Pub Date : 2020-06-28DOI: 10.1163/18725465-bja10008
Reginold A. Royston
Digital media, diaspora and deterritorialisation have provided important ways to think about contemporary global flows and social ties. Digital diasporas as a unit of study have become especially relevant for social scientists, particularly anthropologists: In this paper, the author argues that digital diasporas represent both online communities and the ICT practices of those living abroad, which seemingly actualise the potential inherent in Castell’s notion of the Network Society. Examining the material and social dimensions of these ties, however, this paper moves to critique the notion of networks as stabilised representations of diaspora/homeland connections. Drawing from the author’s ethnographic research with tech professionals in Ghana, and with diaspora-based social media users in the U.S. and the Netherlands, the analysis posits that the asymmetry of Africa’s sociotechnical infrastructures is central to understanding the enduring disjunctive nature of these flows. Through interviews and analysis, the author illustrates how these sociotechnical systems configure Ghana’s global cyberculture.
{"title":"Configuring Ghana’s Diaspora","authors":"Reginold A. Royston","doi":"10.1163/18725465-bja10008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18725465-bja10008","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Digital media, diaspora and deterritorialisation have provided important ways to think about contemporary global flows and social ties. Digital diasporas as a unit of study have become especially relevant for social scientists, particularly anthropologists: In this paper, the author argues that digital diasporas represent both online communities and the ICT practices of those living abroad, which seemingly actualise the potential inherent in Castell’s notion of the Network Society. Examining the material and social dimensions of these ties, however, this paper moves to critique the notion of networks as stabilised representations of diaspora/homeland connections. Drawing from the author’s ethnographic research with tech professionals in Ghana, and with diaspora-based social media users in the U.S. and the Netherlands, the analysis posits that the asymmetry of Africa’s sociotechnical infrastructures is central to understanding the enduring disjunctive nature of these flows. Through interviews and analysis, the author illustrates how these sociotechnical systems configure Ghana’s global cyberculture.","PeriodicalId":42998,"journal":{"name":"African Diaspora","volume":"12 1","pages":"11-37"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18725465-bja10008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42562898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-28DOI: 10.1163/18725465-bja10010
K. Hiruy, Rebecca Hutton
The ‘New African Diaspora’ (NAD) in Australia is a small yet diverse and interconnected community. African-born persons make up only 1.5 % of the Australian population, yet collectively represent all 54 independent African nation-states, and speak over 60 languages. Nonetheless, Australia embraces stereotypical and misleading understandings of the ‘African migrant’, and whilst these have been subject to academic scrutiny, there is a need to reconceptualise the NAD in both public and academic discourse. This article endeavours to challenge contemporary perceptions through an exploration of the history and demography of the NAD and the manifold ways it continues to shape Australia’s socio-cultural and economic landscapes. We draw upon our findings from a 2018 mapping project, which comprised analyses of publicly available migration data, an online survey, and a series of six in-depth interviews. Our analysis unveils the central role the NAD plays in brokering between multiple cultures and geographies.
{"title":"Towards a Re-imagination of the New African Diaspora in Australia","authors":"K. Hiruy, Rebecca Hutton","doi":"10.1163/18725465-bja10010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18725465-bja10010","url":null,"abstract":"The ‘New African Diaspora’ (NAD) in Australia is a small yet diverse and interconnected community. African-born persons make up only 1.5 % of the Australian population, yet collectively represent all 54 independent African nation-states, and speak over 60 languages. Nonetheless, Australia embraces stereotypical and misleading understandings of the ‘African migrant’, and whilst these have been subject to academic scrutiny, there is a need to reconceptualise the NAD in both public and academic discourse. This article endeavours to challenge contemporary perceptions through an exploration of the history and demography of the NAD and the manifold ways it continues to shape Australia’s socio-cultural and economic landscapes. We draw upon our findings from a 2018 mapping project, which comprised analyses of publicly available migration data, an online survey, and a series of six in-depth interviews. Our analysis unveils the central role the NAD plays in brokering between multiple cultures and geographies.","PeriodicalId":42998,"journal":{"name":"African Diaspora","volume":"12 1","pages":"153-179"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18725465-bja10010","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49438576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-04-02DOI: 10.1163/18725465-01201001
S. Turner, L. Berckmoes
Based on fieldwork amongst Burundians in Rwanda, the Netherlands and Belgium, this article explores how information circulates transnationally in times of political and violent crisis and how ordinary members of the diaspora seek to manage these flows of information. Our main argument is that conflict in the homeland creates a massive flow of information across various digital platforms and that while members of the diaspora eagerly take part in consuming and sharing this information, they do so reticently. Rather than simply explore the information flows, their intensity, their ‘spread’ or their content, we explore how individuals in the diaspora engage in emotion work, as they struggle between being ‘hailed’ by the images and messages flowing with ever-increasing intensity, speed and urgency and their reticence towards getting too involved.
{"title":"Reticent Digital Diasporas in Times of Crisis","authors":"S. Turner, L. Berckmoes","doi":"10.1163/18725465-01201001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18725465-01201001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Based on fieldwork amongst Burundians in Rwanda, the Netherlands and Belgium, this article explores how information circulates transnationally in times of political and violent crisis and how ordinary members of the diaspora seek to manage these flows of information. Our main argument is that conflict in the homeland creates a massive flow of information across various digital platforms and that while members of the diaspora eagerly take part in consuming and sharing this information, they do so reticently. Rather than simply explore the information flows, their intensity, their ‘spread’ or their content, we explore how individuals in the diaspora engage in emotion work, as they struggle between being ‘hailed’ by the images and messages flowing with ever-increasing intensity, speed and urgency and their reticence towards getting too involved.","PeriodicalId":42998,"journal":{"name":"African Diaspora","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18725465-01201001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48697550","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-04-02DOI: 10.1163/18725465-01201002
Irene Fubara-Manuel
The current system of the surveillance of migrants relies on biometric capture. To be captured is to be codified into machine-readable representations. This paper merges technological codifications with political discourse to explore the disproportionate capturing of black migrants in the UK. Using the historical treatment of Nigerian migrants in the UK as an illustration, this paper interrogates how contemporary technologies are used to codify and confine black migrants. This paper explores works from digital artists – Keith Piper and Joy Buolamwini – to address this codification of blackness using biometric technology. It calls for new technological cultures of coding that centre the disruption of violent systems of capture. Failure is defined as this disruption of hegemonic systems of codification and capture that aim to subjugate black communities. This paper stresses that it is only when technologies of capture fail that black and migrant communities can truly experience digital freedom.
{"title":"Biometric Capture","authors":"Irene Fubara-Manuel","doi":"10.1163/18725465-01201002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18725465-01201002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The current system of the surveillance of migrants relies on biometric capture. To be captured is to be codified into machine-readable representations. This paper merges technological codifications with political discourse to explore the disproportionate capturing of black migrants in the UK. Using the historical treatment of Nigerian migrants in the UK as an illustration, this paper interrogates how contemporary technologies are used to codify and confine black migrants. This paper explores works from digital artists – Keith Piper and Joy Buolamwini – to address this codification of blackness using biometric technology. It calls for new technological cultures of coding that centre the disruption of violent systems of capture. Failure is defined as this disruption of hegemonic systems of codification and capture that aim to subjugate black communities. This paper stresses that it is only when technologies of capture fail that black and migrant communities can truly experience digital freedom.","PeriodicalId":42998,"journal":{"name":"African Diaspora","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47081296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-02-25DOI: 10.1163/18725465-bja10009
Yemisi Akinbobola
In 2015, a reading group in Abuja, Nigeria, started the hashtag #BeingFemaleinNigeria, which received widespread attention. Within the confines of 140 characters, Nigerian women and men shared stories of gender inequality, sexism and misogyny in the country. Using feminist critical discourse analysis, this article unpacks the tweets under the #BeingFemaleinNigeria hashtag, and teases out what they tell us about gender inequality in Nigeria, and the ambitions for emancipation. This article takes the stance that African feminism(s) exist, that empirical study of lived experiences of African women should define it, and not perspectives that reject and argue that feminism comes from the other. Therefore, this empirical research contributes to scholarship that seeks to define the characteristics of African feminism(s), particularly as the field is criticised for being over-theorised.
{"title":"Defining African Feminism(s) While #BeingFemaleinNigeria","authors":"Yemisi Akinbobola","doi":"10.1163/18725465-bja10009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18725465-bja10009","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In 2015, a reading group in Abuja, Nigeria, started the hashtag #BeingFemaleinNigeria, which received widespread attention. Within the confines of 140 characters, Nigerian women and men shared stories of gender inequality, sexism and misogyny in the country. Using feminist critical discourse analysis, this article unpacks the tweets under the #BeingFemaleinNigeria hashtag, and teases out what they tell us about gender inequality in Nigeria, and the ambitions for emancipation. This article takes the stance that African feminism(s) exist, that empirical study of lived experiences of African women should define it, and not perspectives that reject and argue that feminism comes from the other. Therefore, this empirical research contributes to scholarship that seeks to define the characteristics of African feminism(s), particularly as the field is criticised for being over-theorised.","PeriodicalId":42998,"journal":{"name":"African Diaspora","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41812782","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-02-21DOI: 10.1163/18725465-bja10002
I. Dubinsky
This article examines the cyberactivism of Eritrean asylum seekers in Israel. It adopts the concept of digital diasporas to probe the role that the Internet plays for members of the community. Based on interviews with Eritrean asylum seekers in Israel, content analysis of Eritrean websites and other online platforms, as well as government and third-sector reports, the article discusses the potential and limitations of the Internet in promoting the struggle of members of the Eritrean diaspora against dictatorship in their homeland, and in enabling them to deal with hardships in their host country. The research reveals three main uses of the Internet by members of the community: social-cultural uses, consumption of news, and anti-government activism. These uses enable the Eritrean diaspora in Israel to create a political sphere that cannot exist outside the web, maintain the cohesiveness of the community, make informed decisions concerning their future, and preserve individual identities.
{"title":"Digital Diaspora","authors":"I. Dubinsky","doi":"10.1163/18725465-bja10002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18725465-bja10002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article examines the cyberactivism of Eritrean asylum seekers in Israel. It adopts the concept of digital diasporas to probe the role that the Internet plays for members of the community. Based on interviews with Eritrean asylum seekers in Israel, content analysis of Eritrean websites and other online platforms, as well as government and third-sector reports, the article discusses the potential and limitations of the Internet in promoting the struggle of members of the Eritrean diaspora against dictatorship in their homeland, and in enabling them to deal with hardships in their host country. The research reveals three main uses of the Internet by members of the community: social-cultural uses, consumption of news, and anti-government activism. These uses enable the Eritrean diaspora in Israel to create a political sphere that cannot exist outside the web, maintain the cohesiveness of the community, make informed decisions concerning their future, and preserve individual identities.","PeriodicalId":42998,"journal":{"name":"African Diaspora","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45344311","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-12-09DOI: 10.1163/18725465-01101009
N. Kleist
In this keyword, I reflect upon African diaspora in a mobilities perspective, exploring analytical and empirical resonance and tensions. Despite the boom of diaspora and mobilities studies in the last decades, research explicitly linking these two literatures is still nascent. Exploring diaspora through a mobilities perspective, I suggest that attention to regimes of mobilities and migratory trajectories can yield important insights. The first perspective highlights how mobility and immobility is governed, facilitated or constrained historically and today, shedding light on the unequal distribution of safe, legal and free (im)mobility for African diaspora groups, whether ‘old’ or ‘new’; the second illuminates the twists and turns of migratory journeys or displacement, bringing attention beyond the host land – homeland axis found in some diaspora studies. Finally, turning the analytical lens around, I dwell upon temporality and belonging in diaspora studies and how they link to mobility, with emphasis on potentiality and elusiveness rather than fixity and stability.
{"title":"Mobility","authors":"N. Kleist","doi":"10.1163/18725465-01101009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18725465-01101009","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this keyword, I reflect upon African diaspora in a mobilities perspective, exploring analytical and empirical resonance and tensions. Despite the boom of diaspora and mobilities studies in the last decades, research explicitly linking these two literatures is still nascent. Exploring diaspora through a mobilities perspective, I suggest that attention to regimes of mobilities and migratory trajectories can yield important insights. The first perspective highlights how mobility and immobility is governed, facilitated or constrained historically and today, shedding light on the unequal distribution of safe, legal and free (im)mobility for African diaspora groups, whether ‘old’ or ‘new’; the second illuminates the twists and turns of migratory journeys or displacement, bringing attention beyond the host land – homeland axis found in some diaspora studies. Finally, turning the analytical lens around, I dwell upon temporality and belonging in diaspora studies and how they link to mobility, with emphasis on potentiality and elusiveness rather than fixity and stability.","PeriodicalId":42998,"journal":{"name":"African Diaspora","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18725465-01101009","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43883115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-12-09DOI: 10.1163/18725465-01101006
Tilmann Heil
Based on my time with im/mobile West Africans in Senegal and Spain since 2007, I propose conviviality to conceptualise the complexity of my interlocutors’ local and diasporic tactics and views of living with difference. Simple everyday encounters such as greeting and dwelling in urban spaces serve to disentangle their various levels of reflection, habitual expectations and tactical action. They had local to global reference frameworks at their disposal. Not pretending to represent their knowledge, I discuss the inspirations I received from trying to understand what they shared with me non/verbally regarding living with difference. To start from this decentred set of premises challenges established Western/Northern politics of living with difference. Through conviviality, I show a distinct way of engaging multiple and overlapping ways of differentiating and homogenising practices and raise awareness for the importance and feasibility of minimal socialities in diasporic configurations, transnational migrations and the respective local urban contexts.
{"title":"Conviviality as Diasporic Knowledge","authors":"Tilmann Heil","doi":"10.1163/18725465-01101006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18725465-01101006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Based on my time with im/mobile West Africans in Senegal and Spain since 2007, I propose conviviality to conceptualise the complexity of my interlocutors’ local and diasporic tactics and views of living with difference. Simple everyday encounters such as greeting and dwelling in urban spaces serve to disentangle their various levels of reflection, habitual expectations and tactical action. They had local to global reference frameworks at their disposal. Not pretending to represent their knowledge, I discuss the inspirations I received from trying to understand what they shared with me non/verbally regarding living with difference. To start from this decentred set of premises challenges established Western/Northern politics of living with difference. Through conviviality, I show a distinct way of engaging multiple and overlapping ways of differentiating and homogenising practices and raise awareness for the importance and feasibility of minimal socialities in diasporic configurations, transnational migrations and the respective local urban contexts.","PeriodicalId":42998,"journal":{"name":"African Diaspora","volume":"11 1","pages":"53-70"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18725465-01101006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49462108","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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