abstract: In 2016, the United Nations reported a historical high of 65.6 million globally displaced people. Within the current protectionist and isolationist climate, the U.S is accepting a fewer number of refugees for resettlement than ever before and less governmental funding is being allocated to resettlement organizations, which provide support services for refugee resettlement and integration. Increased migration and the advancement of communication technologies with affordable access to these technologies have produced extensive communication networks and complex relational ties across the globe. While this is certainly true of all migrants, building and maintaining relational ties has added complexity for refugees whose journey to resettlement, economic insecurity, political disenfranchisement, and vulnerability impact the motivating factors for digital engagement. This dissertation seeks to understand to what extent Diminescu’s (2008) concept of the connected migrant addresses the lived experience of resettled refugees in Phoenix, Arizona. The connected migrant through Information Communication Technology (ICT) use maintains transnational and local networks that produce mobility and belonging. Connected migrants are able to produce and maintain socio-technical sociality abroad and in the country of settlement to create and access social capital and resources. Using a grounded theory approach and qualitative methods, this research project explores concepts of mobility, connectivity, and belonging in relation to resettled refugees. The research indicates that age, imagined affordances, digital literacy, language, and time moderate connectivity, belonging, and mobility for resettled refugees. Finally, I offer the concept of transnational contextual relationality to understand refugee communication strategies with the transnational and local network. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Communication Studies 2019

According to the World Bank’s (2019) latest Migration and Development Brief, remittances to low and middle-income countries reached a record high in 2018. This study examines Swedish migrants’ motives behind remittances and their experience with the social and economic impact of sending remittances. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to a research-based study on Swedish-migrants’ remittances practice since Sweden lacks research about remittances. We have conducted eight semi-structured interviews with Somali and Iraqi migrants to understand their motives and experience with remittances. The results are analyzed with theories such as Lucas and Stark’s altruism, self-interest, and tempered altruism, or enlightened self-interest, as well as transnationalism. We have also analyzed the results with the social exclusion concept to understand the migrants' experience in the host country in relation to remittances. In our study, we found that the respondents’ social and cultural resources were limited. Our interviewees were socially and economically impacted by sending remittances. They are in a state where their economy is limited because of sending remittances, which makes it hard for them to maintain a certain social presence in the host country, due to their lack of free time. They do not have the same opportunities as non-migrants in Swedish society, because they prioritize work and providing for their families in Sweden and the homeland. The respondents are living in two worlds where they are keeping their transnational ties with the origin country and therefore, they are comparing their living standards with families and relatives in the home country. This prevents them from seeing or identifying themselves as socially excluded individuals of the host country. They perceive themselves as socially excluded when it comes to their economic situation, however, in general, they see themselves as socially included as they learned the language, got an education, work, provide for their families, etc.

In this dissertation, I explore how crossing national borders has made me aware of the many identity borders that I have crossed as a transnational Chinese, and how I am caught up in identity politics between the “Chinese,” who do not necessarily always identify as “Chinese” in the transnational context. However, as a racialized group in the U.S., transnational Chinese are perceived as a homogeneous population, usually through racially (“Yellow Peril” or “Chinese Virus”) and politically (“Red Scare”) charged lenses measured by Western/U.S. binaristic and hierarchical standards. Therefore, in this research project, I problematize dominant U.S. race logic, i.e., the White/Non-White binary, for its limited capabilities of understanding and explaining identity, communication, culture, and power in an increasingly interconnected world; and I also call for an alternative theorizing of race and identity in the transnational context. Border crossings within the conditions of contemporary globalization have intensified interconnectivities and complicated how we comprehend and communicate our identities. It thus becomes essential to find ways to “unsettle and restage” racial and cultural differences in the context of globalization (Shome & Hegde, 2002a, p. 174-5). With a different skin color, speaking English with a foreign accent while being perceived as “Model Minorities,” transnational Chinese have lately been ascribed with another pathologized identity label: “Chinese Virus,” which may be understood as an extension of the “Yellow Peril” rhetoric. Furthermore, within the Chinese communities, due to historical reasons, colonialism, political unrest, and civil war, many Taiwanese and Hong Kongers identify themselves very differently from mainland Chinese. When crossing borders to live together in the U.S., the identity tensions among Chinese ethnicities in addition to the interracial confrontations between transnational Chinese and local racial groups only make understanding what it means to be Chinese on the racial landscape of the U.S. even more complex.I weave together Yep’s (2010) notion of thick(er) intersectionalities and Kraidy’s (2005) description of transnationalism to build my conceptual framework. On the one hand, thick(er) intersectionalities advocates for more complex and embodied ways of theorizing intersectional identities and “the interplay between individual subjectivity, personal agency, systemic arrangements, and structural forces” (p. 173). On the other, transnationalism helps make sense of transnational identities with “a shifting location of contradictions that straddles multiple viewpoints,” which cannot be defined “in binary and essentialist terms” (Bardhan & Zhang, 2017, p. 288). I thus examine why an in-depth, transnational understanding of Chinese identity is necessary and how to move toward such an understanding, including that of racial, cultural, linguistic, and political identities of transnational Chinese living in the U.S., especially in the context of the current trade tensions between the U.S. and China, two nations tightly connected economically while largely differing culturally and politically.Methodologically, I employ a mixed-method approach by applying autoethnography and in-depth interview as my primary research methods. The dissertation mainly addresses three research questions through a communicative lens: 1) What does it mean to live in the U.S. as transnational Chinese? 2) How do transnational Chinese make sense of Chinese-ness(es) in such a context? 3) What is at stake in understanding Chinese-ness in a transnational context that necessitates an alternative theorization of race to the dominant/White U.S. race ideology? The findings show that there is no singular definition of what Chinese-ness(es) is(are) and what it(they) entail(s). It is a thick and fluid concept that is unique to each transnational Chinese based on their lived experiences and subjected to their own understandings while also constrained in the larger social framework by Chinese and U.S. cultural scripts and contexts. Chinese-ness, to transnational Chinese, cannot be compartmentalized in the limited identity categories specific to either cultural context. Being exposed to a broader world with multiple cultural references, they are flexible enough to creatively identify, dis-identify, or even counter-identify with either their avowed identities, or ascribed identities, or both in either or both cultural contexts. The complexities, specificities, and particularities of their transnational identity experiences, thus, cannot be adequately understood within the confines of simple intersections of U.S.-centric identity categories. I conclude that Chinese-ness(es) is local and global, racial and ethnic, cultural and political, and spatial and temporal. There is no such thing as a singular, uniform Chinese-ness. Not even in the imaginary. This study may contribute to critical intercultural communication scholarship by situating knowledge of race, identity, and power in a very specific and complex context that includes the U.S. but is transnational in scope. Further, with an aim to provincialize dominant U.S. race logic, it makes an effort to transnationalize and internationalize theorizing of race and identity. Finally, speaking in a voice from a non-Western perspective currently situated in the West, I practice self-reflexivity throughout my writing with the hope of avoiding re-essentializing identity, race, and power in a covert “oppressor-oppressed” Manichean dualism that I attempt to deconstruct.

Transnationalism as a theory has explained the causal nature of migration over time, against the backdrop of an ever-changing globalised world. The movement of people and their motivating factors have been deeply researched within migration literature and other surrounding fields. However, the intricacies of transnationalism among migrants have remained fairly unexplored, with little being written specifically on the topic of intersecting identities and othering experienced by transnational migrants. In South Africa, xenophobia has been a strong issue connected to migrants, whereby those from other African countries face discrimination based on their nationality, ethnicity, and economic disparities. However, there is a dearth in understanding how othering as a concept manifests beyond the overt forms of violence, and how it links to systemic forms of exclusion. The term ‘West-a-phobia' explores a more specific phenomenon of xenophobia, whereby West African migrants living in South Africa face discrimination based on specific national, cultural, and economic characteristics of their identity. By using this concept, and by providing the historical context of othering, this dissertation explores transnational identities through unpacking concepts such as ‘othering', ‘transnationalism', ‘identity', and critiquing the nationstate. A qualitative approach was implemented by interviewing six respondents residing in Cape Town and Stellenbosch, South Africa. Respondents' contributions were collected via online response sheets and face-to-face interviews from August to November 2019. This was followed by critical analysis and concluded with evidence-based nuances surrounding the intersecting tenets of the aforementioned concepts. The key findings from this study conclude that West African migrants that have lived in South Africa over a certain period of time experience a lack of cohesion and integration into society. This takes place through processes of othering through physical differentiation and cultural characteristics. Furthermore, West African migrants maintain a connection to their country of origin through engaging in what Crush and MacDonald (2000) characterises as transnational activities. Finally, this study concludes that there are stratified layers to the conceptualisation of citizenship, and that the qualitative research done corroborates with certain aspects of transnationalism theory.

The themes of empire, nationality, and self-imposed exile constitute underexplored topics in critical discussions of modernist author Malcolm Lowry (1909-1957). Until recently, most academic studies have approached his work from biographical, mythological, and psychoanalytic perspectives. While a few studies have performed historical readings of his novels, such investigations tend, primarily, to focus on his engagement with western literary and theoretical movements of the early twentieth century. Of the few studies that address the cross-cultural reach of his novels, most are limited to discussions of Mexican history and traditions, thus prioritizing a specific geographical region when they might, instead, illuminate the author’s career-long engagement with cultural developments on a world scale—historical realignments triggered by wartime anxieties and the impending dissolution of the British Empire. Employing an interpretive framework that synthesizes postcolonial theory, cultural anthropology, and contemporary theories of the transnational, I demonstrate how the exile-heroes of three of Lowry’s novels—Ultramarine (1933), Under the Volcano (1947), and Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid (1968)—struggle to navigate the experience of social liminality, dramatizing, in the process, an increasingly fraught relationship between English expatriates and imperial models of English national identity. Rejecting the well-known mythical hero’s cyclical quest, so often culminating in a triumphant return to society, the Lowrian exile-hero, instead, remains in a liminal state, emblematizing, through persistent cultural questioning, a transnational concept of identity that resists institutionally prescribed models of thought and behavior.

This thesis explores the perceptions of illness and healing among the Congolese diaspora in Boston and Lynn, MA, and within the contexts of migration and transnationalism. With this thesis, I argue that the Congolese who participated in this study perceive illness as social suffering, and healing as the consolidation of the self. Participants express their perceptions of illness and healing according to their identities, or the orientations of the self. Perceptions of illness were expressed as illness narratives framed under the theories of structural violence, and from the perspectives of the Congolese as displaced and migrant people. Congolese extend their perceptions of illness also to other non-Congolese communities they have come to belong to through transnational and global social formations. Congolese demonstrate that healing means the consolidation of their self, or identities, as Catholic Congolese in diaspora, advocates for refugees, African-Americans, Blacks, and “the Priest” in Lynn. Congolese emphasize that building and maintaining their newly acquired identities form part of their strategies to establish themselves in the USA, and bring healing to themselves and others. This exploration is limited, and thus, further research is recommended on: 1) other Congolese community groups; 2) the local and global Congolese diasporic activism for conflict resolution directed to the DRC; 3) practical proposals for collaborative research in order to resolve the socio-cultural and economic barriers that Congolese have in clinical settings.

In the 1990s, three Mexican-born filmmakers, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, began careers that would see them directing films in Mexico, the US, and Europe. The three filmmakers are known for incorporating a broad spectrum of genres and aesthetic traditions from world cinema into their own films. Despite their internationalism, scholars and critics have tended to emphasize their national identity, viewing their films as either intrinsically Mexican or not Mexican enough. I argue that their films reflect multiple national identities and address what it means to live in a global community constituted by a plurality of cultural perspectives. This dissertation reads these auteurs as constructing their films as sites of dialogue between different identities, enabling their work to appeal to global audiences. I also understand these filmmakers as being in conversation with each other through shared themes that articulate specific social scenarios while remaining broad enough to resonate with audiences around the world. Chapter 1 examines Cuarón’s Sólo con tu pareja (1991), del Toro’s Cronos (1993), and Iñárritu’s Amores perros (2000). I read the directors’ thematization of precarity, alienation, and abjection as resonating with audiences in Mexico and the US who experienced the jarring effects of neoliberalism. Chapter 2 discusses Cuarón’s A Little Princess (1995) and del Toro’s Mimic (1997), which I read as sharing a theme of dislocation that spoke to American, Indian, and Latin American societies that were being transformed at the end of the Cold War. Chapter 3 explores how del Toro, Cuarón, and Iñárritu responded to the post-9/11 political environment in Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), Children of Men (2006), and Babel (2006). Through their thematic concern with chaos and order, these films spoke to viewers overwhelmed by war, the torture and detainment of terrorist suspects, mass surveillance, harsh immigration policies, and the looming threat of terrorism itself. / 2024-11-14T00:00:00Z

Since the 1950s, Haitian transnational migrants have ensured the socioeconomic survival of many nonmigrants in Haiti by sending billions of US dollars annually to their families and friends back home. While Haitian migrants are often perceived as having a positive economic impact on Haiti, some are criticized for engaging in homosexual behaviours, seemingly infringing on ‘traditional’ Haitian family values in a largely conservative ‘Christian’ society. This revives old debates about migrants’ role in using their money to normalize same-sex identity and practices and pervert sexual morality and ‘acceptable’ gender norms among nonmigrants in Haiti. Accordingly, men in Haiti are involved in same-sex intimate transnational relationships with migrants from the Haitian diaspora because of their precarious socioeconomic status in Haiti and not necessarily because they may be gay. Although homosexuality has always existed in Haiti and same-sex intimate relationships among men in Haiti and those abroad have long existed, these relationships have rarely been studied in the literature on transnational migration and sexualities. To fill this gap, this thesis draws on eleven months of ethnographic fieldwork and forty-four semi-structured interviews with men in Northern Haiti to show how homosexuality intersects with transnational space and socioeconomic inequality to shape and organize transnational processes and same-sex intimate relationships involving men in Haiti and their migrant partners across the Haitian diaspora in the United States, Canada, France, Brazil, Chile, and the Dominican Republic. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In 2022, the World Bank estimated that international migrants sent 647 billion US dollars to their families, kinships, and friendship networks worldwide. This significant flow of money exemplifies the cross-border ties, connections, and relationships that people who moved from their homelands to resettle in host countries maintain with those who have stayed behind in their home communities. While scholars have conducted significant research in the past four decades on how international migrants’ gender, socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, country of origin and host countries’ reception contexts shape how they maintain such ties, connections, and relationships with their homelands, there is a dearth of research on how the sexuality of LGBTQ+ migrants and nonmigrants shapes how they develop and maintain connections, ties, and relationships that span national borders. To fill this gap, this thesis uses a Haitian case study to examine how migrant and nonmigrant men develop and sustain same-sex intimate relationships across national borders and what they mean to them in their home country’s socioeconomic and political contexts.

No description available.

According to estimates by Bosnian authorities, there are two million Bosnians and their descendants living in diaspora, the highest number recorded since the end of the conflict in 1995. Most of these individuals are forced or involuntary migrants who fled the genocide and ethnic cleansing campaign of Serb nationalists who sought to destroy Bosnia as a historically multiethnic homeland in order to create ethnically homogeneous Serb territory. Over twenty years after the war, many of those that were displaced have not returned to their former homes and are unlikely to ever return. This study contributes to deepening understanding of the challenges faced by those displaced as they struggle to rebuild their lives and future in a new context. It does so through a theory-based analysis of the notion of home and constructions of identity in diaspora following conflict, and the narratives of members of the Bosnian diaspora about their experiences of conflict and violence in the places they called home. The strategy of violence used by nationalist Serbs physically destroyed places and people's homes, but it also impacted long-existing social structures and relationships, transforming the images of those places. As a consequence, the dispersal itself and the causes behind it became a central element in displaced Bosnians' redefinition of home and identity, where the place of resettlement developed as the best place to be, a new home, based on a search for 'cool ground' and 'normal life.' Two processes have played critical roles in this reconceptualization. First is the expansion of the family network, allowing for a regeneration of family structures that were fragmented by conflict. Second is translocalism, referring to the community-specific ways individuals maintain attachments to their former home. The places of resettlement and their particularities influence these processes and activities, producing distinct conditions for a reconceptualized home. The study's findings suggest that further research into translocalism as an enduring solution to the condition of displacement would be of benefit, as contemporary refugees from Syria and other places of conflict try to re-establish life outside of their home countries. The findings also provide a foundation for research on the children of refugees, specifically on how memory and trauma are being communicated and passed on to them by their parents. / Ph. D. / According to estimates by Bosnian authorities, there are two million Bosnians and their descendants living outside the country in ‘diaspora,’ the highest number recorded since the end of the conflict in 1995. Most of these individuals are forced or involuntary migrants who fled the genocide and ethnic cleansing campaign of Serb nationalists who sought to destroy Bosnia as a historically multiethnic homeland in order to create ethnically homogeneous Serb territory. Over twenty years after the conflict, many of those that were displaced have not returned to their former homes and are unlikely to ever return. This study contributes to deepening understanding of the challenges faced by those displaced as they struggle to rebuild their lives and future in a new context. It examines what the lives of members of the diaspora were like in the places they called home before everything became upended by violence and conflict. The strategy of violence used by nationalist Serbs physically destroyed places and people’s homes, but it also impacted long-existing social structures and relationships, transforming the images of those places. As a consequence, the dispersal of Bosnians as refugees and the reasons for their dispersal became a central element in how they have redefined their notion of home and their identity. According to this redefinition, the place they resettled developed as the best place to be, a new home, based on a search for ‘cool ground’ and ‘normal life.’ Two processes have been particularly important in this reconceptualization. First is the expansion of the family network in the place of resettlement, which has allowed for a regeneration of family structures that were fragmented by conflict. Second is translocalism, which refers to the community-specific ways individuals maintain attachments to their former home. The places of resettlement and their particularities influence these processes and activities, producing distinct conditions for a reconceptualized home. The study’s findings suggest that further research into translocalism as an enduring solution to the condition of displacement would be of benefit, as contemporary refugees from Syria and other places of conflict try to re-establish life outside of their home countries. The findings also provide a foundation for research on the children of refugees, specifically on how memory and trauma are being communicated and passed on to them by their parents.