen voters. Building on Bridget Anderson’s methodological de-nationalism, the study suggests that we need to recognise the differences between resident citizens and resident noncitizens in order not to homogenise groups and wrongly assume that they share motives and behavioural and decision-making patterns.

Studies have addressed the historical trajectories of people of African heritage in the Czech Republic (CR), but there is no comprehensive study of the contemporary lives and identities of African people. Given the increasing number of African people living in the country, research into an emerging African diaspora is imperative. This empirical study emerges as part of a larger project which aims to address this paucity through an interdisciplinary and ethnographic lens. Its primary aim is to develop a detailed and nuanced account of sociopolitical identities among people of African heritage in the CR by focusing on the dynamics of language and race and, to a lesser degree, gender. Theoretically based on intersectionality and drawing from the recently developed framework of ‘raciolinguistics’, this paper provides the first diasporic narratives of African people in the CR who have varying degrees of Czech language fluency and experience diverse forms of racialisation and racism. Individual multiple life trajectories in the CR suggest that African migrants feel caught in a complex matrix of linguistic and racial discrimination but that they have a sense of reasonable safety and security. This highly ambiguous space also shows that, on the one hand, there are instances where Czech language skills have the capacity to mitigate the challenges in racial discourse and racism, but on the other hand there are clear limits to the power of language in the face of racial Othering and racism.

Many studies have been published during the past decades highlighting the role played by diasporas in conflicts raging in their home countries and on the links between diasporas and international terrorism. Contemporary literature treats the links between diasporas and conflicts in a simplistic manner. For instance, little space is dedicated to determining the effect of diaspora on political instability in the home country. The current study aims to assess the effect of diasporas on political instability in Africa, taking into consideration the role of geographical distance when choosing the destination countries. To achieve this goal, we use two models to test our hypothesis. First, we deploy a gravity model to investigate the destination choice of migrants who build a diaspora. Based on their destination, we then use a fixed effects model and the generalised method of moment (GMM) to analyse the effects of the diaspora on political instability. Overall, we aim to research whether there is a correlation between migrant communities and the political stability in their origin countries. Our findings suggest that diaspora can act as a feedback factor to existing situations by either increasing or decreasing political instability dependent on the initial state the country was in, even though the greatest contribution of diasporas is in terms of peace not of war.

As developed countries become more and more interested in implementing diaspora strategies, this article reviews relevant literature for diaspora strategy design and implementation and distils elements of existing typologies into a conceptual framework for evaluating developed country diaspora strategies. The framework is then applied to the evaluation of the diaspora policies of Ireland and Australia, which emerge as examples of engaged versus passive states in relation to their diasporas. Interviews with diaspora engagement practitioners are used to elucidate the policies and practices that underpin diaspora engagement strategies in these countries. The resulting analysis has implications for theorising diaspora engagement and offers practical lessons for other countries looking to connect with their diasporas.

Foregrounding fluid processes of group identity re/formation, this article advances the debates on the nature of collective mobilisation among diasporas. Specifically, it contributes to a relatively underexplored diaspora studies sub-field: the role of religion in diasporic identity formation. Empirical material from the immigrant group Muslims of Sri Lankan origin in the United Kingdom indicates that religious identities play a key role in the process of formation of political identities and framing under the concept of one ummah. Further, critical events and crisis situations in places of origin mobilise these groups to form social and solidarity movements. This article contributes to ongoing debates on the constructivist approach to diaspora engagement, which goes beyond the conventional ways of understanding diasporas as ‘dispersed victims’. To this end, I argue that the diasporic characteristics are contingent upon the collective experience and embodiment of crisis situations at home and host sites.