This study investigated the construction and maintenance of Palestinian identity in diaspora. It provided a synopsis of the political and cultural meanings behind concepts such as home, identity, diaspora, hybridity, culture and visions of return. The dissertation yielded the way in discovering the meaning of place/homeland in relation to Palestinian diasporic identity in the city of Chicago, U.S.A. Further, the study examined the relationship between diaspora and identity construction among Palestinians living in Chicago and how the concept of identity is seen as multilayered. This study also looked at differences in relation to identity construction and maintenance across generational lines. To achieve the primary purpose of this study, I utilized a multi-method qualitative research approach to data collection. The qualitative data includes findings from thirty personal in-depth interviews and five focus group interviews. I interviewed members of the Palestinian community in Chicago who belong to the same culture I belong to. Being Palestinian myself granted me a privileged positioning as an insider within this particular community. The data collected from these interviews included personal reflections, narratives and historical memories. After listening to the narratives of the participants and after a careful translation and transcription of the data, several themes emerged. These themes are: The role of collective memory, the role of culture and communication, family and kinship diaspora and identity construction, meaning of homeland, transient lives and hybrid identities, notions of assimilation/integration, language, religion, notions of home and return, globalization and diaspora, and local and global media. Overall, the data revealed that there are differences between Palestinian communities in Chicago with regard to their identity construction/maintenance in terms of gender, age, their first home of refuge, and their educational and cultural background. The data also showed that the younger generation in diaspora are living in two worlds, two cultural systems and two identities: Palestinian and U.S. American. Data also revealed that the identity of the younger generation in diaspora is never purely Palestinian nor is it a hundred percent U.S. American.

No description available.

This thesis examines the transformation of “homeland” and “otherness” as well as the relationship between each other in The Lost Daughter of Happiness （扶桑 Fusang). I begin by exploring how the migration of Chinese to the United States is depicted as an endless trajectory in the story through a historical engagement and a dialogue between two generations. From there, I plan to point out that the story complicates the meaning of diaspora as it can not only represent a spatial dislocation, but also a temporal dislocation. Thus, I argue that it destabilizes the conventional ideology which refers “homeland” to a singular location. Contrary to “settle land”, the earlier conceptualization of “homeland” is translated by some scholars into a felicitous space of living for migrants. Reading The Lost Daughter of Happiness, we can find new dimensions and transformations of home. The old conceptualization of “homeland” is reversed not as a singular location, but rather as a process of (be-)coming a felicitous space of living for diasporic subjects: it is not a fixed location anymore. Next, I explore how the out-of-border movement breeds a process of foreignization According to Kristeva, diasporans who bear foreignness must learn how to “live with the others, to live as others.”[1] I will analyze how Yan Geling invokes the portrayal of a Chinese prostitute as representative of “other” in order to deliver the philosophy of survival of diasporic Chinese females. I argue that it is the marginality of prostitute in a society-as an outsider from the mainstream culture, that builds up Fusang’s transgressive ability to survive. Being a cultural outsider, or “live as others”, according to Kristeva, is “a foreigner’s shield” for one’s cultural identity. As an outsider, Fusang is able to cross over any given borders, simultaneously being inside and outside of the culture. Thus, the story denies any inherited modes of diasporic Chinese prostitutes for the articulation of their identities, which challenges the pure culturalism and nationalism. Last, the presence of outsider in this story becomes a tool for Yan Geling to deliberately illustrate the cultural difference through her protagonists. I argue that Yan Geling has a straightforward recognition of “otherness” and an explicit awareness of “foreignness” in this story, so she uses some Orientalist gestures to demonstrate the cultural difference. I examine an example about the technology of human disposal mentioned in the plot and analyze how it is used to highlight the cultural difference of diasporic subjects. My goal is to seek a better understanding of the construction of home identity in The Lost Daughter of Happiness by examining the recognition and representation of culture particularities and difference within the story. Also, I attempt to provide a new interpretation of Fusang by analyzing her identity not only as a prostitute but also as a diasporic Chinese.

This thesis explores the relationship between development representations and diaspora audiences. It brings together literature on representations, with concepts of audience, diaspora and identity to provide an in-depth study of how and with what effects, visual representations of development in NGO fundraising campaigning that depict Africa, impact on Nigerian diaspora audiences. This study challenges the tendency in much of development literature in this field to homogenise British audiences of NGO communication. This has imagined audiences as some form of monocultural Western-situated community, coextensive with the 'general' British public. It further assumes audiences read, interpret and are impacted by NGO representations in very similar ways. This assumption precludes critical engagement with the complexities and particularities of audiences and is unable to reflect the multiple and differentiated ways in which audiences think, feel and behave in response to development representations. By using focus group discussions with UK Nigerian diaspora audiences, one-to-one interviews and online-ethnography as the methodological tool, and postcolonialism as an analytical framing, this thesis reveals the complex and contested ways that individual diaspora subjectivities, positionalities and life experiences are implicated in their construal of development representations and the perspicuity of their impact. One of the key findings of this study is that development representations impact African diaspora audiences in diverse and complicated ways, that both reproduce and contradict negative and, stereotypical 'ways of seeing' and knowing Africa. Furthermore, it highlights how diaspora ethno-racial/cultural identities affect, and are implicated in, the reading and interpretation of development representations of Africa. Indeed, diaspora audiences affirm and challenge their connections or, lack thereof, with their country of origin through these representations. Moreover, the study shows how NGO development representations provide symbolic spaces from which diaspora audiences can articulate their identities as well as, forge relationships among themselves and with their wider communities. This study builds on Stuart Hall's ([1973]1980) Encoding/Decoding theorisation on audiences, by demonstrating that Nigerian diaspora audiences of development representations are sophisticated, varied and paradoxical in how they interpret and decipher media representations. Indeed, their socio-cultural positioning, personal histories and lived-experiences inform and shape how they discursively construct perceptions and knowledge of their place of origin through representations. Furthermore, it contributes to postcolonial theorisations of hybridity in diaspora identities, by showing that Nigerians strategically adopt new and preferential ethnosymbolic identities, in response to representations. These re-configurations of the Diaspora 'Self' are neither stable or consistent but are nonetheless utilised by Nigerians to subvert development representations and harmful public perceptions and stereotypes about Africans that they shape.

The net has become a widely used means of information and communication within the academic community and beyond. After the glimpse into German-speaking universities with Swahili studies, and the fascinating Kamusi project hosted by Yale University in our last number, we will plunge fully into life this time. There are several Tanzanian and Kenyan newspapers on the net now, most of them offered for free, some requiring subscription. One can find out about radio programs, the time they are being broadcast. Most of the radio stations offer to listen to the program in RealAudio. Students from East-Africa in the USA or in Canada maintain their own sites and offer information on their countries and culture, and many links to other sites related to Swahili language and culture. Johannes Fabian and Vincent de Rooij of the University of Amsterdam are in the process of setting up an internet journal on popular culture in Africa, Swahili texts being a special area of interest.

Thesis advisor: Hans deWit / Ethiopia has long been affected by the out flow of its educated citizens. In major host countries, like the United States, the Ethiopian diaspora constitutes a considerable number of highly educated professionals, including those who work in academic and research institutions. Meanwhile, the fast-growing Ethiopian higher education severely suffers from lack of highly qualified faculty. In recent years members of the Ethiopian academic diaspora have been engaged in various initiatives towards supporting the emerging Ethiopian higher education. Yet, these initiatives have been fragmented, individually carried out, and challenged by the lack of a systemic approach, among other things. Further, there are only few studies examining diaspora engagement in the Ethiopian context, much less specific to higher education. The purpose of this research is, therefore, to offer deeper insight into the formation and implementation of transnational engagement initiatives by the Ethiopian academic diaspora. The research explores the motivation for and the modalities of engagement, as well as the enabling and challenging factors. This study employs phenomenological approach and Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice as a lens to analyze data from in-depth interviews with 16 Ethiopian diaspora academics in the US. The research departs from previous works by examining the issues from the perspectives of those who have first-hand experience of the phenomenon. Its findings reveal that transnational engagement among academic diaspora is shaped by complex and multi-layer personal, institutional and broader environmental factors, which transcend common considerations in addressing brain drain. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

The control of the eritrean refugees and the diaspora-tax in SwedenThe purpose of this thesis was to study how the Eritrean government successfully mobilizedand extracted the 2% tax from the diaspora that left the country in protest of its governance.The chosen group of the diaspora, has been the eritreans who left Eritrea after the politicalcrisis in 2001 and currently live in Sweden. Twelve semi-structured interviews wereconducted and the material was analyzed with the theoretical framework of transnationalism.The empirical findings were analyzed with a thematic analysis where three themes wereidentified. The study showed that the Eritrean government controls the diaspora by usingdifferent tools and threats to silence them and to contribute with taxes. The members of thediaspora who are not able to meet the requirements of the government including paying thediaspora tax, are perceived as traitors. Furthermore, they are isolated and live under constantpressure in an insecure environment, while those who contribute with taxes are seen asheroes. Additionally, the government has implemented trust issues among diaspora inSweden, where some members work by reporting to the embassy in order to earn respect andbetter services.

Diplomacy has been changing and evolving for some time now. Diplomacy has gone public and new types of diplomacy and diplomatic tools have emerged. The number of actors has pluralised. The emergence of new technologies, like social media, also offers a new addition on how diplomacy is being conducted. However, a far less discussed diplomatic tool is diaspora. The diaspora of a country can also be used to conduct diplomacy. “Both ‘diaspora’ and ‘diplomacy’ are concepts that have undergone considerable expansion in recent years, marking a shift away from understanding diaspora as a descriptive category and diplomacy as the practice of state officials respectively” (Ho & McConnell, 2017, p. 15). The study aims to gain a better understanding of how the diaspora of a country can be used as a diplomatic tool in the world of ‘New Diplomacy’. The theoretical framework builds upon the notions of New Diplomacy, Diaspora Studies and the existing pre-understanding of Diaspora Diplomacy. The study pursues a qualitative research approach by means of a Comparative Case Study conducted with the method of Most-Similar Case Comparison. The two cases analysed are those of Greece and Ireland, in which the former is identified as the case facing challenges in relation to modern-day diaspora diplomacy, while the latter is identified as a successful case. The research uses both primary and secondary data. The secondary data was collected by means of the empirical research method of Participant Observation. The researcher identified four independent variables in order to explain the dependent variable which is ‘Successful Diaspora Diplomacy’. Three independent variables, ‘Nature of their diaspora’, ‘Recent socio-economic developments’ and ‘Structure of ministry of foreign affairs & the position of the diaspora unit within it’ were concluded to be too similar among the two countries in order to explain the difference in successfulness of their diaspora diplomacy. The analysis conducted indicated that the fourth independent variable ‘New Diplomacy-Culture’, however, was significantly different among the two cases and leads to an explanation of the difference in the outcome. The findings of this research indicated that a ‘New Diplomacy-Culture’ should incorporate the following characteristics and initiatives: a concrete diaspora strategy; individual initiatives all need to be linked to the strategy, but at the same time be tailor-made for the different types of diaspora members; all actions need to be monitored and evaluated; and technology needs to be utilised. Furthermore, governments should adopt a facilitating role instead of an implementing role. Knowledge sharing and access to networks constitute two of the main benefits that a country can achieve through Diaspora Diplomacy. In general, new diplomacy initiatives are not sufficient for achieving successful diaspora diplomacy if foreign ministries do not adopt a new diplomacy mentality as a whole. Countries should focus on communication, cooperation and a culture of openness, flexibility and transparency. In New Diplomacy the notion that citizens play a more prominent role than they used to in the past, is central. This idea can be expanded to include diasporas as well. Furthermore, not only should New Diplomacy include diaspora, but also the other way around; in order for Diaspora Diplomacy to be successful, it should include New Diplomacy in its practices. This brings us to the conceptualisation of a new subfield of New Diplomacy and Diaspora Diplomacy, that of New Diaspora Diplomacy. New Diaspora Diplomacy is Diaspora Diplomacy that incorporates a high degree of elements of 21st century’s New Diplomacy, in order to successfully achieve diaspora engagement on contemporary issues of strategical importance.

The net has become a widely used means of information and communication within the academic community and beyond. After the glimpse into German-speaking universities with Swahili studies, and the fascinating Kamusi project hosted by Yale University in our last number, we will plunge fully into life this time. There are several Tanzanian and Kenyan newspapers on the net now, most of them offered for free, some requiring subscription. One can find out about radio programs, the time they are being broadcast. Most of the radio stations offer to listen to the program in RealAudio. Students from East-Africa in the USA or in Canada maintain their own sites and offer information on their countries and culture, and many links to other sites related to Swahili language and culture. Johannes Fabian and Vincent de Rooij of the University of Amsterdam are in the process of setting up an internet journal on popular culture in Africa, Swahili texts being a special area of interest.

Yes / This working paper deals with the nexus of diaspora communities living in European host countries, specifically in Germany, and the transformation of protracted violent conflicts in a number of home countries, including Sri Lanka, Cyprus, Somalia and Afghanistan. Firstly, the political and social role and importance of diaspora communities vis-à-vis their home and host countries is discussed, given the fact that the majority of immigrants to Germany, as well as to many other European countries, over the last ten years have come from countries with protracted civil wars and have thus had to apply for refugee or asylum status. One guiding question, then, is to what extent these groups can contribute politically and economically to supporting conflict transformation in their countries of origin. Secondly, the role and potentials of diaspora communities originating from countries with protracted violent conflicts for fostering conflict transformation activities are outlined. Thirdly, the current conflict situation in Sri Lanka is analyzed and a detailed overview of the structures and key organizations of the Tamil and Sinhalese diaspora worldwide is given. The structural potentials and levels for constructive intervention for working on conflict in Sri Lanka through the diasporas are then described. Fourthly, the socio-political roles of diaspora communities originating from Cyprus, Palestine, Somalia and Afghanistan for peacebuilding and rehabilitation in their home countries are discussed. The article finishes by drawing two conclusions. Firstly, it recommends the further development of domestic migration policies in Europe in light of current global challenges. Secondly, it points out that changes in foreign and development policies are crucial to make better use of the immense potential of diaspora communities for conflict transformation initiatives and development activities in their home countries. How this can best be achieved in practice should be clarified further through intensified action research and the launch of more pilot projects.