This dissertation examines the involvement of Liberia's religious and diaspora groups in the peace process that ended the 14-year Liberian Civil War (1989-2003). Its aims include determining the extent of, the rationale for, as well as the effects of the involvement of Liberia's religious and diaspora groups in the peacemaking efforts that were undertaken in the course of the Liberian conflict. While findings show that a multiplicity of factors were responsible for the eventual resolution of the protracted conflict, they also reveal that the action of both religious and diaspora actors influenced the trajectory of the conflict and the outcome of the peace process. The religious actors, being the initiators of the Liberian peace process, played such roles as mediators, dialogue facilitators, watchdogs and trustees of the entire process. Although their efforts were mainly influenced by the desire to fulfil the divine mandate to 'tend to the flock', achievable only in a peaceful and stable environment, religious actors' peacemaking roles also presented an opportunity to regain some of the societal influence that organized religion, especially Christianity, enjoyed during the 158 years of minority 'Americo-Liberian' rule. For diaspora actors, whose roles ranged from being founders and sponsors of warring factions, to providing succour to Liberians back home through remittances, and subsequently engaging the peace process, attaining political power through the barrel of the gun or through peaceful means served the same purpose. In achieving the dissertation's aims, a historical analysis of Liberia's socio-political environment is undertaken. Also examined are the roles played by various international, regional and national actors, either as peacemakers or as sponsors of various warring factions engaged in hostilities, as well as relevant theories or paradigms such as Conflict Transformation, Social Capital and Liberal Peace. This empirical study employed the means of qualitative research methods, obtaining primary data through interviews conducted in Liberia, Ghana, the USA and Nigeria.

The current research examines the relationship between the Israeli state and its migrant community in the United States. It argues that under conditions of accelerated globalization, the Israeli state has sought to reach out and re-territorialize its migrants' identities in order to strengthen their territory-based Israeli identity and, ultimately, return them to Israel. Focusing on the role played by cultural practices in the process of reterritorialization - which takes place in newly created extra-territorial spaces - it argues that a new type of transnational contract, namely diasporic citizenship has emerged that defines the relationship between the state and its citizens abroad. Cultural practices from above (state-produced) re-assert migrants' identities as national subjects and include them in the expanding incorporation regime of the Israeli state. At the same time, cultural practices from below (migrants'-produced) have been instrumental in their quest to (re)- imagine themselves as part of a trans-territorial Israeli nation. The research uses the Israel Independence Day Festival in Los Angeles to examine the extent to which it has become an extra-territorial space where state officials and migrants negotiate their often conflicting notions of Israeli culture, identity, and citizenship. It is this continuous process of negotiation, the research concludes that (re)-produces new types of affiliations between the state and its subjects overseas

At the beginning of the twenty first century, thousands of adult Europeans are playing Scotsmen. They dress up in kilts and tartan, parade in military-style bagpipe bands, toss tree trunks at Highland Games, commemorate Scottish soldiers of the past, and re-enact their vision of Scottish history at ‘Celtic’ and medieval fairs. Their largest festivals attract more than 25 000 people each year, and their more elaborate clubs are recognised by Scottish Clan chiefs. The ‘Scots’ of Europe do not usually claim to be Scottish – neither by birth, descent, or residence. Their performances are Scottish masquerades, and openly declared so. Unlike their cousins in North America and Australasia, the European impersonators only very rarely insist that their Scottish performances express their ‘ethnic’ identity. And yet, the European masquerade is a quest for roots and ancestors, too. This study demonstrates that by playing Scotsmen, the ‘Scots’ of Europe attempt to reconnect with their Celtic, Nordic, or otherwise pre-modern heritage. They feel that their own customs, songs, games, and tribes were lost to the forces of modernisation – but that some of it survived in the Scottish periphery. They employ Scotland as a site of memory, as ersatz history. This thesis is a study of European nostalgia. It examines the many men and women who attempt to rediscover their traditions and histories. It is concerned with what Jay Winter calls the ‘memory boom’; the growing public preoccupation with history and its remembrance. It argues that Scotland – or rather, dreams of Scotland – have a special resonance in the European memory boom. This study touches upon the fields of public history, memory, and festive culture. In order to understand how the past is remembered and re-imagined in Europe today, the author left the archive and questioned the commemorators. This study relies on original fieldwork conducted in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Scotland during 2009 and 2010. The thesis’ focus is a qualitative one.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Studies on African nationalism have focused primarily on the role of indigenous African groups and their leaders in the fight for independence and the attainment of nationhood, often excluding non-indigenous groups. This dissertation focuses on the integral role that Indians played in the freedom struggle in Kenya, from 1895-1970. It analyzes the ways in which Indian groups in this East African British colony participated and contributed to the emergent anti-colonial struggle at different points in the colonial period. The study interrogates how African nationalism is conceptualized in scholarship. Traditionally, African nationalism has been cast solely as Black resistance against European colonialism. Thus, the inclusion of a diverse cast of stakeholders from the Indian sub-continent in this study of the anti-colonial movement in Kenya shifts our understanding of the nature and course of the nation-building project. Methodologically, this understanding of the role of diaspora communities in nation-building can be replicated in other independent countries in Africa and elsewhere in the Global South, where the history and contributions of non-indigenous or immigrant populations to the attainment of independence and the construction of (civic) national identity has been understudied. Thus, a focus on the critical role played by Indians in Kenya’s independence, expands our understanding of how ethnic minorities and immigrants have impacted notions of history, citizenship and identity in their host countries. The study analyzed multi-archival materials that were collected in Kenya, Britain, and the United States.

Focusing on Mirpuris and music in Bradford, this doctoral thesis offers an ethnomusicological dimension to continuing debates on multiculturalism in Britain, within the fields of anthropology, sociology and political science. I engage ethnographically with three spaces of Mirpuri music making – the mehfil, the street, and the festival – in order to develop a ground-level perspective on what it means to live in an increasingly diverse society. By paying close attention to intra-communal generational discourses and practices of music, a synchronic picture of multiculturalism is developed that takes into account local, national and transnational histories. I argue that discursive senses of belonging, articulated through and by music, offer alternative and more broadly inclusive insights into what it means to migrate to Britain, what it means to be born in Britain, and, ultimately, what it means to ‘be’ British. Drawing on theories of multiculturalism, music and migration, nationalism and segregation, my broad argument is that an ethnographic map of Mirpuri music making in Bradford provides a more contemporarily relevant picture of multicultural society than one drawn along racial, or religious, lines alone.

A comparative analysis of 100 Kurdish novels (written in Kurmanji dialect) examines how Kurdistan, the homeland of Kurds and Kurdish identity, is constructed within the territory of Turkish Kurdistan and in its diaspora. Stateless, mostly displaced and constantly in movement, Kurds lack a real territorial homeland, yet base their national identity on the notion of Kurdistan as their mythical homeland. Kurdish novelistic discourse suggests that definitions of Kurdish identity and ‘home-land’ are relative, depending on ideology and personal experiences, and that ‘Home’, ‘homeland’ and ‘landscape’ as social constructs, are not static entities but change constantly over time. A humanistic geographical approach sees literature, particularly the novel, as an instrument of geographical inquiry into a society or a nation. Using that model, and employing textual and contextual approaches, the study shows how and why the nation/society is constructed and clarifies the sense of home-land and identity embedded in the texts. The novelistic discourse in which ‘home-land’ becomes an ideological construct is mainly shaped by the political views of the novelists. However, compared to the novelistic discourse in Turkish Kurdistan, the Kurdish diaspora novelists have gathered around more diverse ideologies and politics that have led to diverse ‘home-land’ images. The novelistic discourse in Turkish Kurdistan also offers more nostalgic elements whereas diaspora theorists and scholars had identified these as exclusive to the literary works in exile. It can be concluded that feelings of nostalgia are invoked as much by the reality of living in fragmented territory and in a situation of statelessness, oppression and domination, as they are when living at a distance, removed from such experiences. In other words, although living in home territories, the literary characters still experience a sense of migration and detachment from home, which is infused with alienation and loneliness as if they are physically away from their homeland.

Many Black scholars have researched and written about their experiences as Black students at a Predominantly White Institution (PWI). Most of their successes were built on the support they received from their families and friends. More importantly, their personal commitment to being numbered as successful Black students was the impetus for which they were willing to challenge the paradigm that Blacks can indeed succeed in higher education. As a Black Caribbean Diaspora student enrolled at a PWI, I have experienced what it is like to be Black through purposeful living, education, leadership and a divine plan. I have also utilized my Black identity as a vehicle to garner success amidst the challenges I faced being the only Black in academia, readjusting to college life and discovering my own Blackness. It is with this backdrop that I use the Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) methodology to write this dissertation and highlight my experience as a Black Caribbean student at a PWI. The research and stories explored during this dissertation were examined through several questions: What is the experience of a Black Caribbean Diaspora student who carries multiple identities at a PWI? What differs, separates, divides, as well as unites, the Black Diaspora students from a racial perspective? How can PWIs communicate confidence in the ability of Black students and engage them in the campus and its academic life regardless of their racial identity? How can Black Diaspora students be retained to successfully achieve a college degree? Additionally, this dissertation focuses on a myriad of experiences and stories from other Black Diaspora students who are from different ethnic backgrounds. This helps to support and answer some of the posed research questions. This SPN methodology includes a literature review on topics of Black Identity Development (Cross, 1978, 1972, 1971), Colorism (Harris, 2009; Reid-Salmon, 2008), and Critical Race Theory (Cole, 2009; Collins, 2007; Roithmayr 1999; West, 1993). Several themes emerged that aligned with my personal narrative and that of my Black Diaspora peers. These included parental involvement, integrative model of parenting (Darling and Steinberg‟s 1993), leadership supported by the African proverb, “it takes a village to raise a child,” and purposeful living where faith for a Black Diaspora student is central to their survival. A number of recommendations for how faculty and staff at PWIs can support Black Diaspora students in their educational attainment emerged: recognizing and acknowledging the differences among Black students; supporting, imparting, accepting and encouraging Black students in their education; and reorienting faculty and administrators in matters of race so as to understand Black Diaspora students. My personal narrative further elucidates and universalizes the notion that Black students can be successful in higher education despite the odds that are sometimes against them.

Gurus claim that they are able to act as mediators to put disciples on the path of spiritual development in diaspora. This study aims to investigate this claim, researching the hypothesis ‘that changing cultural environments in the United Kingdom, compared to those of the Indian sub-continent, requires a different model of the guru-chela (guru-disciple), relationship?’ In effect it seeks to test the differences, based on the stability and sustainability of the relationship in diaspora? This claim was endorsed by psychotherapist, J S Neki (1973), in a meeting in America and was published in The Journal of Ortho-psychiatry Volume 3. It discusses the possibility of the ‘guru-chela (disciple) relations’ acting as a model for ‘therapeutic care for the Hindu patient in diaspora.’ This research aims to examine critically the effectiveness of the guru-disciple relationship in light of changes the gurus have made in the delivery and quality of instructions they provide and the changes in the disciples’ aspirations in the new environment. The study investigates the meeting ground for science-based western psychotherapy and intuition-based spirituality. Both subjects deal with pastoral care components for their respective respondents, but are diametrically opposed in their approaches. The research sample in the study, are taken from Leicester, where the researcher is based, as the area provides a diverse group in the Heart of Hindu England, through which to examine the guru-disciple phenomena in diaspora.

This study is a comprehensive attempt to grapple with diasporic Palestinianness in Santiago de Chile. Based on long-term fieldwork from 2013 to 2014 within Palestinian-Chilean networks, organizations, and places it explores how an inherently political Palestinianness is constituted, expressed and explored via memory on the one hand and processes related to space and place on the other. Palestinianness is employed here as a concept that captures all that goes into maintaining a Palestinian presence in Santiago. Rather than a fixed category, Palestinianness is something that works and is worked upon in ways that are inseparable from, in this case, the context of lived life in the Chilean capital. It is a host of experiences and practices that cannot be neatly separated, but that are constantly weaved together in steadily recurrent, but sometimes disruptive and surprising patterns. By interrogating Palestinianness within the distinct context of present-day Santiago, the thesis unsettles and reconfigures conceptualizations of the relationship between memory, space, and politics. It does so by delving into the ambiguities at play in Palestinian-Chilean relationships to the often uncomfortable memory politics of post-dictatorship and the ongoing Palestinian struggle respectively. To shed light on the dynamics at play, transmemory is introduced as a concept that seeks to capture the spatial and spatially mobile qualities of memory. The thesis argues that by engaging with traveling memories of life and conflict in the old land and simultaneously rejecting involvement with continuously troubling memories of the recent Chilean past, Palestinian-Chileans form a collective politics of Palestinianness that is nonetheless distinctly marked by an inescapable Chileanness.