Diasporas Reimagined Spaces, Practices and Belonging Edited by Nando Sigona, Alan Gamlen, Giulia Liberatore and Hélène Neveu Kringelbach III Published by the Oxford Diasporas Programme Oxford Department of International Development 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB, UK Email: [email protected] www.migration.ox.ac.uk/odp The Oxford Diasporas Programme is funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Grant number F/08 000/H ©Oxford Diasporas Programme 2015 Cover illustration ©Alpha Abebe This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ ISBN 978-1-907271-08-3 Designed and set by Advocate design agency www.advocatedesign.co.uk Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY Although every precaution has been taken with this book, the publisher and authors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of this information contained herein. IV Acknowledgements We would like to thank the following people for their invaluable support and feedback throughout different phases of the development of this collection. At the International Migration Institute, we are extremely grateful to Sally Kingsborough for having shepherded a very busy and dispersed motley crew of editors and contributors through most of the editorial process, to Jenny Peebles who took the baton with great competence and dedication in the final stage of preparation of the manuscript and led us through the production stage, and to Claire Fletcher for editorial assistance. Thank you also to our designer Mark Epton, who worked with us to very tight deadlines, and to Alpha Abebe for providing us with our cover image. Many thanks to our Oxford Diasporas Programme colleagues and to all contributors to this collection who promptly accepted our invitation to contribute to the volume and generously shared their ideas and insights on diaspora with us. Finally, we would like to thank the Leverhulme Trust for generously funding the Oxford Diasporas Programme and Robin Cohen for contributing the Foreword to this volume and his generosity and wisdom as colleague, mentor and Principal Investigator of ODP. V VI Contents Notes on contributors xii Foreword By Robin Cohen XV Introduction By Nando Sigona, Alan Gamlen, Giulia Liberatore and Hélène Neveu Kringelbach XVII Metaphors, concepts, genealogies and images 1 Seeds, roots, rhizomes and epiphytes: botany and diaspora By Robin Cohen 2 The loss and the link: a short history of the long-term word ‘diaspora’ By Stéphane Dufoix 8 Network By Sondra L. Hausner 12 The sinews of empire in the world of modern warfare By Vron Ware 14 Points of origin: a visual and narrative journey By Alpha Abebe and Jyotsana Saha 19 Spheres of diaspora engagement By Nicholas Van Hear 32 VII Belonging: imagining and remaking home 36 Cultures of translation: East London, diaspora space and an imagined cosmopolitan tradition By Ben Gidley 37 Living with difference locally, comparing transnationally: conviviality in Catalonia à la Casamance By Tilmann Heil 41 Making a Kurdistani identity in diaspora: Kurdish migrants in Sweden By Barzoo Eliassi 45 African migrants at home in Britain: diasporas, belonging and identity By Naluwembe Binaisa 50 Dimensions and dynamics of the Gambian diaspora in the digital age By Sylvia Chant 54 Ambitious cultural polyglots: Kenyan Pentecostals in London By Leslie Fesenmyer 66 Dreaming of the mountain, longing for the sea, living with floating roots: diasporic ‘return’ migration in post-Soviet Armenia By Nanor Karageozian 69 Diaspora youth and British young men of colour By Linda McDowell, Esther Rootham and Abby Hardgrove 74 Associational profusion and multiple belonging: diaspora Nepalis in the UK By David N. Gellner 78 A diaspora-for-others: Hadramis in the world By Iain Walker 83 VIII Spaces, networks and practices 87 Creolization, diaspora and carnival: living with diversity in the past and present By Olivia Sheringham 88 Malian traders in the Senegalese capital By Gunvor Jónsson 92 The Indigent Moslems Burial Fund By Nazneen Ahmed 96 Strangers and diasporas in Lusaka By Oliver Bakewell 100 The ‘diasporas’ of Little Mogadishu By Neil Carrier 104 Fitting in by being yourself: Avenues Unlimited and youth work in the East End c. 1960s–2000s By Eve Colpus 108 Diasporic devotions and bodies in motion By Alana Harris 112 Divergences and convergences between diaspora and home: the Somaliland diaspora in the UK By Giulia Liberatore 116 Architectural associations: memory, modernity and the construction of community in East London By Jane Garnett 122 Parallel lives and scattered families: European immigration rules and transnational family practices between Africa and Europe By Hélène Neveu Kringelbach 131 IX Transnational school-based networks: diaspora, mobilities, and belonging By Mette Louise Berg 136 New ICT and mobility in Africa By Mirjam de Bruijn 140 Life in refuge: across Rwanda’s camps and Uganda’s settlements By Patrycja Stys 146 Roma, statelessness and Yugo-nostalgia By Nando Sigona 160 Governance and mobilisation: old and new actors 165 The rise of diaspora institutions By Alan Gamlen 166 The animators: how diasporas mobilise to contest authoritarian states By Alexander Betts and William Jones 172 Comparing and theorising state–diaspora relations By Alexandra Délano and Alan Gamlen 176 Disaggregating diasporas as actors By Carolin Fischer 180 From native informant to diasporic activist: the gendered politics of empire By Sunera Thobani 185 ‘Know your diaspora!’: knowledge production and governing capacity in the context of Latvian diaspora politics By Dace Dzenovska 190 The stateless speak back: Palestinian narratives of home(land) By Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh 194 X Diaspora as anti-politics: the case of Rwanda By William Jones 199 The Jewish diaspora and Israel: problems of a relationship since the Gaza wars By William Safran 202 Stalemate in the Armenian genocide debate: the role of identity in Turkish diasporic political engagement By Cameron Thibos 207 Shifting forms of diaspora engagement among the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora By Nicholas Van Hear and Giulia Liberatore 211 Weapons of knowledge construction: the Afghan-American diaspora and counterinsurgency in Afghanistan By Morwari Zafar 217 Endnotes 222 References 225 XI Notes on contributors Alpha Abebe is DPhil Candidate, Department of International Development, University of Oxford Nazneen Ahmed is Research Associate, ‘Making Faith in Suburbia: Design, Material Culture and Popular Creativity in Suburban Faith Communities’, Department of Geography, University College London Oliver Bakewell is Director of the International Migration Institute, University of Oxford Mette Louise Berg is Lecturer in the Anthropology of Migration at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology (ISCA), and the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), University of Oxford Alexander Betts is Director of the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford Naluwembe Binaisa is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity Neil Carrier is Evans-Pritchard Lecturer in African Anthropology, University of Oxford Sylvia Chant is Professor of Development Geography and Director of the MSc in Urbanisation and Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science Robin Cohen is Emeritus Professor of Development Studies, University of Oxford and Principal Investigator on the Oxford Diasporas Programme Eve Colpus is Lecturer in British & European History post 1850, University of Southampton Mirjam de Bruijn is Professor of African Studies, History Institute, Leiden University and African Studies Centre Leiden Alexandra Délano is Assistant Professor of Global Studies and co- director of the Zolberg Institute for International Migration at The New School Stéphane Dufoix is Professor of Sociology at the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre (Sophiapol Research Unit) Dace Dzenovska is Associate Professor in the Anthropology of XII Migration at ISCA/COMPAS, University of Oxford Barzoo Eliassi is Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Linnaeus University and an affiliated researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University and at the Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society FORTE Center of Excellence (REMESO) at Linköping University Leslie Fesenmyer is ESRC Future Research Leaders Fellow at COMPAS, University of Oxford Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh is Lecturer in Human Geography at University College London Carolin Fischer is Postdoctoral Researcher, Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland Alan Gamlen is Senior Lecturer, Victoria University of Wellington and Research Associate, University of Oxford Jane Garnett is Fellow and Tutor in History at Wadham College, University of Oxford David N. Gellner is Professor of Social Anthropology and Fellow of All Souls College, University of Oxford Ben Gidley is Senior Lecturer in Pyschosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London Abby Hardgrove is Visiting Research Associate at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford, and a Program Leader for ‘Thinking Beyond Borders’ Alana Harris teaches in the Department of History at King’s College London Sondra L. Hausner is Associate Professor in the Study of Religion, University of Oxford, and Fellow and Tutor in the Study of Religion, St. Peter’s College Tilmann Heil is Researcher and Scientific Coordinator,