• Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage
• 2021-2021close
• Publications close
• Other research products close
• Diaspora A Journal of Transnational... close

This article examines a new phenomenon of affluent Turks investing in Greek real estate following the 15 July 2016 coup attempt in order to obtain residence rights in Greece. Triggered by a sense of social, political, and economic insecurity, Turkish nationals invest to secure an exit strategy and safe haven for family and capital in case of potential economic and political upheaval in the country. Drawing on Hirschman’s (1970) typology of Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, this paper argues that this new form of mobility and comfortable exit of the Turkish upper middle class helps defuse opposition to the AKP government and could have a stabilizing effect for the regime in the long run. Based on data from twenty-eight interviews with investors and Golden Visa brokers taking part in the investment process, two factors, in particular, are making the move from Turkey to Greece an attractive option for Turkish nationals, namely geographic proximity and perceived cultural familiarity.

105-120 20 2

This article explores the diasporic subjectivities of Iranians in Malaysia, specifically how homeland and host country’s national domestic policies and bilateral state relations, in addition to international politics, mold Iranians’ diasporic discourses, organizations, and economics. Positioned within the broader scholarship, my ethnography in Kuala Lumpur identifies the specificity and diversity of Iranian diasporic subjects that embed three accompanying processes of (1) fragmentation along the overlapping lines of the socioeconomic, the political, the ethnic, and the gendered; (2) polarization denoting open opposition of political ideologies and allegiances, religious interpretations, as well as ethnic and gender identities; (3) and pluralization as consciousness accommodating free and equal interaction and communication among diverse groups. Exploring these processes, I argue that the Iranians who observed, discussed, and imagined their own fragmentation and polarization, also developed a pluralist consciousness informed by the host country’s diverse backdrop.

What motivates diasporas to support undemocratic rule in their countries of origin while enjoying democratic freedoms in their countries of settlement? This study adopts a meso-level approach to answer this question, and focuses on the Turkish diaspora in Europe as a case study. Lately, the diaspora governance literature has focused on official diaspora institutions and the policies of countries of origin. This study, alternatively, highlights “diasporic civic space” as an arena entrenching authoritarian practices “at home.” It investigates the conditions under which diasporic civic space can be co-opted by undemocratic countries of origin and the role of “home state oriented diaspora organizations” in this process of co-optation. The study shows that diasporic civic space can offer resources to undemocratic regimes to mobilize previously dormant diaspora communities and create a support base abroad that is driven by nationalism and partisanship. The empirical discussion unveils four factors behind the successful mobilization of diasporas by undemocratic countries of origin: (1) nationalist sentiments among the diaspora; (2) motivations to get a share from the perks that may be meted out by home country government; (3) feelings of insecurity, fear, and marginalization as immigrants; and (4) the desire to assert one’s identity and cultural ties vis-à-vis the majority in countries of settlement. The findings are based on the case of the Turkish diasporic civic space in Europe, which has recently been mobilized by a diaspora organization with political ties to the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Original data are drawn from semi-structured interviews conducted in 2018–2019 with members and representatives of major pro-AKP diaspora organization known as the Union of International Democrats (UID), as well as Alevi, Kurdish, and Islamist/conservative diaspora organizations in Sweden, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Germany. The findings contribute to the understanding of undemocratic home states’ non-coercive and de-territorialized governance practices beyond their borders.

In this interview, artistic director and choreographer Thomas Prestø speaks with cultural studies scholar Dr. Gladys M. Francis about his personal journey as a hyper visible Black boy growing up in a Norwegian region known as a hub for neo-Nazi groups. Subjected to various forms of torture, Prestø discusses how his experiences shaped his politics of arts when he founded the Tabanka Dance Company to promote “a sustainable Black identity” that converges both Caribbean and African movement esthetics to tell the stories of Blacks in Norway. Prestø presents how his body of work informs Black diaspora studies in terms of art and culture through issues of minority identities, body-memory, body-politics, and political and cultural agency relating to Black performances and cultures in Norway. He discusses principles on “Caribfuturism” and corporealities within what he calls “the uniqueness of the Afropean, the Afro-Scandinavian and the poly-Diasporan.” His insights on the prejudiced mechanisms of representation and segmentation of cultures visible in Norway also convey how his artistic productions offer challenging esthetics and representations of gender and sexuality for performing Brown and Black artists. The following segments were gathered during his 2018 dance fellowship in Dakar, Senegal, my scholar appointment in Norway in 2019, and follow up discussions in spring 2021.

Turkey is a prime example of the growing importance of diaspora related policies in countries with emerging power status. Based on reports, observations, and interviews with Turkish and Kosovar citizens in Pristina in February 2019, this article examines how Turkey since 2002 has created societal influence in Kosovo—a new and insecure country with which Turkey established relations since its inception—by using, among other things, the Presidency for Religious Affairs (Diyanet) for its diaspora policies. Looking at how the inclusive and repressive tactics of Turkish diaspora-building feed into each other, I argue that Ankara has expanded the boundaries of the Turkish state’s reach by harnessing religion (Islam) in addition to existing ethnic bonds (Turkishness), thereby allowing Turkey to create a diaspora out of a much larger group of people including non-Turkish Muslims. As a result, certain segments among the Sunni-Muslim Albanians in Kosovo have developed close relations with Turkey that may be employed when needed to police elements of the diaspora that are seen as oppositional. While Turkey’s “domestic abroad” has expanded considerably due to the initial inclusive outreach, it has also become more fragmented, more contested, and more unruly, delivering continuously diminishing returns in terms of regime security at home. Although the repression of disloyal diaspora members by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is aimed at stabilizing rule at home, it creates divisions in the diaspora and risks Turkey’s relations with the countries in which it asserts its authority.

When transnationally constructed art forms, such as the works of diasporic cultural productions of Arabs in the West, are made available in open-source on a digital archive, this supports the transnational flow or exchange of citizenship-enhancing ideas, skill-sets, technologies, tools, capacities, and practices. In this theoretical investigation, we explore imagined outcomes when new audiences can engage with diasporic cultural productions of Arabs. Digital archiving of ethnically diverse cultural productions can expand civility, solidarity, and common ground among people; these latter behaviors are the ideational foundations of agency-based claims of transnational citizenship. Such cultural productions help to reconfigure the questions, opportunities, and nature of political and social agency in ways that empower diaspora communities and expand their abilities to make citizenship claims in multiple societies. This is what the Internet enables despite its tendency towards parochialism in globalized pockets. Moreover, we highlight the possibilities of open-source digital archiving—with a focus on literature, poetry, biographies, and letters—for agency-based claims of citizenship and the many caveats that require further attention and consideration.

At the turn of the twentieth century, terms like globalization, transnationalism, and diaspora heralded the increasing interconnectedness of cultures, nations, and politics. While such global networks continue to grow at a rapid rate, nationalist rhetoric and politics have also become more salient as some decry diversity, the threat of “open” borders, and the impacts of capitalist expansion under globalization. At a time when globalization has become a buzzword for the twenty-first century, how can there be both the proliferation of global cultures and increasing rhetoric of protectionist nationalism? I explore how and why diaspora has become salient particularly in an age where nations have been challenged and transformed under globalized capitalism. First, I trace the rise of hegemonic nationalism, its use in legitimizing racial and gendered differences under colonialism, and how its consequent displacements and marginalization led, for some, to claims of diaspora. I then suggest that the racialized Black migrant diaspora may serve as an example of how race and nationalism inform the creation of diaspora and how resistance can emerge across shared experiences of exclusion on this basis. I argue that diaspora has reemerged as one response to the politics of hypernationalism which has again sought to consolidate capital and wealth in an era of global capitalism. I conclude that Black diaspora may become a means for challenging nationalism through the dismantlement of its racial origins.

With the inclusion of women among the religious officers of the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) who are serving abroad, the “ideal Turkish family” has become the main program underlying projects and activities oriented towards women, families, and young people. This international mission has led to an expansion of religious services and moral support in order to reinforce a religion–nation–family nexus within the diaspora. This article examines how the Diyanet officers reproduce the Islam–nation–family intersection as a discourse to be propagated to the diaspora, and whether this narrative reinforces Turkey’s attempts to create loyalty to Turkey within the diaspora. Based on ethnographic observations, an analysis of Diyanet official publications, and interviews with Diyanet officers at mosques in Vienna and Stockholm, this article shows the extent to which the Diyanet’s international mission is a catalyst for the dissemination of nationalist, moral, and religious values within the diaspora, how Diyanet officers are actively involved in fostering a religious-national discourse within diaspora communities and how they specifically reinforce the connection between Islam, the Turkish nation, and the traditional Turkish family.