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This research seeks to address the issue of media consumption and the formation of diaspora identity within second and third generation British-born residents of Pakistani origin. In recent years there has been much debate centred on this group within the context of domestic and wider international geopolitics of winning hearts and minds, the ‘war on terror’ and the rise of the internet and social media as unrestricted spaces of self-expression. This has had a profound impact on the sense of belonging that transcends national boundaries and becomes a more transnational experience creating new communities of interest. The role of the media and other forms of communication may be a key or important determinant in how these groups, represented by the Pukhtoon and Punjabi in this study, not only see themselves but view representation of their identify and sense of self to a wider public arena. The perceived relationship between Islam and the ‘war on terror’ as formed by the media has had a profound impact on perceptions and mindsets of many of the diaspora. New technology has created a new smartphone generation able to reassess and reaffirm their emerging hybridity set within a new discourse of equal rights and respect for cultural and religious values within a transnational context.

Decoloniality has become a buzzword in the Canadian international development sector. The term intends to draw continuities between Canada's colonial past and present and draws attention to the way that the practice of international development perpetuates colonial power structures, specifically what Pailey (2020) has called the “White gaze of development.” When racialized actors in a white settler state like Canada are involved in international development initiatives in their countries of ethnic origin, they are often met with a binary, racist discourse among the broader Canadian community that either praises them as useful "tools" of Canadian foreign policy or denigrates their activities as a posing a potential "risk" to national interests. As a development actor on the world stage that sees itself as “cultural mosaic,” Canadians and the Canadian government should consider the potential for its diaspora to contribute to its foreign policies and strategies. Diasporic development can help with innovation in the development industry by expanding ideas about development and how it can be done. Reductionist understandings about diasporic transnationalism limit these possibilities, which underline the imperative to better understand diasporic identity and transnationalism. Using a Bourdieusian (1986) field analysis, Bhabha's notions of (1994) hybridity and liminality, as well as Yuval-Davis' (2006) conceptualization of belonging, this research explores the negotiations of belonging among the second-generation Tamil diaspora in Canada as they engage in development initiatives focused on communities in Sri Lanka. Through in-depth interviews with 34 participants, this research finds that the diaspora has day-to-day interactions in a number of sites or "micro-fields" which inform their engagement in international development initiatives that are focused on communities in Sri Lanka, and that their negotiations of belonging and otherness are salient in their development experiences. Members of the diaspora also interrogate coloniality through their hybridity and subsequent positioning in a liminal space. They reject colonial discourse by constructing belonging to the communities at the development sites and valuing localization. However, their interrogation of power structures across different fields as well as their multiple subject positions also contribute to their reflexivity about the treatment of Indigenous peoples in Turtle Island/Canada.

The study explored the question of how Kosovar-Albanians living in Sweden identify themselves; whether they felt that they belonged in Sweden, Kosovo or both places, and; the transnational ties they maintain with Kosovo. The study participants included six individuals  with Kosovar-Albanian origins, half of them born in Sweden and the other half who had immigrated to Sweden from Kosovo. The data for the study was collected using semi-structured interviews. The findings of the study suggest that both immigrants born in Sweden to first generation Kosovar immigrants and those born in Kosovo but immigrated to Sweden had fluid and dual identities. Sometimes they identified as Kosovo-Albanians, sometimes they identified as Swedish while at other times they identified as both. Those born in Sweden indicated that they felt that they belonged in Sweden, while those born in Kosovo did not have a clear sense of belonging. The study established that the sense of belonging was determined by the perception of others. Native Swedes did not think the immigrants belonged in Sweden because of their Kosovo-Albanian heritage while those in Kosovo felt that the immigration process had changed the immigrants thus they did not belong in Kosovo. The study established that both the first and second generation immigrants maintained transnational ties with Kosovo.

The aim of this work is to discuss the religious life of the Kimbanguist community in Stockholm; more specifically, it analyses the ways in which religion (in particular Kimbanguism) allows the members of a small religious community, originated by migration, to maintain sense of belonging and to give meaning to their experiences. In order to do this, I focus on the concept of community to define the ways in which a group of people, embedded in a much wider social field, can be defined with this analytical term: community emerges as a social group whose members share a specific inventory of symbols; symbols include representations and narratives, but also practices, artifacts and images. I focus on religions as tools that allow not only to build sense of community, but also to give meaning to believers’ life and experiences: religions in particular play a central role both in structuring daily life and in interpreting extraordinary events, such as migration and the passages through the different stages of life. The Kimbanguist community in Stockholm is not considered only in its local dimension, but also the transnational connection to the main church in Democratic Republic of Congo: the two main dimensions of this connection are represented by the economic contribution provided by believers to finance the church’s project and, on the other hand, the travels to Congo and to the city of N’Kamba, that the members do.

Latinos in the United States are a diverse group, and their growing presence and recent elections illustrate the importance of understanding and recognizing their distinct political identities. The political identity of Cuban immigrants has been understood as being an anomaly among Latino groups and is largely referred to as an outlier in research of Latin American immigration. The intent of this thesis is to explore the question of why some Latin American immigrants relate to a greater Latino identity. Linked fate is identified as a relevant concept that addresses the formation of group identity. From the literature, transnational connections and period of arrival are expected to be determinant factors in an individual's perception of linked fate. A logistical regression analysis is conducted with data from the 2006 Latino National Survey, and the results suggest that both transnational ties and immigration generation are positive predictors for linked fate. The thesis concludes by finding similarities with linked fate predictors in past studies and suggests that several similarities exist between Cubans and other ethnic groups regarding linked fate.

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