Claiming Diaspora

Framed by a century and a half of racialized Chinese American musical experiences, Claiming Diaspora explores the thriving contemporary musical culture of Asian/Chinese America. Ranging from traditional operas to modern instrumental music, from ethnic media networks to popular music, from Asian American jazz to the work of recent avant-garde composers, author Su Zheng reveals the rich and diverse musical activities among Chinese Americans and tells of the struggles of Chinese Americans to gain a foothold in the American cultural terrain. She not only tells their stories, but also examines the dynamics of the diasporic connections of this musical culture, revealing how Chinese American musical activities both reflect and contribute to local, national, and transnational cultural politics, and challenging us to take a fresh look at the increasingly plural and complex nature of American cultural identity.

Chinese American authors often find it necessary to represent Asian history in their literary works. Tracing the development of the literary production of Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan, Lisa See, and Russell Leong, among others, this book captures the effects of international politics and globalization on Chinese American diasporic consciousness.

The word ‘diaspora’ has leapt from its previously confined use – mainly concerned with the dispersion of Jews, Greeks, Armenians and Africans away from their natal homelands – to cover the cases of many other ethnic groups, nationalities and religions. But this ‘horizontal’ scattering of the word to cover the mobility of many groups to many destinations, has been paralleled also by ‘vertical’ leaps, with the word diaspora being deployed to cover more and more phenomena and serve more and more objectives of different actors. With sections on ‘debating the concept’, ‘complexity’, ‘home and home-making’, ‘connections’ and ‘critiques’, the Routledge Handbook of Diaspora Studies is likely to remain an authoritative reference for some time. Each contribution includes a targeted list of references for further reading. The editors have carefully blended established scholars of diaspora with younger scholars looking at how diasporas are constructed ‘from below’. The adoption of a variety of conceptual perspectives allows for generalization, contrasts and comparisons between cases. In this exciting and authoritative collection over 40 scholars from many countries have explored the evolving use of the concept of diaspora, its possibilities as well as its limitations. This Handbook will be indispensable for students undertaking essays, debates and dissertations in the field.

This is one of the first books to explore Nepali diaspora in a global context, across India and other parts of South Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and Australia. It discusses the social, political and economic status and aspirations of the Nepali community worldwide. The essays in the volume cover a range of themes including belonging and identity politics among Nepalese migrants, representation of Indian Nepalis in literature, diasporic consciousness, forceful eviction and displacement, social movements, and ritual practices among migrant communities. Drawing attention to the lives of Nepali emigrants, the volume presents a sensitive and balanced understanding of their options and constraints, and their ambivalences about who they are. This work will be invaluable to scholars and students of Nepal studies, area studies, diaspora and migration studies, social anthropology, cultural studies and literature.

As a historical and religious term "diaspora" has existed for many years, but it only became an academic and analytical concept in the 1980s and ’90s. Within its various usages, two broad directions stand out: diaspora as a dispersion of people from an original homeland, and diaspora as a claim of identity that expresses a form of belonging and also keeps alive a sense of difference. Between Dispersion and Belonging critically assesses the meaning and practice of diaspora first by engaging with the theoretical life histories of the concept, and then by examining a range of historical case studies. Essays in this volume draw from diaspora formations in the pre-modern Indian Ocean region, read diaspora against the concept of indigeneity in the Americas, reassess the claim for a Swedish diaspora, interrogate the notion of an "invisible" English diaspora in the Atlantic world, calibrate the meaning of the Irish diaspora in North America, and consider the case for a global Indian indentured-labour diaspora. Through these studies the contributors demonstrate that an inherent appeal to globality is central to modern formulations of diaspora. They are not global in the sense that diasporas span the entire globe, rather they are global precisely because they are not bound by arbitrary geopolitical units. In examining the ways in which academic and larger society discuss diaspora, Between Dispersion and Belonging presents a critique of modern historiography and positions that critique in the shape of global history. Contributors include William Safran (University of Colorado Boulder), James T. Carson (Queen's University), Eivind H. Seland (University of Bergen), Don MacRaild (University of Ulster), and Rankin Sherling (Marion Military Institute: the Military College of Alabama).

This book investigates the identity issues of South Asians in the diaspora. It engages the theoretical and methodological debates concerning processes of culture and identity in the contemporary context of globalisation and transnationalism. It analyses the South Asian diaspora - a perfect route to a deeper understanding of contemporary socio-cultural transformations and the way in which information and communication technology functions as both a catalyst and indicator of such transformations. The book will be of interest to scholars of diaspora studies, cultural studies, international migration studies, and ethnic and racial studies. This book is a collection of papers from the journal South Asian Diaspora.

The Microfoundations of Diaspora Politics examines the various actors within and beyond the state that participate in the design and implementation of diaspora policies, as well as the mechanisms through which diasporas are constructed by governments, political parties, diaspora entrepreneurs, or international organisations. Extant theories are often hard-pressed to capture the empirical variation and often end up identifying ‘exceptions’. The multidisciplinary group of contributors in this book theorise these ‘exceptions’ through three interrelated conceptual moves: first, by focusing on understudied aspects of the relationships between states as well as organised non-state actors and their citizens or co-ethnics abroad (or at home - in cases of return migration). Second, by examining dyads of ‘origin’ states and specific diasporic communities differentiated by time of emigration, place of residence, socio-economic status, migratory status, generation, or skills. Third, by considering migration in its multiple spatial and temporal phases (emigration, immigration, transit, return) and how they intersect to constitute diasporic identities and policies. These conceptual moves facilitate comparative research and help scholars identify the mechanisms connecting structural variables with specific policies by states (and other actors) as well as responses by the relevant diasporic communities. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

India’s partition in 1947 and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 saw the displacement and resettling of millions of Muslims and Hindus, resulting in profound transformations across the region. A third of the region’s population sought shelter across new borders, almost all of them resettling in the Bengal delta itself. A similar number were internally displaced, while others moved to the Middle East, North America and Europe. Using a creative interdisciplinary approach combining historical, sociological and anthropological approaches to migration and diaspora this book explores the experiences of Bengali Muslim migrants through this period of upheaval and transformation. It draws on over 200 interviews conducted in Britain, India, and Bangladesh, tracing migration and settlement within, and from, the Bengal delta region in the period after 1947. Focussing on migration and diaspora ‘from below’, it teases out fascinating ‘hidden’ migrant stories, including those of women, refugees, and displaced people. It reveals surprising similarities, and important differences, in the experience of Muslim migrants in widely different contexts and places, whether in the towns and hamlets of Bengal delta, or in the cities of Britain. Counter-posing accounts of the structures that frame migration with the textures of how migrants shape their own movement, it examines what it means to make new homes in a context of diaspora. The book is also unique in its focus on the experiences of those who stayed behind, and in its analysis of ruptures in the migration process. Importantly, the book seeks to challenge crude attitudes to ‘Muslim’ migrants, which assume their cultural and religious homogeneity, and to humanize contemporary discourses around global migration. This ground-breaking new research offers an essential contribution to the field of South Asian Studies, Diaspora Studies, and Society and Culture Studies.