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This dissertation investigates the motivating factors as well as the perceived inhibitors to the Nigeria diaspora investing in Nigeria. Two studies address (1) the motivation for the Nigeria diaspora to invest in their country of origin (2) the perceived factors inhibiting them. Not much is known about what motivates diaspora to invest in their country of origin or why investment intensity varies among diaspora communities. To this end, the relationship between the causal factors and Nigerian born diaspora investment interest is examined using Nielsen & Riddle (2007) investment motivation framework. Using this interdisciplinary approach, an individual level conceptual model of diaspora homeland investment is generated. The study shows that members of the Nigeria diaspora community do not invest in their homeland for financial reward. They invest for perceived emotional returns and this is positively moderated by the degree of their social embeddedness in their country of origin as well as in their country of residence. They also invest for perceived social rewards. This is also moderated by their social embeddedness. The second study examined the perceived inhibitors to diasporic investment using the Galetto conceptual framework (Galetto, 2011). According to Galletto, investment is contingent on four main proximate factors; a minimum amount of money remitted or saved; minimum level of local development; the presence of suitable investment opportunities and the existence of specific household arrangement. The study shows that the perceived inhibitors to diasporic investment are: poor physical infrastructure; weak financial system and political instability and risk and that the dominant inhibitor is political instability and risk. Collectively, these two studies examine why the Nigeria diaspora would want to invest in their homeland and what prevents them from doing so. They seek to identify ways to turn diaspora investment and entrepreneurship interest into meaningful investment in the country-of-origin. Understanding why the nascent Nigeria diaspora investor or entrepreneur invest in their homeland and the obstacles they face is an important first step to identifying ways that governments can attract diasporic investment and entrepreneurship through marketing and other promotional efforts. Finally, this research lays a foundation for a stream of future research, building on the findings and data generated in the process of addressing the research questions. / Business Administration/Strategic Management

This thesis examines the politics of narrative control, and how it relates to the formation of diasporic consciousness among Turkish migrants in the United States. It asks how Turkish diasporic identity is formed and shaped by discourses that frame Turks, and that interrogate who or what a ‘Turk’ is? This thesis suggests that this process of continual construction and re-construction of diasporic consciousness should be investigated as a matter of competitive identity formation, meaning that there is competition between multiple actors to impose a definition or label on a diasporic group and to achieve broad-based support for that label or definition. This also implies the attribution of specific values, ideas, and political agendas to that group. The thesis examines the roots, motivations and activities of Turkish American activists in Washington DC. Based on an analysis of their political orientations and internal fissures, it focuses on the current political debate over official recognition of the deportations and massacres of Armenians by Ottoman forces as a genocide. It argues that Turkish American activists have coalesced on the defensive around this issue, framing it as a matter critical to the identity of Turks. Their manifold activities to prevent the further institutionalisation of the ‘genocide’ label in American political discourse do not, however, always resonate with the passive majority of Turkish Americans.

Dans le cadre des politiques migratoires québécoises du début des années 2000, quelques familles juives argentines ont décidé de s'établir à Montréal. Ces migrants adhérent à un judaïsme culturel, où l’ethnicité devient une dimension identificatoire plus importante que la religion. Les Juifs argentins sont porteurs des histoires de migration familiales des ancêtres, lesquelles sont encore présentes dans la mémoire collective. Dans le cadre de leur établissement au Québec, ils se trouvent confrontés au contexte juif montréalais qui présente d’autres façons de vivre les judéités. Comment ces migrants perçoivent la rencontre et la cohabitation parmi les judéités montréalaises? Continueront-ils à se reconnaitre dans la spécificité de leurs judéités argentines? Les histoires migratoires de famille jouent-elles un rôle précis dans leur actuel processus d’établissement? Au-delà de l’adhésion à un judaïsme culturel, ces migrants croient-ils à une forme de transcendance? / In the context of Quebec’s migratory policies of the early 2000s, some Jewish Argentinean families decided to settle in Montreal. These migrants adhere to a cultural Judaism in which ethnicity becomes an identification dimension that is more important than religion. The Argentinean Jewish are bearers of their ancestors’ migratory histories, which are still present in the collective memory. In the framework of their settlement in Quebec, they find themselves confronted with the Jewish context of Montreal, which presents other ways of living the Jewishness. How do these migrants perceive the encounter and cohabitation with Montreal’s Judaism? Will they continue to recognize themselves in the specificity of their Argentinean Jewishness? Do migratory family histories play a precise role in their current settlement process? Beyond adhesion to a cultural Judaism, do these migrants believe in a form of transcendence?

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the football team Dalkurd act locally and transnationally through their identifications, relationships and activities with other actors with whom the footballsteam interacts. The study has also focused on the tensions that arise between the local Dalkurd and transnational Dalkurd. Theoretical starting points are based on the transnational perspective, which is important in order to understand how a football team like Dalkurd act through his activities, identifications and relationships. The second theoretical perspective is based on the social networks 'importance for the football clubs' culture and local identity, which is important for understanding the local identity based on Swedish club culture. The methodological approach of the study is based on case studies with qualitative focus. The empirical material consists of a large number of media texts in the form of existing interviews and reports published in newspapers, radio and television. Also materials from web-based websites, and other social media. The result shows that Dalkurd has, through his activities, social relations and belongings and also symbols created transnational identity, and the association has also created local identifications even that these are relatively limited. The study's results showed that the football team has created a triadic relationship in the form of "transnational social space" between a football association in the form of Dalkurd, the country of hostland Sweden and the home country Kurdistan. / Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur fotbollslaget Dalkurd verkar lokalt respektive transnationellt genom sina identifikationer, relationer och aktiviteter med andra aktörer som fotbollsföreningen interagerar med. Studien har även fokuserat på de spänningar som uppstår mellan det lokala Dalkurd och transnationella Dalkurd. Teoretiska utgångspunkter bygger på det transnationella perspektivet som är viktigt för att kunna förstå hur ett fotbollslag som Dalkurd verkar genom sina aktiviteter, identifikationer och relationer. Det andra teoretiska perspektivet bygger på de sociala nätverkens betydelse för fotbollsklubbarnas kultur och lokala identitet vilket är viktig för att förstå den lokala identiteten utifrån svensk klubbkultur. Studiens metodologiska ansats bygger på fallstudier med kvalitativ inriktning. Det empiriska materialet består av ett stort antal mediatexter i form av befintliga intervjuer och reportage publicerade i tidningar, radio och tv. Även material från webbaserade hemsidor, och andra sociala medier har tagits med. Resultatet visar att Dalkurd genom sina aktiviteter, sociala relationer samt tillhörigheter och symboler har skapat en transnationell identitet men föreningen har också skapat lokala identifikationer även att dessa är relativ begränsade. Studiens resultat visade att fotbollslaget har skapat ett triadisk förhållande i form av ”transnational social space” mellan en fotbollsförening i form av Dalkurd, bosättningslandet Sverige och hemlandet Kurdistan.

This dissertation establishes a transatlantic connection between Brazil, the United States and the Caribbean through the discussion of two contemporary literary movements: Sarau da Cooperifa, in São Paulo, and Nuyorican poetry, from the Puerto Rican poets living in New York City. Although these places share significant differences in terms of colonial and postcolonial history, they share similar experiences in terms of race and class representations. From similar oppressive realities, I argue that they also build similar strategies of resistance and urban discourse. By carrying a secondary citizenship status, Nuyorican poets and poets from the Brazilian periphery find in creative writing ways to reinvent themselves as subjects of their own history, a story written and reinvented in the streets, in the street corners, in barber shops, in the back yard, in bars and pubs. They take the street as epistemological locus in order to expand the concept of political intervention, be it while celebrating life or ritualizing death. In this sense, the street is the site for unrestricted access to poetry, and poetry is the element that fits these subjects in the history of the city. The work of Sergio Vaz, Ferrez, Allan da Rosa, Elizandra Souza, Willie Perdomo, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Miguel Algarín, Miguel Piñero and Sandra Maria Esteves is read through the lenses of African Diaspora theories and its relation to literary criticism, anthropology, history, discourse analysis, Black feminist theory and Latino studies. I share Edouard Glissant’s understanding that the Africans, who were forced to come to the Americas and the Caribbean upon slavery, did not bring only their body. They also brought with their body a worldview, a way of dealing with adversity, an epistemological understanding that has allowed them to outlive the physical death by overcoming the imputation of social death. Thus, this dissertation argues that cultural production is a political production, and that it has been used by racialized and impoverished minority individuals and groups across the globe as strategic tool in the struggle against oppression. / text

Dans le cadre des politiques migratoires québécoises du début des années 2000, quelques familles juives argentines ont décidé de s'établir à Montréal. Ces migrants adhérent à un judaïsme culturel, où l’ethnicité devient une dimension identificatoire plus importante que la religion. Les Juifs argentins sont porteurs des histoires de migration familiales des ancêtres, lesquelles sont encore présentes dans la mémoire collective. Dans le cadre de leur établissement au Québec, ils se trouvent confrontés au contexte juif montréalais qui présente d’autres façons de vivre les judéités. Comment ces migrants perçoivent la rencontre et la cohabitation parmi les judéités montréalaises? Continueront-ils à se reconnaitre dans la spécificité de leurs judéités argentines? Les histoires migratoires de famille jouent-elles un rôle précis dans leur actuel processus d’établissement? Au-delà de l’adhésion à un judaïsme culturel, ces migrants croient-ils à une forme de transcendance? / In the context of Quebec’s migratory policies of the early 2000s, some Jewish Argentinean families decided to settle in Montreal. These migrants adhere to a cultural Judaism in which ethnicity becomes an identification dimension that is more important than religion. The Argentinean Jewish are bearers of their ancestors’ migratory histories, which are still present in the collective memory. In the framework of their settlement in Quebec, they find themselves confronted with the Jewish context of Montreal, which presents other ways of living the Jewishness. How do these migrants perceive the encounter and cohabitation with Montreal’s Judaism? Will they continue to recognize themselves in the specificity of their Argentinean Jewishness? Do migratory family histories play a precise role in their current settlement process? Beyond adhesion to a cultural Judaism, do these migrants believe in a form of transcendence?

<p>This thesis examines sexual trauma in Lydia Kwa’s <em>This Place Called Absence</em> (2000), <em>Pulse</em> (2010), and <em>The Walking Boy</em> (2005), and establishes how the domain of sexuality becomes operative in post-trauma healing. This project engages not only the traditional, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder model of trauma, but, using Laura Brown and Maria Root, expands the definition of trauma by drawing attention to the insidious, everyday trauma that affects minority groups and sexual minorities. Kwa’s novels reveal the dynamics and complexities of sexual trauma, which encompasses acts of sexual violence such as rape and abuse, but also what is rarely acknowledged – the trauma that queer individuals face in a heteronormative society. This thesis also investigates the possibility of healing sexual trauma and locates viable modes of therapy in the area of sexuality, including sexual intimacy, sexual practices such as erotic bondage, and the formation of queer communities. This project seeks to illuminate the connections between queerness and trauma, and, via Kwa’s fiction, considers alternative avenues of healing and therapy beyond the medical field.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

In this exploratory thesis project, I consider what emerging approaches we can take as social scientists to showcase and critically engage self-representations of diasporic individuals, who often lack visibility and legibility within the dominant cultural archive. Filmmaking as a social research practice can provide rich audiovisual data, physical and social access to materials for nonacademics, and opportunities to document and share subjects' comments and settings without the limitations of transcription. This is especially salient in the emerging media landscape of Web 2.0, where digital communications technology applications (such as Facebook, Skype, and Snapchat) are accessible by a global audience, and can act as tools for cultural identity production by diasporic individuals. This project documents the experiences of several first- and second-generation Bangladeshi American immigrants in relation to digital communications technology advances within the past decade, for the purposes of collecting and sharing stories of diasporic individuals, offering a venue for self-expression through empathetic interviewing and collaborative oral history methods, and contributing to the American cultural archive in the context of emerging media and academic landscapes. The full project is comprised of this text document, alongside a short documentary film containing portions of audiovisual data from interviews which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh9puazpdrw. / Master of Science

This research work is a detailed feminist reading of the poetry of a selected group of Kurdish women poets which has been written in Sorani Kurdish. The poets come from two different locations, but are originally from Iraqi Kurdistan. A group of them live in the diaspora and the rest are home-based. Thus, it is the study of the Sorani-written poetry produced by Kurdish women poets locally and externally. The study chooses the time extending from 1990 to 2009 as its scope. There are clear reasons for the selection of this time as it stands for the most hectic period when Kurdish women’s poetry flourishes at a fast pace in southern Kurdistan. The study argues that the liberation of southern Kurdistan in 1991 from the overthrown Iraqi Ba’th regime plays a vital role in the productive reemergence of Kurdish women’s poetry after decades of silence and suppression being inflicted by the male-dominated Kurdish literature. Reliance on Anglo-American feminist criticism, Showalter’s gynocritics and some limited theories about the relation between gender and nationalism for the thematic analysis of the poetry of Kurdish women poets is another influential aspect of this study. The study justifies the importance of these theories for giving Kurdish women’s poetry the literary and social value it deserves and placing it within the larger repertoire of Kurdish literature. It is these theories that reveal the misjudgment and misapprehension of Kurdish women’s poetry by Kurdish male critics. Meanwhile, an extensive thematic analysis of the poetry of diasporic and home Kurdish women poets forms the core content of this work. The work studies the poetic texts of seventeen Kurdish women poets, seven from the diaspora, and ten from home. The themes to be focused on significantly represent the life realities of Kurdish women and the attitudes of Kurdish society towards their rights and existence. Through the exposition of the themes, this study aims to present a realistic picture of Kurdish women and urge for actions required to guarantee gender justice in southern Kurdistan. The themes symbolise a long-term war waged jointly by Kurdish women poets at home and in exile against the classic Kurdish patriarchy and its misogynistic laws. They reflect the injustice committed against women in a century when the respect of women’s rights have taken big steps forward elsewhere and should theoretically be ensured. The conclusion the study reaches is an emphasis on the overall condition of Kurdish women’s poetry and the challenges lying ahead of it. It indicates the level of progress Kurdish women’s poetry has made in southern Kurdistan and the role feminist criticism in unison with certain gender theories that criticise the link between women and nation can play in further developing this type of poetry. Moreover, a rather detailed comparison between the thematic structure and form of the poetry of diasporic and home Kurdish women poets is what enriches the conclusion. The influence of exile on diasporic Kurdish women poets and its relation to freedom of expression is also underlined and measured against opposite conditions back at home. Finally, the point where the poets of the two different localities converge is not omitted.