Diasporic Choices [1 ed.] 9781848881877, 9789004372139

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Diasporic Choices

At the Interface Series Editors Dr Robert Fisher Lisa Howard Dr Ken Monteith Advisory Board James Arvanitakis Katarzyna Bronk Jo Chipperfield Ann-Marie Cook Peter Mario Kreuter S Ram Vemuri

Simon Bacon Stephen Morris John Parry Karl Spracklen Peter Twohig Kenneth Wilson

An At the Interface research and publications project. http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/ The Diversity and Recognition Hub ‘Diasporas

2013

Diasporic Choices

Edited by

Renata Seredyńska-Abou Eid

Inter-Disciplinary Press Oxford, United Kingdom

© Inter-Disciplinary Press 2013 http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/

The Inter-Disciplinary Press is part of Inter-Disciplinary.Net – a global network for research and publishing. The Inter-Disciplinary Press aims to promote and encourage the kind of work which is collaborative, innovative, imaginative, and which provides an exemplar for inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of Inter-Disciplinary Press.

Inter-Disciplinary Press, Priory House, 149B Wroslyn Road, Freeland, Oxfordshire. OX29 8HR, United Kingdom. +44 (0)1993 882087

ISBN: 978-1-84888-187-7 First published in the United Kingdom in eBook format in 2013. First Edition.

Table of Contents Introduction Diasporic Choices Renata Seredyńska-Abou Eid Part 1

Cinema as Diasporic Reflection Particle/Wave: Cinema as Conservator in a Diasporic World Catherine G. Carey Bollywood in Diaspora: Cherishing Occidentalist Nostalgia Asma Sayed A Phenomenological Reading of Temporality and Natality in Relation to the Diasporic Indian Reception of the Bollywood Text with Reference to Mauritius Farhad Abdool Kader Sulliman Khoyratty Yellow Sea: A Floating Home of Chinese Korean Minority Mengyan YU

Part 2

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3

11

21 35

Diasporic Narrations and Fragments Transcending the Limitations of Diaspora as a Category of Cultural Identity in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing around Your Neck Elizabeth Jackson

49

Esmeralda Santiago: Writing Memories, Creating a Nation Anabela Alves

57

Marriage Conventions in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane Asma Mansoor

67

Diaspoetics in the Literature of Karen Tei Yamashita: Brazilian and Japanese Diasporas Compared Claudio Braga and Glaucia R. Gonçalves Global Cosmopolitanism and Diasporic Singularities Jairus Omuteche

77 87

Walcott’s Poetry: Portrayal of Broken Boundaries Shri Krishan Rai and Anugamini Rai Part 3

Diasporic Generations Gendered Diasporas across Generations: The New African Diaspora in Vancouver Gillian Creese

109

Young Migrant: Rooted Generations of Germany in Fatih Akin’s Films Yildirim Uysal

121

Linguistic Attitudes and Linguistic Practices in the Global Age: The Case of the First Generation of Serbian Highly Educated Migrants Ana Jovanović and Ivana Vučina Simović Part 4

129

Shifting and Maintaining Identities Searching for Authenticity through Desire: Greek Canadian Women and the Heritage Fling Anastasia Panagakos

141

Diasporic Circassian National Identity: An Example of the Circassian Diaspora in Jordan Natalia Agnieszka Hapek

153

Traditional Rituals or Return of the Empire Siranush Dvoyan

Part 5

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163

Topological and Content Analysis of the Cyberspace of the Indian Diaspora Eric Leclerc

171

Un/settling Im/migrants: Towards Decolonising Immigrant-Indigenous Relationships Nishant Upadhyay

185

Adaptation and Reproduction in Diaspora Magazine Contacto: The Construction and (Re)production of the Portuguese Diaspora in the Mediascape Sónia Ferreira

203

Cultural Adaptation and Translation as Motivation for Researching the Polish Diaspora in the United Kingdom Renata Seredyńska-Abou Eid Wandering Dwellings: Diasporic Architectures Sarah B. Gelbard

211 221

Introduction: Diasporic Choices Renata Seredyńska-Abou Eid The pieces assembled in this volume reflect upon the complex and multilayered issue of diaspora in the contemporary world. All chapters in Diasporic Choices include papers presented at the 5th global conference Diasporas: Exploring Critical Issues held in Oxford in June 2012. The conference was part of a series of inter-disciplinary research and publishing projects emerging from the set of Inter-Disciplinary.Net (ID) programmes. The concept of diaspora has been present in human history since ancient times. The name can be attributed to the Greek verb speiro (to sow) and the prefix dia (over), which initially signified dispersed seeds, hence displaced communities. In Ancient Greece, those dispersed seeds related to migration for economic reasons, i.e. to escape poverty or in search of an economically more satisfying life, or to flee a war zone. Historically, the term was used with reference to various ethnic groups, though it should be emphasised here that the meaning had positive connotations. It was the Jewish diaspora that added negativity to the meaning of the term through attaching connotations of catastrophic origins, exile, suffering, loss, exclusion, homesickness and search for the opportunity to return to the given land. 1 Hence, the term diaspora is often used to describe those suffering ethnic groups who had to flee their homes for a number of reasons. The feelings of displacement, homesickness, and uprooting permeate diasporic communities and the diasporic discourse. Minna Rozen, quoted in this volume by Ana Jovanović and Ivana Vučina Simović, compared the existence and the role of diasporic groups to amoeba: Diasporas - rather like amoeba - evolve, mutate, take on different forms, live, die, and are resurrected - depending on the needs of those who use them as survival tools. For diasporas are social survival tools. 2 The above description depicts the essence of diasporic communities, regardless of their place of residence. Yet its application will be limited when referring to migration within the European Union (EU). The latter, especially the creation of the area of free movement of people, capital, and services, has utterly changed migration patterns and migrant communities in this part of the world and has altered the use of the term diaspora in that it is often applied to non-EU immigrant communities. The works collected in this volume remain faithful to the spirit and substance of diaspora in its broad meaning. An analysis of diasporic representations in film and literature, with reference to diverse parts of the world, constitutes the first two parts of this volume. Shifting identities and diasporas through generations in various

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__________________________________________________________________ communities around the globe are discussed in further two parts of this collection. The final section is devoted to the issues of adaptation and reproduction within diasporas. The first part of this volume consists of four chapters devoted to the role of cinema and the film industry in portraying and shaping diasporas. Catherine G. Carey examines new releases, Melancholia, The Way, and In the Land of Blood and Honey, and a classic diaspora film, The English Patient, in the light of the manner the films depict the aftermath of displacement. She argues that the images revise the actual and through assuring that much has changed, they also seem to visually affirm the law of conservation of culture. In the chapter certain emphasis is put on the interplay between an overview and details in diasporic cinematic images. The issue of conservation of culture is also tackled by Asma Sayed in her chapter about the role of Bombay cinema, commonly known as Bollywood, in shaping and recreating the Indian diaspora. In her analysis, Sayed looks into Bollywood in the light of Occidentalist ideologies as opposed to the Orientalist approach. She further argues that those ideologies have been prevalent in the last two decades. Hence, there is a noticeable shift in the contemporary Bollywood films aimed at diaspora audiences, which results in a contradiction between the globalisation processes that make those films available to the Indian diaspora and the segregation into East vs. West and us vs. them that has been present in recent Bollywood productions. Yet another modification in the focus of the Bollywood text is examined by Farhad Abdool Kader Sulliman Khoyratty in his chapter about the reception of Bollywood in Mauritius. He emphasises the fact that in the mid-1990s the major concern of cinematic images shifted from the India of the villager or urban working class to the Non-Resident Indian (NRI), which is a more recent type of diaspora. The NRI experience has been projected onto Bollywood and has resulted in imaging a combination of the economic success of Indian émigrés and their nostalgic loss of identity. Khoyratty examines Aditya Chopra’s Dilwale Dulhania le Jayenge (1995), Karan Johar’s Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (2001), Nikhil Advani’s Kal Ho Na Ho (2003), and Siddharth Anand’s Salaam Namaste (2005) with reference to Mauritius, where a majority of population constitutes the Indian diaspora. The following chapter refers to the issue of endemic marginalisation of the Korean diaspora in China, which in the official discourse is labelled as Chinese Korean Minority (CKM). To depict challenging issues, Mengyan YU (Yolanda) presents a detailed analysis of a Korean blockbuster film Yellow Sea. In her examination, YU emphasises the in-betweenness of the Korean diaspora who are the citizens of China of Korean ethnic origin. The complexity of their situation triggers ostracism from both sides; therefore, Yellow Sea metaphorically represents their floating home as the actual Yellow Sea is between China and Korea. The

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__________________________________________________________________ author concludes that the CKM are discriminated in China and in Korea due to their CKM status. Hence, as long as the minority governance model in China and the cultural exclusion in South Korea remain unchanged, the Chinese Korean Minority will have only a floating home. Part Two of the volume offers new viewpoints on diaspora in the globalised world. Another approach to yet another diaspora is presented by Elizabeth Jackson in her chapter about limitations of diaspora on the example of Ngozi Adichie’s collection of short stories, The Thing around Your Neck. She argues that the characters of the stories, who are of Nigerian origin, do not neatly fit into the categories of Nigerian or Nigerian Diaspora. On the contrary, they can be described as cosmopolitan, in the sense of transcending national identity or origin as a category of cultural identity. Jackson makes a point in saying that Adichie’s short stories emphasise the growing irrelevance of the traditional understanding of diaspora as a nationality related phenomenon in the context of ongoing globalisation of the world. A similar search for identity, though from a different angle, is contested by Anabela Alves in her chapter about Esmeralda Santiago. Since Santiago’s autobiographical work depicts the struggle of immigrants to adapt, identify themselves and discover their identity in the new environment in the United States, Alves argues that the writer had taken an important mission to retell or even reinvent the past in protest against silencing the perspective of the Other. Unlike Jackson’s Nigerian Diaspora that cannot be clearly established as a national diaspora, Alves’ Puerto Rican female characters in Santiago’s work would like to be identified by nationality rather than just Hispanic, a term prevalent in the diasporic discourse in the US. Another issue, within the scope of diasporic analysis, is presented by Asma Mansoor, who examines multiple marriage patterns in Monica Ali’s novel Brick Lane. Home as a microcosmic reflection of the society and marriage as a theatre where relationships enact certain roles are considered in the context of the Bangladeshis residing in the United Kingdom and in Bangladesh. Hence, marriage expectations and customs are described with reference to both countries. It seems that pressures from the family clash with the impact of Western libertarianism in the diasporic experience of the married couples. Mansoor concludes that the issue of marriage, which is a representative of social behaviours, as a means of ensuring social security seems to be a fallacy within the periphery of Brick Lane’s plot. The issue of negotiation between diaspora and nation-state is also considered by Claudio Braga and Glaucia R. Gonçalves in their chapter about diaspoetics in the literature of Karen Tei Yamashita, where the Brazilian and Japanese diasporas are compared. Braga and Gonçalves analyse the collective and individual axes of diasporic communities represented in two Yamashita’s novels: Brazil-Maru and Circle K Cycles. They argue that Yamashita’s use of a hybrid genre, multiple narrative points of view, and a mixture of languages, together with rich and

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__________________________________________________________________ complex literary strategies constitute diaspoetics. That is a combination of diaspora and poetics that attempts to encompass the notion of diaspora and the concept of poetics. The following two chapters of this collection continue the literary analysis of diasporas; however, there is more focus on fragmented diasporic communities. The geography of diasporic identities is discussed by Jairus Omuteche in his chapter about diasporic singularities and global cosmopolitanism. He examines how writers deploy literary aesthetic strategies to portray different diaspora groups and the complex nature of diaspora in the globalised world. Omuteche conducts his interdisciplinary analysis of diasporic manifestations in Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory, Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For, Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street, and Chimamanda Adichie’s collection of short stories The Thing around Your Neck. He concludes that the physical space is appropriated to develop identifiable terrains of belonging, which become cultural spaces that immigrants identify with. There are empowered and disempowered immigrants as one aspect; however, inequalities and various degrees of exclusion also play a role in shaping and facilitating migrants’ integration. The notion of cultural spaces is also present in the following chapter, where Shri Krishan Rai and Anugamini Rai exhibit a portrayal of the globalised reality and cultural belonging in Derek Walcott’s poetry. They argue that in his poems, Walcott views the world from the perspective that has not been tarnished by the laws and conventions of colonialism, including repeated metaphors - a feature of poets originating from European cultures, and the use of the Creole language as a rejection of English - the language of colonisers. Hence, the authors highlight how Walcott undermines colonialism and notices globalisation in his performance. Part Three of this volume revolves around the aspect of diasporic generations. Gillian Creese elaborates on shifting gender identities among sub-Saharan migrants in Vancouver, Canada, where identity and local community building occur in the context of marginalisation and racialisation of the minority. The younger generations, who are under the influence of African-American youth culture, have to renegotiate the new diaspora that was created by the older generation. Creese concludes that shifting identities through generations highlights the importance of gender, place, and generation in reshaping diasporic communities. The issue of generational shift in diasporic culture is also examined by Yildirim Uysal in her chapter about young migrant-rooted generations of Germany. She builds her sociological analysis of cultural aspects of diasporic communities on Fatih Akin’s films: Kurz und Schmerzlos (1998), Im Juli (2000), Gegen die Wand (2004), Auf der Anderen Seite (2007), and Soul Kitchen (2009). In his films, Akin approaches the problem of the lost generation, who are neither German nor Turkish, Greek or Italian, from the insider’s point of view. Uysal concludes that

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__________________________________________________________________ Akin’s films are hoped to contribute to build more understanding for identity problems of second generation migrants in Germany and other European countries. The theme of generations in diasporic communities is also tackled by Ana Jovanović and Ivana Vučina Simović in their chapter about linguistic attitudes and practices among the first generation of highly educated Serbian migrants. The analysis is based on their 2010 survey conducted on Serbian migrants across all continents. The results of the study show that Serbian migrants have formed attitudes and expectations towards the host country prior to their arrival. On the other hand, the participants of the study seem to have a relatively stable attitude towards first language and cultural and ethnic identity maintenance. Jovanović and Simović conclude that their informants have good preconditions for quicker social and linguistic integration and are closer to cultural and linguistic assimilation than previous waves of Serbian migrants; however, the decision to maintain the native language is a personal choice of every individual. Part Four of the volume is devoted to the issue of shifting and maintaining identities. Anastasia Panagakos in her chapter about Greek Canadian women who search for authenticity through desire tackles the problem of shifting identities in the diasporic context of Greek Canadian females whose sexuality bridges foreign, mainly Western, and local Greek concepts of femininity. Panagakos argues that those women depict ambiguous identity, thus, they are perceived through cultural binaries of outsiders/insiders, Other/Greek, or Eve/Virgin Mary. She concludes by saying that the identity shift results in the local men undermining Greek Canadian women’s economic power and in those women exerting their own economic power and sense of freedom. The following chapter refers to liberty rather than freedom and tackles the problem of revitalising the already shifted Circassian identity within the Circassian diaspora in Jordan. Natalia Agnieszka Hapek emphasises that Circassians are a distinct diaspora as their homeland was lost to tsarist Russia and later to the Soviet Union; therefore, more than eighty percent of Circassians live in diaspora. Hapek argues that in re-establishing relations with what remained from their homeland, Circassians benefit from such factors as globalisation and new media. Hence, teaching the language and culture is more attainable than in the past. She concludes by saying that the Circassian battle is an ongoing one as the chance to return to the homeland is still marginal. Within a relatively small geographical distance from Jordan and with a similar historical background of oppression from Russia and the Soviet Union is Armenia. Siranush Dvoyan depicts in her chapter how Armenians maintain their cultural, ethnic, and national identity when emigrating to Russia for economic reasons and how they maintain contacts with the family in the homeland. She argues that the sense of identity is strong and is maintained within the nation. Although modern Russia is perceived in Armenia as a successor of the Soviet Union, the colonising

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__________________________________________________________________ power, Dvoyan comes to the conclusion that emigrating Armenians yet contribute to the re-establishment of the empire. The aspect of maintaining relationships and links is also in the focus of the following chapter in this part of the volume. Eric Leclerc elaborates on the topological and content analysis of the cyberspace of the Indian diaspora. He argues that the dissemination of ICT and the availability of latest technologies facilitate the diaspora in two ways: they reconnect uprooted migrants with their native culture and they allow diasporas to express themselves outside the traditional ways of their culture. In his analysis, Leclers refers to the E-Atlas Diaspora Project, which focused on the Indian diaspora as the one that heavily invests in the cyberspace. Issues such as the contours of the cyberspace of the Indian diaspora, initial centres of its construction, and its internal organisation have been taken into account in the topological and qualitative analysis presented in this chapter. In the final chapter of this section, Nishant Upadhay examines the relationships between indigenous and immigrant communities within urban spaces of Canada. The main questions posed by Upadhay concern the manner in which immigrants from erstwhile colonies articulate and negotiate their identity and how they live on colonised indigenous lands and how Indian immigrants place themselves in relation to indigenous peoples in Canada. He concludes by saying that postcolonial theory lacks a critical perspective on the colonial processes in Western settler contexts; therefore, it should be decolonised to include the realities of indigenous struggles. Part Five, the final section of this volume, tackles the issues of adaptation and reproduction in diaspora. In her chapter, Sónia Ferreira presents an analysis of Magazine Contacto, a Portuguese TV show aimed at the Portuguese diaspora around the world. She questions the validity of reproducing Portuguese cultural identity within the diaspora without maintaining contacts with Portugal, the homeland. Since the show is not broadcast in Portugal, it runs parallel to Portuguese media; however, its main purpose is to provide a discursive space focused on Portuguese culture and identity. The following chapter engages the issue of motives behind researching diaspora. Renata Seredyńska-Abou Eid draws upon cultural translation as a means of adaptation of Polish migrants in the United Kingdom. In her reflections, she claims that Europe has changed to such an extent that the term diaspora needs to be modified as Polish migrants do not fall neatly into the diasporic categories due to their EU member status and all connotations and privileges that it brings. Seredyńska-Abou Eid concludes by stating that further research into cultural translation would improve the general understanding of adaptation processes migrants undergo. In the very final chapter of this volume, Sarah B. Gelbard elaborates on architectural representations of diaspora with reference to the Jewish culture.

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__________________________________________________________________ According to her analysis, the concept of the Wandering Jew is reflected in the multiplicity of places that Jewish people can identify themselves with and in their ability to transfer the sense of the familiar into the foreign. Therefore, home is immaterial and becomes an intersection between the transient self and the stationary architecture. Gelbard draws the conclusion that the Jewish home is tied to the re-collection of the fragmented memories of images carried by the Jewish diaspora. In the light of all the above multi-layered analysis, the concept of diaspora appears to be complex and fluid. For affected individuals, diaspora can be a necessity or a choice; however, the diasporic context always forces the community to make choices. The discussion included in this volume depicts diasporic inconsistencies that occur due to a combination of social, historical, and cultural factors. It seems that our constantly changing reality reinforces further research and more studies on numerous diasporic communities, not necessarily within the postcolonial framework.

Notes 1

Robin Cohen, ‘Diasporas and the Nation-State: From Victims to Challengers’, International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) 72, No. 3 (July 1996), Ethnicity and International Relations, 507-508, accessed May 11, 2012, http://www.arts.yorku.ca/politics/ncanefe/docs/sept0607/Diasporas%20and%20the %20Nation-State.pdf . 2 Minna Rozen, ‘Preface’, in Homelands and Diasporas: Greeks, Jews and Their Migrations, ed. Minna Rozen (London: I. B. Tauris, 2008), 24.

Bibliography Cohen, Robin. ‘Diasporas and the Nation-State: From Victims to Challengers’. International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) 72, No. 3 (July 1996), Ethnicity and International Relations, 507–520. Accessed May 11, 2012. http://www.arts.yorku.ca/politics/ncanefe/docs/sept0607/Diasporas%20and%20the %20Nation-State.pdf. Rozen, Minna. ‘Preface’. In Homelands and Diasporas: Greeks, Jews and Their Migrations, edited by Minna Rozen, 21–32. London: I. B. Tauris, 2008.

Part 1 Cinema as Diasporic Reflection

Particle/Wave: Cinema as Conservator in a Diasporic World Catherine G. Carey Abstract Cinematic narrative remains an influential form in popular culture to depict the struggles of waves of population relocated by diaspora. Because these waves consist of discreet individuals and their idiosyncratic narratives, postmodern literary and cinematic techniques are particularly suited to represent the aftermath of displacement and to avoid imposing a single totalising truth. Cinematic images as they interplay between panorama and foregrounding of the individual narrative, revise the actual to encompass the subject’s need for greater agency and possibly provide assurance that the history of displaced communities matters: a kind of law of conservation of culture in which nothing finally is lost. Narratives of diaspora employ a number of tropes, such as fragmenting and scattering, cleansing, and recollection into a whole. The effectiveness of these tropes can be observed in the classic film of diaspora, The English Patient, and other films, such as Rhapsody in August, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Everything is Illuminated, Gods and Monsters, and more recently, The Way and Melancholia. Key Words: Film in popular culture, postmodern cinematic techniques, diaspora studies, the process of mourning. ***** Despite the gain in popularity of explicit documentaries tracking individuals through diasporas, cinematic narrative prevails as the more influential form for portraying the waves of population movement that consist nonetheless of smaller entities: community, family, and individuals. Such narratives often focus on the plights of young displaced persons seeking a fresh start in a new home, despite their partial understanding of forces catapulting them from known worlds. My question is whether and how cinematic narratives mitigate personal and cultural perceptions of pain. I borrow eclectically from a number of fields, searching for a contemporary and interdisciplinary perspective. Contemplating five decades of violence in my own life, I realise that, like most world citizens, I am not unscathed by it. My study is as much about the general publics’ awareness of displacements, refugee camps, mass starvation, burning and looting, destruction of resources, cemeteries, and sacred spots, the division and reapportionment of whole countries, as it is about the pained consciousness of those others who have the lived-through experience of diaspora. Cinema as an historical/aesthetic medium has the potential to punish viewers with images, like some notorious flesh-flinging Catherine Wheel, but my premise is that cinema as

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__________________________________________________________________ often turns upon itself to spin alternative and possibly restorative imagery for the minds of those passively or actively injured by witnessing historical trauma. Postmodern literary and cinematic techniques, prizing the fragmentary and partial, avoid imposing a single truth onto the mass experience. Thus, when postmodern, post-diasporic films depict the treks of diaspora and the aftermaths of displacement, viewers witness representations of multiple narratives that are necessarily enigmatic. They glimpse personal epiphanies that are implied with a degree of opacity and engage in humour derived from a sharp sense of the limitation of human agency. What can we learn about the narrative needs of victims from these portrayals? The mind ultimately bio-degrades experience down into pictures and even pixels. 1 The need to belong and therefore to secure protection and significance in community conflicts with the need to individuate and to possess ‘virtuoso’ moments of defiance, courage, or superhuman strength that will be validated by others, even if, or especially if, the moments are exaggerated or imagined. These two conflicting needs are brought together in two ways: by locating an ongoing necessary or redemptive task that redirects energy to the present or future and/or discovering humour that contains a rich sense of irony, ‘a self-reflexive kind of narrative that asserts referentiality even as it undercuts.’ 2 The tasks and humour are most often shareable beyond survivor groups and operate to displace negating clichés, sentimentality, and self-pity with images of resilience. Cinematic images themselves contain details of testimony and plot, providing interplay between panorama and foregrounding. These images revise the actual and offer mythic assurance that, although in the larger sense much is changed, nothing finally is lost, affirming visually a kind of law of conservation of culture. Study of the neural pathways of post-traumatic stress disorder victims has become increasingly sophisticated. Some army medics now immediately induce coma in the severely wounded to prevent marking the pathways with any consciousness of suffering. The 1904 work of Pierre Janet has been re-valued for his insights into dissociation and dissociative disorders that develop in the train of trauma. Janet claims that dissociation occurs in a flash and results in immediate amnesia and loss of feeling around the traumatic event. Repression, on the other hand, is latently present as memory and requires semi-conscious effort to maintain. 3 Dissociation is by far the greater danger of the two states and accounts for emotional numbness and loss of affect in every area of life. Unlike depression, dissociation of feeling cannot be medicated or accessed through talk therapy. The neurologist Oliver Sachs claims that ‘the mind’s eye,’ when damaged, will not regard parts of the body or self. This cerebral component that usually accompanies seeing in cases of injury will even dismiss its own mirror image, 4 a phenomenon neurologists generally term hemispheric neglect. Author Siri Hustvedt wonders about the dissociative oddness of her personal narratology that has been slow to integrate ‘the shaking woman’ as herself. She recounts delivering

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__________________________________________________________________ the whole of a formal speech to a large audience, while experiencing catalepsy from her neck down. She, conscious only of the mildest curiosity, noticed the marked indifference to her state, typical of dissociation, although the shaking had occurred previously in a milder form. 5 The question arises whether dissociative disorders erase ideation surrounding a traumatic event only residually or permanently and whether this divorce from self imagery can be mended. Studies on this issue are, of course, inconclusive. Cinema however, can, at the least, provide the context for recalling partially lost or erased imagery and possibly supplies this missing imagery altogether for the absent but worried public. The cataclysmic event signalling exodus is often depicted in film through images of shattering, as if the continuity of personal history itself has been violently and irretrievably ripped apart. The classic film of diaspora, The English Patient, is filled with the visuals of shattering: the mansion wrecked by bombs and military occupation, the opening segment in which Laslo’s small plane is gunned down, the patient himself, identified only by the language he speaks, burned and skeletally hollow, and the diary of his fragmented narrative, a partially ruined Herodotus history. The Sikh sapper risks the shattering of his own body, and his unfolding sexual liaison with the Canadian nurse is overwhelmed by news of the dropping of the atomic bomb in Japan, which he as an Asian perceives as racial annihilation. This event ruptures their rapport and whatever progress out of dissociation they have gained together. Catherine sums up the experience of loving after trauma: ‘New lovers [having been smashed]…smash everything.’ 6 Other images from the cultural repository concretise ways to re-gather and mark the presence of the past. This can involve a fact-finding mission or the retracing of a journey, but the pilgrimage begun in denial ends in personal relief. Sigmund Freud has described the compulsion to repeat when personal agency is lost. Jacques Lacan has described the lure of the wound, but I have been interested in the aura of the secret, the urge to uncover the unthinkable truth. 7 The Jewish-American protagonist in Everything is Illuminated is in pursuit of family secrets. He feels compelled to visit a cemetery in a town on a road in a country that no longer exists as his grandmother’s Russia to trace, not only a violent secret execution, but who kept the secret and why. 8 Similarly, in the film The Way, a father is notified of his estranged adult son’s fall from a cliff while walking the Camino de Santiago across the Pyrenees. Bitter and perplexed, he sets off to finish the portion of the journey the son did not complete, marking each of the unreached stations with his cremated ashes. Cinematic technique duplicates the healthy process of mourning. The father hallucinates his son on the trail until he can finally hear his secret: the son despises his father and his father’s commodification. The need to find his own way certainly led to the son’s accident and possibly to his suicide. The film shares features of the diaspora: the father has acquired an equally dissociated set of international travelling companions, their

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__________________________________________________________________ journey is full of comic errors and ultimately the traveller undertakes a path beyond his smug suburb that he could not have imagined before. 9 Images at the end of the film, such as the last scattering of ashes, often enact complete and voluntary release, signifying that what began as a mass movement has now splintered into a collection of individual stories and is thus conserved, not by historians, but within the subjective repositories of many minds, none of them representative. Akira Kurosawa’s film Rhapsody in August has a classic scene of gathering and release. When the grandmother’s story of Nagasaki’s bombing has been recounted to the post-war grandchildren, they are alarmed by a sudden rainstorm announced by a mushroom-shaped cloud. Eventually it becomes clear that the torrent is a thunderstorm of cleansing rain, not the feared atomic particles. They no longer have a need to run. 10 Another redemptive scene occurs at the end of Balzac and the Little Seamstress where during the Cultural Revolution the tailor’s daughter is befriended by boys from the re-education camp who have smuggled in novels. Romance turns to harsh reality when the girl has to abort a pregnancy and disappears into the city. In later years, the grown men learn of the flooding of the Three Gorges Region, and, in a cinematic segment evocative of memory, images of the seamstress float to the surface as the rest of the village submerges. One of the characters returns to the village to search for the seamstress’s name among the hundreds of memorial candles set in origami blossoms launched into the bay. Swimming among the lit flowers, he realises that no one - and every one - of the blossoms floating freely and lighting the night is the disappeared little seamstress. 11 So who are the image makers with the power to heal? Are cinematic narratives indeed cultural conservators and, if so, of which culture? James Young has suggested an anti-redemptory acceptance that refuses to accede to the inevitability of historical forces. In other words, we must figure out how to memorialise the particle, the individual engulfed in the wave without accepting inevitability of the wave. 12 Certainly later films about the Holocaust, such as Life is Beautiful, The Pianist, and The Reader, put emphasis on the idiosyncratic stories of individuals caught up in the totalising sweep of history. Many consider Lars Von Trier’s films bleak, and his latest film Melancholia is no exception. Against the backdrop of an elite wedding party, a planet looms closer and closer to envelop the earth. This film is valuable for its depiction of inevitable but predictable cosmic forces that cast life in darkness, seemingly forever. The small family, the never-to-be-brided bride, her sister and sister’s child, with their complicated histories and unlived futures, simply watch on a hill with their picnic until they are seemingly eclipsed, but as viewers know, never really eclipsed, because of the preservative archive of film. 13 Acts to extinguish a culture are rarely sudden, but denial and shock and sometimes even material concerns paralyse measures to escape. The memory of

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__________________________________________________________________ approaching encroachment is the site of continuing emotional trauma and one that refugees find most difficult to assimilate: they knew cataclysm was coming but were helpless to avoid it. Cinematic narrative can encompass and offer up the imaginaries of refugees, scenarios of how with greater agency they might have acted to forestall harm. The public that learns of events of mass violence retrospectively also shares in the need to create a narrative constructed to balance failure to act with intentionality. Cinematic narratives then are fundamentally apologias for human limitation but as apologias are, by nature, chimerical, that is, each discreet imagistic frame must be visualised, recounted, and savoured before being surrendered to the panoramic depiction. A moving moment in film illustrates the placing of a painful memory of helplessness into the sweep of the whole. Film biographer Bill Condon depicts the director of the Frankenstein films, James Whale, at the end of his life, recounting his memories of World War I to the new young gardener friend. Whale is tortured by the image of his young gay lover killed by enemy fire, his decomposing body hanging for days on a fence beyond reach. Ultimately, in a dream sequence shared with the gardener and only possible in film, the aging Whale voluntarily and deliberately walks into a tableau of battlefield carnage and chooses his place and posture among the dead, satisfied to be among his peers and free to become just another particle of historical memory. 14 Cinema compiles a pastiche of fragmented images, consisting themselves of tiny pixels assembled into patterns. Cinema of the diaspora depicts the partially glimpsed lives of displaced persons, which, for the sake of meaning, are also displayed as patterns with occasional close-up focus. What is at stake in these cinematic depictions is how and whether portrayal of subjective states can influence public perception and the process of mourning. Because cinematic imagery can match the imaginary of individual characters to supply their inner voices, self-perspective, regrets - in other words, the might have been of their personal stories, it can at its best achieve a holistic view of persons within situations that includes personal truths and human imperfections. What can we understand about the healing of historical trauma, since we can only measure public consciousness anecdotally? I note one phenomenon that supports my theory of dissociation after traumatic events and its undoing. Large cataclysmic events such as Diasporas most often are met with silence in the creative industries for at least a decade, unless they supply factual accounts; assimilative perspectival art emerges after an integrative period of time and often all at once, as numbness wears off. In terms of technique and form particularly, a closely-timed outbreak of films on one topic bear influence to one another, and some films seem to cap the subject with final resolution. To the degree that such films incorporate narratives of personal trauma and personal imagery into the larger historical sweep of events, public dialogue on an unspeakable subject

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__________________________________________________________________ becomes possible and open to victims and witnesses, whose presence and version has been noted.

Notes 1

Walter Benjamin as cited in Young. James Young, ‘Towards a Received History of the Holocaust’, History and Theory 36, Issue 4 (1997), accessed May 15, 2012, doi/10.1111/0018-2656.00029. 2 Hayden White as cited in Young, ‘Towards a Received History of the Holocaust’, 11. 3 Pierre Janet as cited in Michael Schmid, Narrative Memory and the Impact of Trauma on Individuals with Reference to One Short Sequence from ‘Memento’ (Munich: GRIN, 2004), accessed May 17, 2012, http://www.grin.com/en/ebook/66502/narrative-memory-and-the-impact-of-trauma-on-individuals-withreference. 4 Oliver Sachs, In the Mind’s Eye (New York: Knopf, 2010). 5 Siri Hustvedt, The Shaking Woman or a History of My Nerves (New York: Henry Holt, 2012). 6 Anthony Mighhella, The English Patient (Los Angeles: Miramax International, 1996). Based on a novel by Michael Ondaatje, 1992. 7 Catharine Gabriel Carey, ‘The Body of Knowledge: The Object of Learning. Epistemophilia and the Desire for Self’ (PhD diss., University of Massachusetts, 1998), http://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9841847. 8 Liv Scheiber, Everything is Illuminated (Los Angeles: Warner, 2005. Based on a novel by Jonathan Safron Foer. 9 Emilio Estevez, The Way (Los Angeles: Elixer, 2010). 10 Akira Kurosawa, Rhapsody in August (Japan: Shochiku Films, 1991). 11 Dai Sijie, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress: A Tailor-Made Romance (United States: Empire Films, 2002). Based on the book by Sijie. 12 James Young, ‘Cultural Practice or Redemptive Transcendence? Philosophical Double Standards and the Struggles to Be’, in Generic Reflections & Unique Existence, ed. Michael Y. Dothis (Oxford: Toff Press, 2010), 145-156. 13 Lars Von Trier, Melancholia (Copenhagen: Zentropa, 2011). 14 Bill Condon, Gods and Monsters (Hollywood: Lionsgate, 1998).

Bibliography Carey, Catharine Gabriel. ‘The Body of Knowledge: The Object of Learning. Epistemophilia and the Desire for Self’. PhD diss., University of Massachusetts, 1998. http://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9841847.

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__________________________________________________________________ Hustvedt, Siri. The Shaking Woman or a History of My Nerves. New York: Henry Holt, 2012. Sachs, Oliver. In the Mind’s Eye. New York: Knopf, 2010. Schmid, Michael. Narrative Memory and the Impact of Trauma on Individuals with Reference to One Short Sequence from ‘Memento’. Munich: GRIN, 2004. Accessed May 17, 2012. http://www.grin.com/en/e-book/66502/narrative-memoryand-the-impact-of-trauma-on-individuals-with-reference. Young, James. ‘Towards a Received History of the Holocaust’. History and Theory 36, Issue 4 (1997): 21–43. Accessed May 15, 2012. doi/10.1111/0018-2656.00029. —––. ‘Cultural Practice or Redemptive Transcendence? Philosophical Double Standards and the Struggles to Be’. In Generic Reflections & Unique Existence, edited by Michael Y. Dothis, 145–156. Oxford: Toff Press, 2010.

Filmography Condon, Bill, dir. Gods and Monsters. Hollywood: Lionsgate, 1998. Estevez, Emilio, dir. The Way. Los Angeles: Elixer, 2010. Kurosawa, Akira, dir. Rhapsody in August. Japan: Shochiku Films, 1991. Mighhella, Anthony, dir. The English Patient. Los Angeles: Miramax International, 1996. Scheiber, Liv, dir. Everything is Illuminated. Los Angeles: Warner, 2005. Sijie, Dai, dir. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress: A Tailor-Made Romance. United States: Empire Films, 2002. Von Trier, Lars, dir. Melancholia. Copenhagen: Zentropa, 2011. Catherine G. Carey is an Associate Professor at KIMEP University in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where she teaches theatre, academic writing, literature and graduate courses in the MA TESOL Programme. She is particularly interested in cultural and psychological representations in literature and the arts.

Bollywood in Diaspora: Cherishing Occidentalist Nostalgia Asma Sayed Abstract Bombay cinema, popularly known as Bollywood, targets Indian diaspora in the US, Canada, the UK and other countries alongside Indian audiences. Contemporary films such as Pardes (Foreign Land, 1997), Dilwale Dulhaniya le Jaaenge (The Bravehearted Will Take the Bride, 1995), and Singh is King (2008) among others present Indian characters in Western locales. These films create imagined communities, where home culture is intact, and conform to the Indian traditions and identities. The latter, as it has been frequently argued, are Hindu, male and upper class. In order to reinforce nationalist and patriarchal ideologies, the films present a highly critical account of the West and Western value systems as well as culture. So as to highlight Eastern culture and traditions, these films serve to construct an image of the West from the outside, thus cherishing Occidentalist tendencies. The films usually portray those influenced by Western culture as villainous, while adhering the protagonist, particularly female, to traditional Indian value systems as good and triumphant. Occidentalist ideologies have been present in the Bombay cinema for long, particularly the postindependence era, with films such as Naya Daur and Purab aur Paschim which emphasised the postcolonial nation and its need to survive against all outside influences including Western science and technology. Such ideologies have taken a new form in the films produced in the last two decades. In this paper I analyse this shift and argue that Bollywood films of the 1990s, aimed at diaspora audiences, tend to distinguish the East from the West, establishing an us versus them dichotomy that runs counter to the very process of globalisation that makes these films available to diasporic communities. As such, these films manage cultural sensibilities and foster nostalgia in their audiences by creating a hegemonic imaginary home and home culture, which is inconsistent with the heterogeneous and multicultural lived reality of India. Key Words: Bollywood, Occidentalism, diaspora, culture, orientalism, nostalgia, homeland, nationalism, transnationalism, globalisation. ***** 1. Situating Bollywood Indian cinema produces films in many languages and is the world’s largest film industry. Hindi films produced in Bombay, commonly referred to as Bollywood films, have the largest market share of Indian cinema and the greatest audiences; these films target both Indians and Indian diaspora communities in the US, Canada, the UK and other countries. 1 As Indian diasporic communities establish a more

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__________________________________________________________________ significant presence in many Western societies, Bollywood films have also begun to attract non-Indian Western audiences. Thus, contemporary Hindi films that specifically aim at the diasporic populations, such as Pardes (Foreign Land, 1997), Dilwale Dulhaniya le Jaaenge (The Bravehearted Will Take the Bride, 1995), and Singh is King (2008) among others, present Indian characters in Western locales. These films create ‘imagined communities’ 2 where the home culture of India remains intact and conform to Indian identity and traditions. India is a complex country with many languages, religions, and ethnicities, and yet it has been frequently argued in film scholarship that Bollywood cinematic identity is represented as Hindu, male and upper class. Bollywood films not only resist transnational interculturalism, but also deny the recognition of India’s multicultural plurality. As Rachel Dwyer has noted, from the early days of Hindi cinema ‘the norm of the film’s characters is that of the urban, upper-caste, north Indian Hindu. Characters from other religions, regions and castes are portrayed as “others,” and style of speech, attitudes, and clothes seem to be humorous or exotic.’ 3 Thus, the majority of the blockbusters do not take into account India’s diversity, and as I will argue, they cast an Occidentalist gaze on the Western Other. Purab aur Paschim (East and West, 1970) and Pardes, which I will address in specific detail, are two prototypical examples of Occidentalism as expressed in the Indian cinema over the last sixty years. 2. Orientalism and Occidentalism Central to the understanding of post-colonial theory is Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism that provides a way for appreciating the East/West dichotomy. Said argues that Western critics of the East have represented the East as inferior, exotic, and irrational; that is, they have defined the Orient in negative contrast to the Occident, with the East presenting an exotic and fascinating subject while sustaining notions of Western culture as superior and universal. Similarly, I reason that the West is also perceived as Other from the Eastern perspective and that Occidentalist Othering, a type of fetishisation of the West comparable to the earlier identified exotisisation of the East from a Western (Orientalist) perspective, also happens in the East either in the form of ‘loyal Westernism ... [or] antiWesternism.’ 4 The concept of Occidentalism is a recent theoretical development, with a handful of articles and books appearing between 1995 and 2004 by critics such as Couze Venn, James G. Carrier, Bernard Lewis, Xiao-mei Chen, Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit. Again, in 2010 this theoretical issue was raised by Meltem Ahiska in her book on Occidentalism in Turkey. Occidentalism, as she defines it, ... addresses both the desire for and denigration of what is essentialized and reified as the West. ... it is an enabling discourse of power in the non-West. ... it is the generation of an

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__________________________________________________________________ acceptable format for speech and action in the complex social terrain in which pragmatic interests, desires and fear, and insecurity and the will to power exist side by side. 5 Bombay films of the 1990s showcase such Occidentalist tendencies as they both revere and denigrate the West and its value systems. None of these critics, or any others to my knowledge, specifically addresses the role of Occidentalism as it manifests in the cinema. 3. Diasporic Occidentalism Relocating from one geopolitical space to another necessitates certain emotional, psychological, and mental transitions. As Benzi Zhang observes, diaspora ‘involves not only the crossing of geopolitical borders, but also the traversing of multiple boundaries and barriers in space, time, race, culture, language, and history.’ 6 As such, diaspora refers ‘not only to a process of migration, but also to a double relationship between two different cultural homes/origins.’ 7 It is understood that diasporas lead to cultural hybridisation, hyphenated identities, a sense of homelessness and non-belonging, fear of assimilation, and deterritorialised cultures. New cultural identities are formed in diaspora. Stuart Hall contends that the experience of diaspora is defined by ‘the recognition of a necessary heterogeneity and diversity ... by hybridity’ and ‘diaspora identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference.’ 8 Thus, when people from one country move into another, they not only bring in their home culture to the host country, but, with the passage of time, adopt the culture of the host country. This process results in two different aspects of cultural formation: on the one hand, there is the localisation of global culture; on the other hand, there is the globalisation of local culture. Consequently, we see the formation of transnational cultures. This transnationality and hybridity of cultures is ignored as contemporary Bollywood filmmakers fail to take into account this process of global-local exchange and the formation of hybrid identities in the Indian diaspora. Indian emigration has resulted in one of the largest diasporas worldwide. Vijay Mishra divides the movement of Indian diaspora into two distinct groups for which the first is the old diaspora constituted mostly of the indentured labour to the colonies of countries such as South Africa, Fiji, Trinidad, and the second is the post-1960s ‘movement of economic migrants (but also refugees) into the metropolitan centres of the former empire as well as the New World and Australia.’ 9 The second movement, which Mishra names as the ‘diaspora of late capital,’ he argues, ‘has become an important market of popular cinema as well as a site for its production.’ 10 Films, as important cultural texts, both represent and co-construct the nation, as well as the national identity.

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__________________________________________________________________ 4. Bollywood Deterritorialised Bollywood has become a multi-million dollar industry as a result of the economic liberalisation of the 1990s and investment from Western and global markets - which is ironic - since Bollywood films systematically deride Western culture. Shahrukh Khan, Aishawariya Rai, Katrina Kaif, Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan and other Bollywood superstars have become global icons and their films bring India to the diaspora viewers. Because of its vast national and international audiences, Bombay cinema has enormous cultural influence and the power to reinforce or disrupt stereotypes. However, Bombay cinema has played a significant role in maintaining patriarchal, nationalist, and populist views that condone the marginalisation of women and minorities. Bollywood films distributed to diasporic audiences consistently present a homogenous Indian identity - an imagined Indian identity. As Mishra argues, Bollywood ... has been crucial in bringing the “homeland” into the diaspora as well as creating a culture of imaginary solidarity across the heterogeneous linguistic and national groups that make up the South Asian (Indian) diaspora. 11 The solidarity that Mishra writes of is produced through a variety of means in these films, but particularly through an invocation of nostalgia and a patriotic zeal for India. As already mentioned, there is an assumption that Indians are a homogenous group, thus negating the differences of caste, religion, class, language, and region. Bombay films foster an image of what R. Radhakrishnan has called ‘an idealized India that has nothing to do with contemporary history.’ 12 Thus, these film narratives artificially separate the East and the West and the present what may be termed an Occidentalist perspective on the West. 5. Occidentalist Gaze In order to reinforce nationalist and patriarchal ideologies, the films present a highly critical account of the West and Western value systems as well as culture, with the aim of promoting Eastern cultures and traditions. Bollywood films usually portray characters influenced by Western culture as villainous and the protagonists, particularly leading female characters, who are good and triumphant, typically adhere to traditional Indian value systems. Occidentalist ideologies have long had a consistent presence in Bombay cinema, particularly during the post-independence era after 1947, with films such as Naya Daur (New Era, 1957) and Purab aur Paschim, which emphasised saving the postcolonial nation in resistance to all outside influences including Western science and technology. In the past two decades, these ideologies have been taken up in new ways. Bollywood films of the 1990s that are aimed at diaspora audiences tend to distinguish the East from the

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__________________________________________________________________ West and establish an us versus them dichotomy that runs counter to the very process of globalisation that makes these films available to diasporic communities. As such, these films manage cultural sensibilities and foster nostalgia in their audiences, by creating a hegemonic imaginary home and the home culture that runs counter not only to their diasporic experiences, but is also inconsistent with the heterogeneous and multicultural lived-reality of India. The trajectory of Indian cinema changed dramatically in the 1990s with the international launch of films such as Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaaenge, which is identified as the first diaspora film, Pardes, and Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum (Sometimes Happiness Sometimes Sadness, 2001) among others. These movies were not only directed at audiences in India, but also at the Indian diaspora. As Nitin Govil argues, such films ‘targeted South Asian expatriate audiences with fantasies of middle-class mobility driven by the loss and recovery of “traditional Indian values.”’ 13 With the rise in globalisation and increased movement of South Asian populations to the Western world and Bollywood’s desire to appeal to the South Asian diaspora for economic reasons, the subject matters of film began shifting. Many cultural issues extraneous to film-production and even to India itself contributed to these transformations: changes in national politics and economic policies, the rise of neoliberalism, a growing NRI (non-resident Indian) audience, and an expanding distribution market in the West. As Anirudh Deshpande argues, ‘the meaning of being an Indian changed (...) during the 1990s. A shimmering lifestyle was highlighted with the onset of globalisation.’ 14 However, these changes were not completely new but built on historical trends captured in the cinema. Post-1947 popular Indian cinema conveyed Hindu nationalist position, triggered in particular by the Partition. In the early post-colonial era ‘much of Hindi cinema (...) remained anchored to Nehruvian India,’ and displayed ‘a bourgeois colonialism with its caste, regional, and religious bias.’ 15 In the 1970s, post-colonial cinema aimed at presenting the nationalist agendas and pride in independent India, as well as the rise of an Indian middle class. In the 1990s, the earlier Nehru-era cinema that illustrated Indian patriotism through shows of anger and frustration towards the British Empire continued in a new Occidentalist direction by incorporating economically successful but culturally Indian NRI characters. These NRIs who have lived in the West but have managed to remain untouched by the decadence of the West, which is largely represented in film by drinking, smoking, womanising, and distain for India and its traditional ways - are idealised. Using Purab aur Paschim and Pardes as case studies helps illustrate the Occidentalist trends in the respective periods of each of these Bollywood texts; these films, made by Indian directors residing in India, present a stereotypical view of a Western life and Westernised Indians. Both films, although from different periods, present essentialist notions of homeland and Indian identity.

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__________________________________________________________________ 6. Purab Aur Paschim (1970) Released in 1970, the film Purab aur Paschim is directed by Manoj Kumar who also plays the lead role. Manoj Kumar comes with his own ethos having been nicknamed Bharat (India) Kumar, for his highly patriotic films. The plot begins in colonial India. Harnam (Pran) kills a freedom fighter. Years pass, and freedom fighter’s son Bharat (Manoj Kumar) goes to London to university. Bharat maintains Indian perspective, values and morals while living in England and is very affronted by the decadence of Indians in diaspora who have already taken on the ways of Western society. Western decadence is particularly emphasised through the character of Preeti (Saira Banu) who has dyed blond hair, wears Western clothing, drinks alcohol and smokes. Despite himself Bharat falls in love with Preeti and once she returns to India with him, she realises the failings of her Western lifestyle. She discovers the beauty and spirituality in India. Thus, the film clearly plays on the dichotomy of East versus West, imbuing the East with the attributes of purity and love, in contrast to the materialism and lust of the West, actualised through Preeti’s transformation. A liberated woman from the West is reinstated in India’s post-colonial, nationalistic and patriarchal society; this Indian notion of liberation distances itself from the misguided feminist movements of the 1960s West. 7. Pardes (1997) Pardes directed by Subhash Ghai and released in 1997, is an explicit Occidentalist diasporic Bollywood text that tells the story of characters navigating their identities between India and America. The film acts as a contemporary parable of appropriate Indianness. Kishorilal, an Indian expatriate, who lived in America for 35 years, returns to India and rediscovers that it is the best place in the world. He has always believed that India, above all, promotes love and generosity as opposed to America, which is about give and take. He visits his long time Indian friend whose daughter Ganga, named after the river Ganges, and representing Mother India, is a synecdoche of Indian virtue and femininity. Ganga, as her mythological name suggests, is pure, virginal, and adheres to traditional Indian values. Ganga’s many appearances on screen are in white and red outfits, signifying her purity and virginity, mostly against a backdrop of green fields signifying Indian abundance, both in terms of its values and material wealth. Kishorilal approves of Ganga and wants his son Rajiv to marry her. Rajiv was born and raised in the US. He is hesitant about marrying Ganga and thus, Arjun, an Indian-born orphan raised by Kishorilal in America, is tasked with convincing Rajiv to accept the marriage. Arjun, also raised in the US, is an antithesis of Rajiv, i.e., he values Indian culture and traditions, while also being a singer in a band, therefore representing a transnational Indian diasporic identity. Arjun and Rajiv visit India to meet with Ganga. Rajiv likes Ganga and admires her for what she represents to him as a Western male: filial piety and devout Indian femininity. He

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__________________________________________________________________ agrees to the marriage. Ganga is sent to the US with Rajiv and Arjun for the wedding. Once in the US, Ganga determines that the Indo-American Rajiv drinks, parties, and is promiscuous, representing Western immorality through her Occidentalist gaze. In one scene, Rajiv, in a drunken stupor, attempts to rape Ganga. Arjun, the good Indo-American guy by proxy of having maintained traditional Indian values, saves Ganga, and ultimately marries her. Thus, Rajiv is portrayed as villainous and is not only defeated, but also disowned by his father Kishorilal, who after years in the US is still thoroughly Indian. In contrast, Arjun represents the potential that can be preserved in diasporic communities in the right circumstances - a continuity that will ensure the enduring love for India, across time and space according to the ideal that an Indian, no matter where he is, loves India. He writes a song titled I love my India which is screened twice in the film: once in an Indian setting, and then in a scene that takes place in the US. Thus, the song showcasing the nostalgia for India represents what should be the penultimate desire of all diasporic subjects: to connect with the home country, even though it may be an imagined community. Yet, in the vein of Occidentalist narrative that the film exemplifies, just as the West is demonised, it is likewise valorised. So while Ganga’s family frets about Rajiv’s visit as he is coming from America, they also mock another NRI family, who has just returned from Sri Lanka. This aspect of the plot highlights that despite existing prejudices against the West, it remains more desirable for Indians to emigrate to Western countries than to other global destinations. 8. Conclusion As Purab aur Paschim and Pardes demonstrate, the earlier post-colonial film rhetoric has been maintained in various incarnations reflective of the cultural and political mandates of the films’ respective periods. These two films are demonstrative of larger trends in Bollywood cinema that represent India as a utopic nation and homeland. Govil argues that the export-oriented narratives of Bollywood reproduce a ‘politics of authenticity (...) through the expatriate Indian’s attempted reintegration in a culture s/he left behind to pursue material wealth in the West.’ 16 Interestingly, however, there are drawbacks to emigration but these are not the focus of this genre of Indian cinematic explorations of the diasporic experience. These films that show wealthy expatriate Indians often elide the difficult realities faced by Indians in the West, where coloured people are all too often subjected to racism, while the rise up the capitalist-ladder is made more difficult by prejudices about accent, education, religion, ethnicity and race. Instead, in these films, the West is demonised and reductively compared to the spiritually rich, traditionally bound, and highly moralised Indian world. Indian culture is performed as authentic, and corruption, pollution, poverty, violence, crime and other issues that trouble India are absent. These films, and others like them from

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__________________________________________________________________ the post-1947 period into the 1990s, reinvigorate a myth of nation and perpetuate anxiety about the infiltration of Western decadence into India. The East’s Occidentalist gaze on the West, although dynamic, sustains protectionist messages about culturally superior Indian nationalistic ideologies.

Notes 1

Bollywood is a much contested term because many scholars tend to look at the term as a reminder of hegemony of Hollywood; also, it is a misnomer that Bollywood refers to all of Indian cinema. For further information on this, see Tejaswini Ganti, Producing Bollywood (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012). 2 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 2006), 5. 3 Rachel Dwyer, Cinema India: The Visual Culture of Hindi Film (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002), 20. 4 Meltem Ahiska, Occidentalism in Turkey: Questions of Modernity and National Identity in Turkish Radio Broadcasting (London: Tauris Academic Press, 2010), 41. 5 Ibid., 41-45. 6 Benzi Zhang, ‘Identity in Diaspora and Diaspora in Writing: The Poetics of Cultural Transrelation’, Journal of Intercultural Studies 12, No. 2 (2000): 126. 7 Ibid. 8 Stuart Hall, ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora’, in Theorizing Diaspora, eds. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Munnur (Malden: Blackwell, 2003), 244. 9 Vijay Mishra, Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire (New York: Routledge, 2002), 235. 10 Ibid., 236. 11 Ibid., 237. 12 R. Radhakrishnan, Diasporic Mediations: Between Home and Locations (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 211. 13 Nitin Govil, ‘Bollywood and the Frictions of Global Mobility’, in The Bollywood Reader, eds. Rajinder Dudrah and Jigna Desai (Berkshire: Open University Press, 2008), 200. 14 Anirudh Deshpande, ‘Indian Cinema and the Bourgeois Nation State’, Economic and Political Weekly 41, No. 50 (2007): 96. 15 Ibid., 99. 16 Govil, ‘Bollywood and The Frictions of Global Mobility’, 207.

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Bibliography Ahiska, Meltem. Occidentalism in Turkey: Questions of Modernity and National Identity in Turkish Radio Broadcasting. London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2010. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised edition. London: Verso, 2006. Buruma, Ian, and Avishai Margalit. Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies. New York: Penguin, 2005. Carrier, James G., ed. Occidentalism: Images of the West. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003. Chen, Xiao-mei. Occidentalism: A Theory of Counter-Discourse in Post-Mao China. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Deshpande, Anirudh. ‘Indian Cinema and the Bourgeois Nation State’. Economic and Political Weekly 41, No. 50 (2007): 95–101 and 103. Dwyer, Rachel. Cinema India: The Visual Culture of Hindi Films. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Ganti, Tejaswini. Producing Bollywood. Durham: Duke University Press, 2012. Govil, Nitin. ‘Bollywood and the Frictions of Global Mobility’. In The Bollywood Reader, edited by Rajinder Dudrah, and Jigna Desai, 201–215. Berkshire: Open University Press, 2008. Hall, Stuart. ‘Cultural Identity and Diapora’. In Theorizing Diaspora, edited by Jana Evans Braziel, and Anita Munnur, 233–246. Malden: Blackwell, 2003. Mishra, Vijay. Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire. New York: Vintage, 2002. Radhakrishnan, R. Diasporic Mediations: Between Home and Locations. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1979.

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__________________________________________________________________ Venn, Couze. Occidentalism: Modernity and Subjectivity. London: Thousand Oaks, 2000. Zhang, Benzi. ‘Identity in Diaspora and Diaspora in Writing: The Poetics of Cultural Transrelation’. Journal of Intercultural Studies 21, No. 2 (2000): 125– 142.

Filmography Bazmee, Anees, dir. Singh is King, 2008. Chopra, Aditya, dir. Dilwale Dulhaniya le Jaaenge, 1995. Chopra, B. R., dir. Naya Daur, 1957. Ghai, Shubhash, dir. Pardes, 1997. Johar, Karan, dir. Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum, 2001. Kumar, Manoj, dir. Purab aur Pashchim, 1970. Asma Sayed is lecturer in comparative literature at the University of Alberta and Grant MacEwan University, Canada. She is the co-editor of World on a Maple Leaf: A Treasury of Canadian Multicultural Folktales (2011).

A Phenomenological Reading of Temporality and Natality in Relation to the Diasporic Indian Reception of the Bollywood Text with Reference to Mauritius Farhad Abdool Kader Sulliman Khoyratty Abstract Diasporas are in essence (sometimes structured, generally reactive) existential reconstructions - reheated curries that taste different, temporally alienating revisits, re-accorded historical discontinuities. They are above all references to temporality (Heidegger 1 ) and attempts at giving birth to the new (Arendt’s natality 2 ) that proceed by disrupting given temporalities. According to Vijay Mishra, Bollywood cinema is a medium used by the Indian diaspora to alleviate feelings of isolation from their country of origin. 3 The mid-nineties of the twentieth century reflected a shift in the central concern of the Bollywood text from the India of the villager or the urban working-class to the NRI (non-resident Indian). The experience of being NRI has been transposed onto existing Bollywood fantasy structures of success, involved in the logic of imagining contemporary economic exilés as materialistically successful but nostalgic of loss of identity, a pragmatic welding of tradition and modernity. Many will argue that Dilwale Dulhania le Jayenge 4 started that trend. There was a quick follow-up with other major films. This paper will argue that the Bollywood text in a diasporic Indian context has often been appropriated by diasporic Indians to outperform time as defined by the dominant colonial discourses (in the Barthesian sense that receiving a text is part of writing but also in that its very textual tempo reflects the historical displacement of the diaspora by writing out its possibility), often uncovering an angst over the futural projection of Indianness over generations. Instead, the new Bollywood engagement with the diasporic Indian showcases a new triumphalist attempt at incorporating the temporal dialectic within a relatively stable temporal framework. Mauritius, with a majority population of an Indian diaspora, both dominated (present-as-past) and dominant (past-as-present) is one reference for exploring the nature of such a flux. Key Words: Diaspora, phenomenology, Bollywood, temporality, natality, Mauritius. ***** With around 25 million people in over 110 countries, the Indian diaspora is the second largest in the world, next only to the Chinese diaspora. 5 Within this diaspora, Mauritius is unique in that at least 68% of its population is of Indian origin, making it the only country where diasporic people of Indian origin form a clear majority. This puts Mauritians of Indian origin at an unusual crux of two

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__________________________________________________________________ Existentials: the one dominated (present-as-past, as being-already) and the other dominant (past-as-present; as being-alongside) representable as a movement from old diasporic pessimism and morbidity to a current global triumphalism of new diasporic Indianness. Here, Indian does not only refer to a citizen of the modern Republic of India, but to someone originally of South Asia generally, an approximate and perceptual, category. The main focus of my research is on the bulk of Mauritians of Indian origin, who arrived in the country as indentured labourers in the 19th century. There is no pretension over this analysis being exhaustive - instead specific issues are explored through an eidetic reduction that uncovers certain essences of which the experience of indentured labour reveals enough consistencies to enable an exploration of essences. The focus here is on the pre-reflexive being, although admittedly - as with any analysis, - any access to the pre-ontological has to be ontological therefore ideologically constructed. The objective is to explore certain points of origin of ideological construction (before judgements such as good or bad ideology become relevant) or rather the existential readiness of the subject for ideology (howness instead of whatness). As such, the phenomenological approach here is both successive and coextensive with, and, not necessarily opposed to, more materialist theories of the human subject. In Being and Time, Martin Heidegger distinguishes between two types of temporality. 6 The first refers to human (existential) temporality (Zeitlichkeit des Dasein) which enables human self-transcendence through ecstasy (as Beingoutside-itself) and the second to the horizon within which the former takes place (as ekstema, general time), an ontological temporality (Temporalität des Seins). Heidegger’s later thinking 7 will lead him to conclude that in the end Zeitlichkeit is the only temporality. In Being and Time Heidegger engages with natality as a byproduct of ecstasy, 8 but it is Arendt who truly explores the concept, which appears and reappears in her oeuvre, with a variation of shades. For our purpose, we follow the trail of her definitions of natality to mean that which is empowered to give birth to the new, not just in relation to democracy (her central application), but in general, existentially: ‘It is of the nature of beginning that something new is started which cannot be expected from whatever may have happened before.’ 9 I am here connecting Arendt’s natality to the phenomenology of choice in terms of the choice to choose. The distinction between the old and the new Indian diaspora has traditionally been ontological, based on a linear chronic temporality, a Temporalität des Seins, 10 a selection of destinations associated with each. Thus, the older diaspora is associated with the indenture in Fiji, Mauritius, Guyana and Trinidad but also with Southern and Eastern Africa. Instead, the new diaspora is associated mainly with Western (predominantly ‘Anglo-Saxon’) metropolitan centres like London, New York and Melbourne. Existentially, we can argue that, for the old diaspora, India was not the future but the past. Thus, Mauritians of Indian origin thrown into in the

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__________________________________________________________________ 19th century owed more to being-determined-by-the-world than determining-theworld-out-of-their-own-will. After decades of being truly separated from India existentially (India was financially, therefore technologically inaccessible), they were additionally lured by the system of rewards and punishments into becoming Westernised. However, here was, in the early 20th century of limited agency, Bombay cinema - the mirror of Indian faces, speaking the language fearlessly in the darkness of the cinema hall, loving, dancing, breeding, just being: self-image was finally more or less aligned with visual image. Bombay cinema was absolutely the only connection to India. For film is a technological existential extension of the self much as Heidegger argues in Being and Time a hammer becomes an extension of the self. 11 Film reifies an entire audio-visual existential world. Double-bills of Bombay movies were offered by cinema halls, which altogether lasted above 6 hours, a most powerful cultural antidote! However, Bollywood did not merely vehicle natality - as a perceived made-in-India product it itself was natality. Angst about being-determined-by-the-world in the present, brought about by a dread of death in some future, which marks the being-in-the-world of the old Indian diaspora in Mauritius, is carried over spectrally 12 to the being-in-the-world of the new Indian diaspora. Correspondingly, the film Dilwale is differanced by Purab aur Paschim, which exists as an abstential of the angst of cultural assimilation within the Dilwale text. The storyline of Purab aur Paschim follows the 1970s bipolar worldview: Whereas in the 1970s, the Indian living abroad was often depicted as a “deserter” who had little attachment to the motherland, since the 1990s the NRI who moves abroad is often represented as the model Indian to whom fellow-Indians look up to for having “made it.” 13 Much of the old Indian diaspora has merged into the all-globalising new diaspora narrative, a shift whereby affluence (providing choice to choose) becomes the only major factor of cultural differentiation. Thus, in Mauritius the new relative affluence (including of Mauritians of Indian origin) has ushered the old diaspora into a mode that is hardly distinguishable from the new diaspora, Bollywood aiding, both equally representable existentially as determining-the-world-out-ofour-own-will. This chapter is arguing that natures of diasporas cannot be adequately represented by geographical or ontological means but by a fluid existentialism which allows for both taxonomic and individual representations. In Dilwale Dulhaniya Lejayenge (‘Only the Daring get the Bride’) 14 London convenience store owner 15 Chaudhry Baldev Singh dreams of returning to his native Punjab. He has arranged for his best friend’s son there, Kuljeet, to marry his daughter. Simran agrees, but begs her father to first allow her to go on a trip across Europe with female friends. During the trip, Simran meets Raj, and they fall in

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__________________________________________________________________ love with each other. When he learns about the betrayal, Baldev takes the family back to Punjab. Raj follows Simran to India at the urging of his own father, assures her that he will marry her but only if Baldev agrees. At the wedding of Simran and Kuljeet, Raj pretends to be a friend of the family. However, Baldev sees a photograph of Raj and Simran together in Europe and slaps him. As Raj and his father board a train out of the village, Simran tries to follow but Baldev stops her. She begs him to let her go and he eventually realises that no one will ever love his daughter as much as Raj does and allows Simran to join Raj on the train. Deleuze does not treat cinema as an art representing an external reality, but as an ontological practice that creates different ways of organising movement and time. My own choice of Dilwale is for the new trend that it represents in its organisation of movement, space and time to represent the new Indian diaspora. 16 One of the biggest blockbusters in Hindi, the film appears twelfth on the British Institute’s list of the top Indian films of all time, signs of both its resonance with its audience and subsequent influence. Dilwale’s resolution of an older East/West disconnection suggests a new and felicitous blueprint based on globalised conservative family values but also with space for adaptability to the modern world which caused a quick follow-up within Bollywood with such major films as Pardes, 17 Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, 18 Kal Ho Na Ho, 19 and Salaam Namaste, 20 but also beyond Bollywood, into an entirely new genre, diasporic Indian cinema in such films as East is East, 21 Monsoon Wedding. 22 The plot of the best-known international success of diasporic Indian cinema, Bend It Like Beckham 23 is in many ways narratologically identical to Dilwale. In Notes, 24 Merleau-Ponty turns to Husserl’s notion of Stiftung (institution) to explain the relationship between an art object and the aesthetic tradition within which it is inscribed whereby no work ever completes the potential of a tradition. While it is in some ways a subversion of its genre, the plot of Dilwale is somewhat typical of the Bollywood text in terms of the boy-meets-girl formula with Romeoand-Juliet overtones, overall sentimentality, filial duty, and a feel-good ending, for instance. Even in terms of its innovation, Dilwale is picking from the tradition: it continues the discourse of India as motherland of Mother India but also as dialectically other to the West in Purab aur Paschim. But Dilwale also discontinues the given tradition: the love/arranged marriage question, a staple from the first in Bollywood, is answered in a hybrid manner here: as an arranged love marriage. Further, this somewhat enjoyable plot resolution hides newer AsianWestern diasporic angsts such as honour killings and vehicles Hindutva views of Hinduism 25 and women’s rights, an ambiguous sense of the dynamics of the individual in the group, etc. Old diasporic fears in the Stiftung persist in the new work. 26 Simultaneously, within the domestic space, gender and age hierarchies ensure male patriarchal natality. Simran is handed over from father to husband - she is conservatively denied agency. Baldev’s wife has even less agency. The choice to

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__________________________________________________________________ choose is firmly not theirs. In Dilwale this power is made less repressive in the end although it is also sustained - the solution to the issue of arranged/love marriage is not about eschewing the patriarch’s physical presence; it is instead based on an introverted change in the patriarch’s worldview, a change of heart. Thus, natality is in the patriarch’s hands, but then it is also implied that Baldev only caves in when he has clearly reached the limit of his natural authority. Baldev’s own existence is the true centre of the narrative of Dilwale. Zeitlichkeit clears the way for an ecstasy, as outside-of-itself is manifested by futural projection of possibilities and one’s place in history as a part of one’s generation). Futurity always contains the past (the has-been): as Deleuze summarises it, ‘(t)he past and the future do not designate instants distinct from a supposed present instant, but rather the dimensions of the present itself in so far as it is a contraction of instants.’ 27 Baldev’s ecstasy (as outside-of-itself) originates in being-towards-death (Sein-zumTode), 28 both his own death 29 and that of his identified culture. The tradition, which is an ontic referential totality, is threatened when it encounters another tradition, which is inevitable in the case of the diasporic. Metonymically speaking, the plot of Dilwale itself mirrors the existential temporality of the Indian migrant, a time-movement from the start where the Indian migrant (Raj/Simran) seems to lack natality, moving through a transitory aporic phase (for instance when Raj decides to forfeit his choice to choose in favour of Baldev as the patriarch while his insistence to marry Simran reflects the habit of choice, thus natality) to the point where the migrant is empowered to exercise choice to a certain extent by being given the choice to choose by Baldev. This is different from the choicelessness of Mother India, which Mishra terms ‘the diasporic film par excellence’ in Temples of Desire, 30 not in terms, I argue, of theme or storyline, but existentially, for the old diaspora was about sacrifice, about limited choice. The old diaspora could identify with the choicelessness facing Radha in the film and her abnegation effortlessly. Technology in Dilwale is as discrete as the camera in the popular film, or Heidegger’s scissors in Being and Time, invisible 31 - Simran and Raj are able to afford the space of Eurorail to meet and fall in love; Baldev Singh is able to whisk his family away to Punjab at the drop of a hat; and Raj is financially able to follow Simran to India. While technology makes India accessible to the diasporic Indian, Indianness is also just one of many choices from a global smorgasbord, which heightens the dread of assimilation, of cultural death, a major angst that drives Dilwale. The kinetics of the clash in Dilwale lie first within Baldev (his Being-towardsDeath leading to natality), who is the genitor not only of Simran, but also of the entire film storyline. Finally, Baldev’s change of heart uncovers patriarchy as a performance (although it is clear, this is not explicitly intended by director Aditya Chopra) - Baldev was not in essentia a patriarch and changes his mind once givens have changed. Baldev does not exist outside an environment. The world is not a set of objects that exist spatio-temporally; rather a world is a network of involvements.

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__________________________________________________________________ It is not that Baldev himself is not patriarchal, but as Judith Butler would argue when contrasting performance and performativity, the plot reveals that the patriarch as such does not exist as a stable person - he is performed in terms of acts within a given context or series of contexts. Raj’s father, more of a buddy than a patriarch, hints to Baldev’s performativity. Baldev’s continual anger and violence (he slaps Raj) against the two first-generation diasporic couple is a sign of his powerlessness, of how, often, in diasporic circumstances, the forbidding of choice held by the patriarch in the domestic space uncovers his lack of agency outside in London’s multicultural space and in their response to the fear of assimilation. Is Baldev’s final relenting a sign of his incapacity to impose choice? Dilwale, Bollywood as marked by the new diaspora, does not provide us with an entirely habitual apophantic ending but a sort of a question-mark: a parentless brave new world but only after the patriarchal transmission is completed, 32 rewarding Beingtowards-death with existential tranquillity. Is this a timid Avant-Gardism (while falling far short of Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt 33 )? Is this the strategic eschewing of a moral position, and therefore, an attempt to please everyone? Is it a faithful representation of a global middle-class diasporic zeitgeist of moral relativism? Is it a conservative endorsement that only after transmission of so-called Indian values 34 can the new generation be trusted? Regarding choice and true agency, has the worldhood being-determined-by-the-world of colonial times been merely replaced by global discourses of late capitalism, Hindutva nationalism and gender and skin-colour conservatism among other, more progressive discourses? 35 Ecstasy must not be mistaken for subversion (or authenticity, Heidegger’s concern 36 ). Instead, it provides a grounding that allows both judgement and its suspension. According to Heidegger, art is not only about expressing the truth in culture, but the means of creating it and providing the origin from which that which is disclosed: ‘(a)rt is history in the essential sense that it grounds history.’ 37 Working backwards, Bollywood uncovers those whose history it grounds: South Asians, and increasingly, NRIs (literally non-resident Indians, but extensible to all South Asian diaspora) who make up the largest portion of the Bollywood market. 38 New artwork added to any culture alters the meaning of what it is to exist. 39 Dilwale reveals Bollywood’s reticence to fully engage with the disappearance of the patriarch-qua-patriarch but on the same breath it proceeds to an aletheia, an uncovering, by depicting a patriarch who changes. A diasporic situation, throwing an entity as it does into at least two worlds simultaneously, compounded with the presence of more than one tradition actively elicits comparison and choice. Thus, the diasporic condition inevitably posits a quasi-agnostic horizon within which all identity is performed. The diasporic condition is, increasingly and already, the common being-human. It ushers in the ontological, through the Seinsfrage, the question of being. Thus, much as Dilwale (inadvertently) uncovers the performativity of the patriarch, the diasporic condition denounces all human condition as a becoming, as temporal (as in temporary). Like all conditions, the

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__________________________________________________________________ diaspora eventually points to its own inexistence, either a source of angst or lucidity. The moment of ecstasy through zeitlichkeit is thus necessarily in reaction to that relativism, an answer to its question - whether radical or conservative. Yet, beyond ideals of freedom posited by Arendt, 40 that choice to choose was generally not held by the old Indian diaspora. As the example of Mauritius proves, zeitlichkeit can provide a more accurate temporal measure of the distance between the two diasporas than Temporalität des Seins.

Notes 1

Heidegger’s temporality is here represented by his magnum opus, Being and Time and his article, ‘The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics.’ You may refer to: Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (Oxford, UK, and Cambridge, USA: Blackwell, [1962] 2000. Martin Heidegger, ‘The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics’, in World, Finitude, Solitude, trans. William McNeill and Nicholas Walker (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995). 2 The implication of natality which consistently interests us starts, as in The Origins of Totality, where Arendt argues ‘Beginning, before it becomes a historical event, is the supreme capacity of man; politically, it is identical with man’s freedom… This beginning is guaranteed by each new birth; it is indeed every man’, Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Cleveland and New York: Meridian Books, 1958), 479. The concept reappears in The Human Condition and the rest of her oeuvre. See for instance, Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1958). 3 Vijay Mishra, Bollywood Cinema: A Critical Genealogy, Asian Studies Institute Working Paper 20 (Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University of Wellington, 2006), 7. 4 Aditya Chopra, dir., Dilwale Dulhaniya Lejayenge (India: Yash Raj Films, 1995). 5 Christiane Brosius and Nicolas Yazgi ‘“Is There No Place Like Home?”: Contesting Cinematographic Constructions of Indian Diasporic Experiences’, in Contributions to Indian Sociology 41, No. 3 (2007): 355-386 (SAGE Publications Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore), 357. 6 Heidegger engages with the issue of temporality inter alia, in the last few pages of Being and Time, corresponding to aspects that he intended to pick up later to complete the book. See Heidegger, Being and Time, especially 478-479, and the final few sentences on 488. 7 As from The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics in 1931. 8 In particular, in ‘Temporality and Historicality’ (Division Two, Chapter V of Being and Time), where natality is mostly linked to Befindlichkeit connected with state of mind.

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__________________________________________________________________ 9

Arendt, The Human Condition, 177. For instance, Heidegger, Being and Time, 39-40. 11 Refer, for instance, to Heidegger, Being and Time, 98, 116 and 200-201. 12 See, for instance, Spectres de Marx, Galilée, 1993, but also the rejoinders the book led to and Marx & Sons (Paris: PUF, 2002). 13 Brosius and Yazgi, “‘Is There No Place Like Home?”, 258. 14 Dilwale Dulhaniya Lejayenge. 15 Note how Mishra argues: ‘The shop is the center of the (Indian) diasporic work ethic’, Mishra, Bollywood Cinema, 251. 16 Although, according to Patricia Uberoi, it is Hum Aapke Hain Koun, a year earlier, that inaugurated a new era in the Hindi film. 17 Subhash Ghai, dir., Pardes (India: Mukta Arts, 1997). 18 Karan Johar, dir., Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (India: Dharma Productions, 2001). 19 Nikhil Advani, dir., Kal Ho Na Ho (India: Dharma Productions, 2003). 20 Siddharth Raj Anand, dir., Salaam Namaste (India: Yash Raj Films, 2005). 21 Damien O’Donell, dir., East is East (UK: Channel Four Films, 1999). 22 Mira Nair, dir., Monsoon Wedding (USA: Mirabai Films, 2001). 23 Gurinder Chadha, dir., Bend It Like Beckham (UK: BSkyB, British Screen, Helkon, 2002). 24 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Notes de Cours 1959-1961 (Paris: Gallimard, 1996), 102-103. 25 Rajadhyaksha has pointed to an influential connection between trends in the film industry, economic liberalisation and the assertion of a majoritarian/hindutva form of Indian cultural nationalism in Ashish Rajadhyaksha, ‘The “Bollywoodization” of the Indian Cinema: Cultural Nationalism in a Global Arena’, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 4, No. 1 (2003): 25-39. 26 As Derridean (and Heideggerian) sous-rature: ‘Since the word is inaccurate, it is crossed out. Since the word is necessary, it remains legible’. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Translator’s Preface’ (1997), in Jacques Derrida. Of Grammatology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967), xiv. 27 Gilles Deleuze, Différence et Répétition (Paris: PUF, 1968), 289, trans. Paul Patton, Difference and Repetition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 71 28 Stephen Mulhall summarises Being-towards-death very effectively for our purposes here as ‘essentially a matter of Being-towards-life; it is a matter of relating (or failing to relate) to one’s life as utterly, primordially mortal’, Stephen Mulhall, Heidegger and Being and Time, Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks, gen. eds. Tim Crane and Jonathan Wolff (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 129. 10

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__________________________________________________________________ 29

Dasein’s relationship to its death is, according to Heidegger, non-relational: ‘...death reveals itself as that possibility which is one’s ownmost, which is nonrelational, and which is not to be outstripped’, Heidegger, Being and Time, 294. 30 Mishra, Bollywood Cinema. 31 Heidegger’s account of a primary mode of relating to objects, the ready-to-hand (zuhanden), in which objects, such as a pair of scissors, do not exist with isolable properties, but rather in terms of a referential totality in which scissors, paper and a table relate to one another. 32 The completion of the transmission is here problematised: after all, as Judith Butler argues: ‘no continuity is to be assumed between (a) what makes power possible and (b) the kinds of possibilities that power assumes’, Butler, The Psychic Life of Power, 12. 33 Connected with the Russian Formalist Viktor Shklovsky’s ostranenie, defamiliarisation or estrangement, the term was coined by dramatist Bertolt Brecht in 1935 to refer to an intellectual reaction of self-alienation to the Avant-Garde text (he was more directly referring to theatrical performance). You may wish to refer to Bertolt Brecht, Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, ed. and trans. John Willett (London: Methuen, 1964). 34 These can be summarised in the film as: I do not drink beer, cheat on others, especially fellow Indians, as a woman I keep my virginity, as a man I do not steal an Indian woman’s virginity! 35 Christopher Pinney quotes Ashis Nandy as saying that Bollywood asks the right questions but usually comes up with the wrong answers. 36 Heidegger, Being and Time, 307 onwards. 37 Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York, Harper & Row: 1971), 67 from Martin Heidegger, Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes ed. H. G. Gadamer (Stuttgart: P. Reclam, 1960). 38 Since 1970, Mishra argues in Temples of Desire, 239-240. 39 Poetry, Language, Thought, 67. 40 See Note 2 above for instance.

Bibliography Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1958. —––. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Cleveland and New York: Meridian Books, 1958. Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Translated by Annette Lavers. London: Paladin, 1972.

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__________________________________________________________________ —––. ‘Introduction to the Structuralist Analysis of Narratives’. Image-Music-Text, edited and translated by Stephen Heath, 79–124. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977. Benjamin, Walter. ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’. In Illuminations. Translated by Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken Books, 1968. Bhabha, Homi. Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1995. Brosius, Christiane, and Nicolas Yazgi. “‘Is There No Place Like Home?”: Contesting Cinematographic Constructions of Indian Diasporic Experiences’. Contributions to Indian Sociology 41, No. 3 (2007): 355–386. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990. —––. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. London: Routledge, 1993. —––. The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997. —––. ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory’. In The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader, edited by A. Jones. New York: Routledge, 2003. Carter, Marina. Servants, Sirdars, Settlers: Indians in Mauritius 1834-1874. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995. De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984. Dasgupta, Shamita D. ‘Feminist Consciousness in Woman-Centered Hindi Films’. The Journal of Popular Culture 30, No. 1 (1996): 173–189. Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 1: The Movement Image. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson, and Barbara Habberjam. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986. —––. Cinema 2: The Time Image. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson, and Robert Galeta. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989.

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__________________________________________________________________ Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1974. —––. Margins of Philosophy. Translated by Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Originally published as Marges de la Philosophie. Paris: Minuit, 1982 [1972]. Dudrah, Rajinder K. Bollywood: Sociology Goes to the Movies. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2006. Dwyer, Rachel. Filming the Gods: Religion and Indian Cinema. London and New York: Routledge, 2006. Dwyer, Rachel, and Christopher Pinney, eds. Pleasure and the Nation: The History, Politics and Consumption of Public Culture in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001. Dwyer, Rachel, and Divia Patel. Cinema India: The Visual Culture of Hindi Film. London: Reaktion Books, 2002. Dyer, Richard, Only Entertainment, 2nd Edition. London: Routledge, 2002 [1992]. Eisenlohr, Patrick. ‘The Politics of Diaspora and the Morality of Secularism: Muslim Identities and Islamic Authority in Mauritius’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 12, No. 2 (2006): 395–412. —––. Little India: Diaspora, Time and Ethnolinguistic Belonging in Hindu Mauritius. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. Common Denominators: Ethnicity, Nationbuilding and Compromise in Mauritius. Oxford: Berg, 1998. Hall, Stuart, and Peter Du Gay, Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage, 1996. Haar, Michel. ‘The Enigma of Everydayness’. In Reading Heidegger: Commemorations. Edited by John Sallis, and Michael B. Naas. Translated by Pascale-Anne Brault. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993.

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__________________________________________________________________ Heidegger, Martin. Poetry, Language, Thought, 1st Edition. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. —––. The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays, 1st Edition. New York: Harper & Row, 1977. —––. ‘The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics World, Finitude, Solitude’. Translated by William McNeill, and Nicholas Walker. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. —––. Being and Time, 2nd Edition. Translated by John Macquarrie, and Edward Robinson. Oxford, UK, and Cambridge, USA: Blackwell, 2000 [1962]. Heidegger, Martin, and David Farrell Krell. Basic Writings: From Being and Time (1927) to the Task of Thinking (1964). San Francisco: Harper, 1993. Inwood, Michael. Heidegger. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Johnson, Patricia Altenbernd. On Heidegger. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2000. Khoyratty, Farhad. ‘Hybrid Reflexivity: A Study of Identity-Construction in the Mauritian Muslim from an Audience Study of Her Relation to Contemporary Bollywood Film’. In INDICITIES/INDICES/INDÍCIOS Hybridations Problématiques dans les Littératures de l’Océan Indien. Edited by Mar Garcia, Felicity Hand, and Nazir Can, 145–164. St. Pierre, France: Ed. K’A, 2010. Mishra, Vijay. Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire. New York and London: Routledge, 2002. Mulhall, Stephen. Heidegger and Being and Time. Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks. Edited by Tim Crane, and Jonathan Wolff. London and New York: Routledge, 1996. O’Byrne, Anne. Natality and Finitude. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010. Prasad, Madhava M. Ideology of the Hindi Film: A Historical Construction. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.

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__________________________________________________________________ Rajadhyaksha, Ashish. ‘The “Bollywoodization” of the Indian Cinema: Cultural Nationalism in a Global Arena’. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 4, No. 1 (2003): 25– 39. Tinker, Hugh. A New System of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labor Overseas 1830-1920. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974. Uberoi, Patricia. ‘Imagining the Family. An Ethnography of Viewing Hum Aapke Hain Koun …!’. In Pleasure and the Nation: The History, Politics and Consumption of Public Culture in India, edited by Rachel Dwyer, and Christopher Pinney, 309–351. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Filmography Advani, Nikhil, dir. Kal Ho Na Ho. India: Dharma Productions, 2003. Chadha, Gurinder, dif. Bend It Like Beckham. UK: BSkyB, British Screen, Helkon, 2002. Chopra, Aditya, dir. Dilwale Dulhaniya Lejayenge. India: Yash Raj Films, 1995. Ghai, Subhash, dir. Pardes. India: Mukta Arts, 1997. Gowariker, Ashutosh, dir. Swadesh. India: Ashutosh Gowariker Productions, 2004. Johar, Karan, dir. Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham. India: Dharma Productions, 2001. Khan, Mehboob, dir. Mother India. India: Mehboob Productions, 1957. Kumar, Manoj, dir. Purab aur Paschim. India: Vishal International Productions, 1970. Nair, Mira, dir. Monsoon Wedding. USA: Mirabai Films, 2001. O’Donell, Damien, dir. East is East. UK: Channel Four Films, 1999. Raj Anand, Siddharth, dir. Salaam Namaste. India: Yash Raj Films, 2005. Farhad Abdool Kader Sulliman Khoyratty is Senior lecturer in Cultural Studies and Head, Department of English Studies, University of Mauritius. His

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A Phenomenological Reading of Temporality and Natality

__________________________________________________________________ publications range from phenomenology to 18th century French literature, from film to creative writing. An invited member of a dozen international associations and projects, he is also an Honorary Fellow of the University of Iowa, Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Society, formerly Junior Research Fellow, Hughes Hall, Cambridge.

Yellow Sea: A Floating Home of Chinese Korean Minority Mengyan YU (Yolanda) Abstract Chinese Korean Minority originally immigrates to Manchuria from northern Korean Peninsula and is an indispensable branch of Korean Diasporas. Currently, political constraints, economic opportunities, and cultural intimacy bring them to South Korea. At the same time, the imbalanced development between Chinese Korean minority and South Koreans has also created a volatile situation. South Korean director Na Hong-jin’s Yellow Sea, a 2010 Korean blockbuster, casts a critical and tragic light on this minority, and has aroused heated debates. Yellow Sea (the border sea between China and Korea) metaphorically represents the home of Chinese Korean Minority, who are a people floating between two countries, legally Chinese, historically Korean, yet ostracised by both. This chapter investigates the political and social development of this minority, through visual, audio and textual content analysis methods. The hypothesis that it straddles the threshold between China and South Korea, plagued by institutional insufficiency and a cultural sense of exclusion in both countries, will be tested. Key Words: Korean Diasporas, Chinese Korean Minority (Cho-sun Jok), Yellow Sea, human trafficking, Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Chinese minority governance. ***** 1. Introduction: Locating Chinese Korean Minority in Korean Diasporas The current Korean Diasporas has been formed through two waves of international Korean migration. The first wave took place (1860s) in Russia, China, America and Japan. The new wave began in the 1960s in America, Central Asia, Europe and Latin America. 1 Korean people in China are called Korean minority. 2 They firstly migrated to Manchuria to escape the famine ravaging northern Korean Peninsula during the early 20th century. In the modern history of China, Korean minority has been an active contributor to the regional development in Manchuria as they are well-known for their anti-Japanese tradition, active support for the Korean War, 3 and communist movements. It is crowned model minority for its revolutionary tradition, political loyalty and impressive educational outcome in China. Nowadays, they keep a much closer connection with South Korea, mainly for the luring economic opportunities. Though blood ties them together, South Koreans and the Chinese Korean Minority have developed their ethnic identity quite differently, according to different political environments. Not having been reported by mainstream official media in China, many tragic stories have happened

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__________________________________________________________________ to them. This chapter addresses the question how and why Chinese Koreans live in the midst of an endemic marginalisation in both China and South Korea by approaching relevant policy and official data. I would precede the content (audio, visual, textual) with an analysis along the four chronological stories (Figure 1) in Yellow Sea, 4 by summarising the major arguments from the shots in each story and relating them to policy and data in reality.

2. Minority Governance in China After the founding of People’s Republic of China, it mainly borrowed the Minority Regional Autonomous Policy from the former Soviet Union. Chinese minorities are allowed to conduct their regional autonomy within a certain geographically-clustered area, granted with the freedom to preserve their own culture and life style. However they have neither obtained total autonomous status nor fully integrated with the Han culture. This could also be an actual integration policy, through which ethnic groups gradually shift their loyalties, expectations, and political activities toward a new centre. 5 With many preferential policies provided by central and local governments to reduce the development imbalance, many minorities still live a hard life with discrimination and social marginalisation in a Han-dominated society. The dissatisfaction on many de-politicised social issues might mix with some potential political challenges. Resentment increases as unsolved social problems accumulate, though they are more about local governance rather than substantial political doubts on the Party’s leadership. Gradually it might escalate into inter-ethnic conflicts, which worries Chinese government the most. In recent years, there has been a debate between the liberal and conservative sides concerning the reform of Chinese minority governance. Ma Rong raises challenges to the current Chinese minority regional autonomy model by suggesting that it fails to integrate Chinese society and increasingly causes problems. ‘Ethnic regional autonomy created a sense of territoriality, and preferential policies further enhanced ethnic identities.’ 6 It is argued that the preferential policy is the implication of discrimination that minorities are inferior to the Han because Chinese government always regards preferential policies as

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__________________________________________________________________ essential tools to maintain social stability in minority regions, though the definition of what kind of favour is in need would be made by the government. Argument also goes as that the political efforts to forge an ethnic entity Zhonghua Minzu (Chinese Nation) is ‘“deeply inflected by racism” because as an inclusive concept it presumes the Han as its core.’ 7 Debates about the state-regulated regional minority autonomy are carried on by Wan Lixiong, who claims that ‘ethnic regional autonomy is not needed if individual rights are guaranteed.’ 8 The Korean minority has always been regarded as one of the most peaceful and developed minorities in China, 9 by approaching this model minority we might partially test to what degree Chinese minority autonomy model has succeeded, or failed. This article will shed a new light on the problematic side of this model minority by trying to test Chinese minority policy model and fill in an empirical gap in understanding the Chinese Korean Minority. 3. Empirical Gap in Understanding Chinese Korean Minority Since the founding of People’s Republic of China, most of the Korean minority studies done by Chinese Korean Minority scholars are about its anti-Japanese history, education history and migration history. 10 The previous studies on Chinese Korean Minority in English are quite limited. Among the 55 Shaoshu Minzu (ethnic minority) in China, the Korean minority is labelled as the model minority, 11 which is highly-educated, politically correct and loyal, also in full ideological alignment with Chinese Communist Party’s policy. The gap needs to be filled is observations on the problems of Chinese Korean Minority development, which has not caught real academic attention. 4. Methodology This chapter adopts visual, audio and textual analysis methods, by coding the transcript and images in Yellow Sea. Starting in America, many visual study programmes were introduced during the last two decades, such as Theory and Criticism of Film, Television, and Video, Cultural Studies, 12 etc. Predecessors like James Elkins, Robert Loescher 13 have not tried to establish a solid theory, but to use it as a practical interpretive tool. Visual study is socially informative and multidimensional, and film provides a visual medium to construct an inter-subjectivity which makes sense in its own terms. Furthermore, what is visually conveyed and interpreted more efficiently intensifies the relationship between individuals and their historical context. 5. Chinese Korean Minority: Floating on the Yellow Sea Yellow Sea tells a story about love, betrayal, and killing. Victim Kim (South Korean)’s wife and her lover indirectly hire a Chinese Korean (Goo-nam) to kill her husband. Meanwhile Victim Kim has a business partner Boss Kim, who also wants to kill him, because Victim Kim has taken up with Boss Kim’s mistress.

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__________________________________________________________________ Goo-nam has not accomplished the mission but witnessed Victim Kim’s death at the hands of Victim Kim’s driver (hired by Boss Kim). Becoming the only survivor and the suspect, Goo-nam falls into deep fear and confusion in South Korea. Since he is also a trafficked Chinese Korean, he has to struggle for his survival like a dog and finally dies alone in Yellow Sea (Figure 2). Alongside the main-storyline, the associate story is Goo-nam’s efforts in trying to reunite with his wife in South Korea.

Showing a very critical and realistic observation of Chinese Korean Minority’s life in a documentary-like style, this movie contains four chapters: taxi driver (25 minutes), killer (34 minutes), Chinese Korean Minority (55 minutes), and Yellow Sea (39 minutes). Being the epitome of Chinese Korean Minority, Goonam is the centre character across the movie. The four chapters stand for Goonam’s identity transformation from his taxi-driver-life in China, to his killer and ostracised life with Chinese-Korean-label in South Korea. The movie begins with taxi driver Goo-nam telling a rabid-dog story in a smoky, dirty, noisy local Mah-jong club in Yanji: 14 When I was 11 years old, there was a dog in our village became rabid, a killer, who would bite its own clan…later it died and I buried it…before long people dug him up and devoured the carcass…The rabies has come back. It is going around… 15 This story becomes a clue for our understanding of the Chinese Korean Minority, through which it is indicated that after eating the sick dog, people are spreading a dog disease by biting their own clan, no matter it is South Korean or Chinese Korean. 16 Goo-nam is doomed to be a pathetic loser no matter on the Mah-jong table or in real life because of the miserable environment he lives in.

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__________________________________________________________________ In the Taxi Driver chapter, a real picture of Chinese Koreans’ life in China is shown in a cruel way. First is the disrespect and distance they always face. Goonam is very short-spoken and toneless. Among the few words he speaks, we can feel his strong accent in both Chinese and Korean. His social network is within the Chinese Korean group, he does not have Han friends but his creditors are Han. When they came after Goo-nam for his heavy loan, 17 when Goo-nam did not have money to lose on the Mah-jong table, Han people would turn very violent and insult him in the typical racial way by calling him ‘Gaoli Bangzi.’ 18 All these prove that he has a very unhappy life in Manchuria. Goo-nam’s life is all about earning meagre wages through hard and dirty work, then gambling and drinking. It is impossible to capture even a single smile on his face. Partially we could attribute the miserable employment situation in Manchuria among both Han and minority people to the structural transformation of local economy in the region. 19 For minority people in the region, they face even less opportunities due to the invisible social barriers. This phenomenon in turn leads to the third issue: seeking opportunities overseas. Since 1978 20 and especially after 1992, 21 Chinese Koreans have increasing exposure to the cultural openness and economic attractiveness from South Korea. This has fundamentally changed their life style in Yanbian region. South Korea is the second largest trade partner with Yanbian prefecture in 2010 and shows the highest development rate. South Korea is also the biggest foreign investor in Yanbian region. 22 Labour export and overseas remittances have become one of the most important lifelines of Yanbian’s local economy. From 1999-2008, the overseas labour remittances of Yanbian region reach 5.9 billion US$ in total. 23 Chinese people take more than 20% percentage of all the foreigners entering South Korea last year (Table 1). Among the ethnic Koreans who work in South Korea with a foreign passport, Chinese Korean Minority is the largest group (417, 951) in 2011.

However, below the surface of Yanbian prefecture’s economic prosperity and labour export, there is a highly imbalanced economic structure with too much reliance on South Korea, as long as a population drain (Figure 3).

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Figure 4 shows that from 2001 to 2009 the average percentage tertiary industry has taken is 44.65%. 24 Although there is the consumption prosperity in Yanbian region, the economic foundation has not been solid. Once these Chinese Koreans’ working condition in South Korea deteriorates, as it did in the past financial crisis, both Chinese Koreans’ financial and emotional confidence would shake, so does Yanbian’s regional economy. Fourthly, there is an omnipresent spiritual insecurity and inferiority of Chinese Korean Minority. They would emphasise their Chinese citizen identity with an obvious effort on demonstrating the superiority of the (South) Korean culture. As Goo-nam’s paranoid dreams featuring his wife’s fancy sex life with her South Korean lover have indicated, South Korea is a fantasy of pleasure and consumption in Chinese Koreans’ eyes. Their loneliness, inferiority and insecurity would be more or less compensated if they could go to South Korea and make money. ‘Go to South Korea and make money there’ is frequently offered as a solution to Goo-nam’s miserable life in the movie, from Boss Myun, to Korean

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__________________________________________________________________ minority workers in South Korea, even to Goo-nam’s mother. In the opening and reform era of China, people tend to believe that making money is the most important, even the only way that leads to happiness, or at least to security. Last but not the least, there are many social challenges generated for Chinese Korean Minority governance as more and more Chinese Korean people are fighting for their South Korean dream. When Goo-nam and his wife work in the city, their unattended child is waiting for them with Goo-nam’s old mother in the countryside. These unattended children and old people generate according social welfare and education demands: the unattended school students have already taken 64.4% of the total registered students only in the capital city Yanji. 25 It is just because of this kind of social and family pressure, Goo-nam decides to take the risk and leave China with the killing mission. He was hoping that he could possibly reunite with his wife in South Korea and re-start a happy life back in China after closing this dirty deal. After a wild journey and finally got trafficked to South Korea, Goo-nam begins his Killer and Chinese Korean Minority life there. However, the first nightmare waits for him is the illusion of South Korean dream as second-class citizen. He is greeted with a cold attitude by his fellow Chinese Koreans in a cold January. In contrast to Goo-nam’s warm and fancy imagination about South Korean life, he has not escaped from the feelings of loneliness and insecurity. He has to hide and run all the time, except from those South Eastern Asian migrant workers who suffer no less from their 3D work 26 there. 27 The discrimination on Chinese Koreans obviously comes from a good amount of reasons, such as human trafficking, illegal employment, and business fraud. The breaking-down of South Korean dream is sardonically shown by the fact that different from Goo-nam’s paranoid dreams, his wife’s South Korean lover turns out to be an unattractive man, as disappointing as his South Korean dream. The second part of Goo-nam’s life in South Korea is about becoming the abandoned and wanted. As Victim Kim is killed, Goo-nam unsuspectingly becomes the most wanted man, as the suspect for the police, and as a threat for the real criminal. Boss Kim claims that ‘even by taking all the Chinese Koreans in South Korea down,’ Goo-nam has to be killed. As normal logic goes, Goo-nam could trust the policeman and tell them the truth; however, he still wants to meet his wife and return with the ‘accomplished mission’ to Boss Myun, resuming his family life in China still matters to him the most. All this becomes impossible until he realises that he cannot return to China. With all the feelings of fear and insecurity, Goo-nam gradually has no other choice but run like a dog. Home and love have brought Goo-nam to South Korea and his only hope abandons him. As he finally finds out no one has tried to help him sincerely, he smiles at his daughter’s photo in a boat and dies on the Yellow Sea with his wife’s ashes. In the last story Yellow Sea, Boss Myun and his gang savagely indulge on hunks of meat while ignoring the television broadcasting South Korean national anthem. On individual level, a lack of consciousness and exploration of their ethnic

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__________________________________________________________________ belongingness limits the connection between Chinese and South Korean people. On institutional level, there is very limited transnational cooperation observed in and out of the movie. The last scene of the movie is about Goo-nam’s dream: a train pulls over in an empty station at night. Goo-nam’s wife walks off the train in elegant black with a suitcase. She looks around with a slight grin on her face, and then walks toward the exit back home. Maybe only when Goo-nam finally rests in peace, his dream would finally become a peaceful one, without any paranoid insecurity and sees his wife home. 6. Conclusion and Discussion Director Na has shown his suspicion on both Chinese and South Korean’s real care for each other. Men, referred to as dogs, will bite their own clan to fight only for their animal instinct (women and money). With all the bubbles of wishing people are loyal and full of love poked, Goo-nam falls into deep disappointment about his own clan. Starting as an imperfect but normal person, Goo-nam does long for a happy warm home. On his way home, his hasty and short-cut efforts to make money and restart a new life hastens his undoing. Then where is a possible home for Chinese Korean Minority? Betrayed by his beloved and abandoned by his own clan, Yellow Sea, the middle way between China and South Korea, ended up being Goo-nam’s only tomb. South Korea presents a home-like paradise to them; however, what really awaits them there is endless discrimination with the Chinese Korean Minority label. No matter how hard they try to earn respect by making money, with a lack of unique cultural root and a failed governance mechanism, they could not be really respected. Yellow Sea is certainly not a panorama to get a whole picture of this Chinese minority’s living situation. Yet through Director Na’s reflection on both sides, we could conclude that in the future, as long as the minority governance model in China and the cultural exclusion in South Korea remain unchanged, the Chinese Korean Minority has to fight a tougher battle for their happiness on the way home.

Notes 1

Yoon In-Jin, ‘Migration and the Korean Diaspora: A Comparative Description of Five Cases’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Special Issue: Korean Development and Migration 38, Issue 3 (2012): 413. 2 This chapter is going to refer to this branch of ethnicity as Chinese Korean Minority in the following parts, as it might also be referred to as Chinese Ethnic Korean, Korean people in China in other academic researches. 3 The war took place from 1950-1953 on Korean Peninsula, also known in China as the ‘Anti-American, Supporting North Korean War’.

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__________________________________________________________________ 4

South Korean movie Yellow Sea (directed by Na Hong-jin, shot in both Korean and Chinese languages, and released in 2010) once climbed on top of the South Korean box office in 2010. It tells a tragic story about a Chinese Korean man Goonam, and the harsh reality Chinese Koreans face in both China and South Korea. It has also participated in many international film festivals and received positive movie reviews from many mainstream media. 5 June T. Dreyer, China’s Forty Millions: Minority Nationalities and National Integration in the People’s Republic of China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976). 6 Ma Rong, ‘The De-politicization of Ethnic Relations in China’, Nan Feng Chuang 26 (2008): 50. 7 Uradyn E. Bulag, The Mongols at China’s Edge: History and the Politics of National Unity (Maryland, USA: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 18. 8 Wang Lixiong, Democratization Step by Step: China’s Third Path (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Social Science Press, 2004), 324-325. 9 Chinese Korean Minority has the highest education rate and is well-known as active participant in their regional development among all the Chinese minorities. 10 Representative works written in the Chinese language include Sun Chunri’s Migration History of Chinese Korean Minority, Piao Jinhai’s Educational Governance of Korean People in Manchuria during Japanese Occupation Era, Jin Zhezhu’s Anti-Japanese History of Chinese Korean Minority. 11 Gao Fang, ‘What It Means to be A “Model Minority”: Voices of Ethnic Koreans in Northeast China’, Asian Ethnicity 9, No. 1 (2008): 55. 12 James Elkins, Visual Studies: A Skeptical Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2003). 13 Ibid. 14 Manchuria used to be the centre of heavy industry before the reform-era in People’s Republic of China. Now there are many laid-off workers generated by the local reform of State Owned Enterprises. Mah-jong, which is a traditional Chinese gambling game, has become a tremendously popular activity among local unemployed people. 15 Manohla Dargis, ‘The Blood Runs Freely, but the Dogs Can’t’, The New York Times Movie Reviews, December 1, 2011, accessed May 6, 2012, http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/movies/the-yellow-sea-from-south-koreareview.html. 16 Korean people used to have the tradition of eating dog, by which metaphor the movie indicates that the mutual prejudice between South Korean and Chinese Korean is like the spread of dog disease. 17 Obviously the family, as many other families would do, borrows money to send Goo-nam’s wife to South Korea to work, hoping she could make money for the

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__________________________________________________________________ family there; but the family lost contact with his wife which is a usual phenomenon in Yanbian, as many Chinese Korean women would seek a new life by finding a South Korean husband there. 18 The literal meaning is ‘Korean Stick,’ which is very commonly known on both Korean and Han sides as an insulting term referring to Korean people as a whole. 19 The three provinces in Manchuria (Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang) are facing many social problems brought by the reform and hence numerous laid-off workers. 20 China started the implementation of the Opening and Reform policy in 1978. 21 People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) officially established diplomatic relationship in 1992. 22 Yanbian Prefectural Statistical Yearbook 2010, China Statistical Press, 2011. 23 Qin Shibao and Zhang Yongxue, ‘Analysis of Labour Export across Border Area and Relevant Policy: The Case of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province’, Renmin Forum: Academy Front 321, No. 3 (2001): 120. 24 Yanbian Prefectural Statistical Yearbook 2010, China Statistical Press, 2011. 25 Shibao and Yongxue, ‘Analysis of Labour Export across Border Area and Relevant Policy’, 121. 26 ‘3D work’ refers to dirty, difficult, and dangerous work.

Bibliography Bulag, Uradyn E. The Mongols at China’s Edge: History and the Politics of National Unity. Maryland, USA: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. Chen, Jianyue. ‘The Construction of a Harmonious Society in a Multinational Country and Solution to Ethnic Problems: On ‘De-Politicization’ and “Culturalization” of Ethnic Problems’. [In Chinese]. Shijie Minzu 5 (2005). Cui, Longbao, Dae-Sook Suh, and Edward J. Shultz. ‘The Position and Development of Koreans in China’. Koreans in China (1990): 78–92. Dargis, Manohla. ‘The Blood Runs Freely, but the Dogs Can’t’. The New York Times Movie Reviews, December 1, 2011. Accessed May 6, 2012. http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/movies/the-yellow-sea-from-south-koreareview.html. Dreyer, June T. China’s Forty Millions; Minority Nationalities and National Integration in the People’s Republic of China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976.

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__________________________________________________________________ Elkins, James. Visual Studies: A Skeptical Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2003. Fong, Rowena, and Paul R. Spickard. ‘Ethnic Relations in the People’s Republic of China: Images and Social Distance between Han Chinese and Minority and Foreign Nationalities’. East Asia 13, No. 1 (1994): 26–48. Gao, Fang. ‘What It Means to Be A “Model Minority”: Voices of Ethnic Koreans in Northeast China’. Asian Ethnicity 9, No. 1 (2008): 55–67. Ma, Rong. ‘The De-Politicization of Ethnic Relations in China’. [In Chinese]. Nan Feng Chuang 26 (2008): 50–51. Mackerras, Colin. China’s Minorities: Integration and Modernization in the Twentieth Century. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1994. —––. China’s Minority Cultures: Identities and Integration since 1912. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. Qin, Shibao, and Zhang Yongxue. ‘Analysis of Labour Export across Border Area and Relevant Policy: The Case of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province’. [In Chinese]. Renmin Forum: Academy Front 321, No. 3 (2001): 120– 121. Sautman, Barry. Scaling Back Minority Rights?: The Debate about China’s Ethnic Policies. 46 Stanford Journal of International Law 51 (2010): 51–120. Wang, Lixiong. Democratization Step by Step: China’s Third Path. [In Chinese]. Honk Kong: Hong Kong Social Science Press, 2004. Wu, Lanfu. ‘Analysis of Premier Zhou Enlai’s Speech at Qingdao Ethnicity Affairs Seminar: In Memory of the 82 Birth Anniversary of Premier Zhou’. [In Chinese]. Zhongguo Minzu 3 (1980): 5. Xu, Long. Yanji Municipal Statistical Yearbook 2009. China Statistical Press, 2010. Yanbian Prefectural Statistical Yearbook 2010. China Statistical Press, 2011.

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__________________________________________________________________ Yoon, In-Jin. ‘Migration and the Korean Diaspora: A Comparative Description of Five Cases’. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Special Issue: Korean Development and Migration 38, Issue 3 (2012): 413–435. Yu, Ma-di. ‘As the South Korean Visa Expires, More than 70,000 Chinese Korean Minority People Worry’. Cho-sun Ilbo (Chinese Edition), April 20, 2012. Accessed April 24, 2012. http://cn.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/04/20/20120420000022.html. Zabrovskaia, Larisa. ‘A Brief History of the Sino-Korean Border from the 18th to the 20th Century’. In Korea Yearbook 2007: Politics, Economy and Society, edited by Rudiger Frank, James E. Hoare, Patrick Kollner, and Susan Pares, 283–293. The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2008. Mengyan YU (Yolanda) is doing her PhD on Chinese Korean minority’s ethnic identity at The City University of Hong Kong. Her other research interests include the Korean Peninsula, foreign migration governance, and international relation issues in North-East Asia.

Part 2 Diasporic Narrations and Fragments

Transcending the Limitations of Diaspora as a Category of Cultural Identity in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing around Your Neck Elizabeth Jackson Abstract My chapter will examine the ways in which the stories in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s collection The Thing around Your Neck explore the limits of diaspora as a category of cultural identity and move toward a more flexible conceptualisation of the impact of globalisation on people’s sense of themselves and their place in the world. Although the main characters in these stories are of Nigerian origin, few of them fit easily into the limiting categories of Nigerian or Nigerian diaspora, not only because their geographical placement is often in flux, but also because their sense of identity is not based on nationality, national origin, or even a sense of belonging to a Nigerian diaspora. On the contrary, they can arguably be described as cosmopolitan - not in the old elitist sense of the term, but in the contemporary sense of transcending the limitations of nationality or national origin as a category of cultural identity. Indeed, many of the stories draw attention to the artificiality of national identity itself, not only by highlighting the tribal, religious and ethnic divisions within Nigeria, but also by recalling the war which aimed - and failed - to create the independent state of Biafra, so that national identity is never straightforward, even for the characters in this collection who have never left Nigeria. Consequently, the diasporic experience does not seem, in these stories, to create the conventional crisis of cultural identity which has become almost de rigeur in much of the diasporic fiction of the past few decades. All categories of cultural identity are socially constructed of course, but within the context of ongoing globalisation, the stories in this collection seem to point to the increasing irrelevance of the concept of diaspora and the idea of nationality on which it is based. Key Words: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Thing around Your Neck, Nigeria, diaspora, globalisation, cultural identity, cosmopolitanism, national identity. ***** Having begun my academic career, not so long ago, as a postcolonial scholar, I have become increasingly critical of postcolonial theory on the grounds that for an increasing number of literary texts by so-called postcolonial writers, postcolonial theoretical approaches may have outlived their usefulness. One example is the Nigerian-born writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s collection of short stories The Thing around Your Neck, published in 2009. In this chapter, I will examine the ways in which these stories explore the limits of postcolonial categories like

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__________________________________________________________________ nationality and ‘diaspora,’ moving toward a more flexible conceptualisation of cultural identity which is better described as cosmopolitan. In the context of a different argument about different texts, Adélékè Adéèkó observed in 2008 that [t]he rhythm of life that connects individuals in Lagos is already cosmopolitan, most notably in variants of Afrobeat, whatever transplantation of American popular culture is in vogue, particularly music and cinema, Christian and Islamic evangelisms, ruthless mercantilism, and intense hustling of all kinds. 1 Several stories in Adichie’s collection suggest that this cosmopolitanism applies not just to Lagos, but to many parts of Nigeria, at least among elite families. The story ‘Cell One,’ for instance, is set in a university town in which children grow up ‘watching Sesame Street, reading Enid Blyton, eating cornflakes for breakfast, attending the university staff primary school in smartly polished brown sandals.’ 2 Here we see an eclectic mix of American, British, and quaint colonial influences. Again, the story ‘A Private Experience’ is set in Kano, where two women shelter together from a riot, one wearing a Muslim headscarf and the other wearing a ‘denim skirt and red T-shirt embossed with a picture of the Statue of Liberty,’ both of which she had bought while spending ‘a few summer weeks with relatives in New York.’ 3 This cosmopolitanism within Nigeria is also reflected in language, and not just among the elite. When the riot breaks out, we are told, there is shouting in the streets ‘in English, in pidgin, in Hausa, in Igbo.’ 4 Other stories are set in the United States, where ironically, many of the American characters emerge as decidedly provincial, in contrast to their cosmopolitan Nigerian counterparts. In the title story ‘The Thing Around Your Neck,’ a Nigerian living in a small town in Maine aptly summarises many of the local attitudes toward himself and his family as ‘a mixture of ignorance and arrogance.’ 5 A few of the American characters are more sophisticated, but that same story (with its unusual second-person narration), describes how [m]any people at the restaurant asked when you had come from Jamaica, because they thought that every black person with a foreign accent was Jamaican. Or some who guessed that you were African told you that they loved elephants and wanted to go on a safari. 6 Even an ostensibly well-educated American character like Neil in ‘On Monday of Last Week’ unwittingly exhibits this peculiar ‘mixture of ignorance and arrogance’ when he sounds surprised that Kamara is Nigerian: ‘“You speak such good

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__________________________________________________________________ English,” he said, and it annoyed her, his surprise, his assumption that English was somehow his personal property.’ 7 As indicated earlier, many of the Nigerian characters abroad in these stories do not fit easily into the category of a Nigerian diaspora because of their shifting and sometimes multiple geographical locations. Indeed, some might be described as cosmopolitan in the sense of being at home all over the world, including Nnkem and her husband Obiora in the story ‘Imitation.’ Occupying two homes, one a mansion in Lagos and the other a substantial, luxurious house in a wealthy suburb of Philadelphia, Nnkem had at first been ‘proudly excited’ to have married into the ‘Rich Nigerian Men Who Owned Houses in America league.’ 8 But loneliness takes its toll on her as Obiora leaves her to bring up the children in America while he works in Lagos: Obiora stayed the first few months, so the neighbours didn’t start to ask about him until later. Where was her husband? Was something wrong? Nnkem said everything was fine. He lived in Nigeria and America; they had two homes. She saw the doubt in their eyes, knew they were thinking of other couples with second homes in places like Florida and Montreal, couples who inhabited each home at the same time, together. Obiora laughed when she told him how curious the neighbours were about them. He said oyibo people were like that. If you did something in a different way, they would think you were abnormal, as though their way was the only possible way. And although Nnkem knew many Nigerian couples who lived together all year, she said nothing. 9 This, then, is a case of a wealthy man using his class privilege and the notion of cultural difference in order to manipulate his wife. Not surprisingly, it emerges that he has a mistress in Lagos who has moved into their house, so when the previously compliant Nnkem finally insists on moving the entire family back to Nigeria, it has nothing to do with postcolonial issues like diaspora and cultural identity. On the contrary, it is for the entirely personal goal of reclaiming her house and her husband. These are not the conflicted characters in Salman Rushdie’s 1994 collection of short stories East, West, many of whom are uneasy in both India and Britain, with one declaring that ‘“home” has become such a scattered, damaged, various concept in our present travails,’ 10 and another complaining that ‘I, too, have ropes around my neck, I have them to this day, pulling me this way and that, East and West, the nooses tightening, commanding, choose, choose.’ 11 While we cannot ignore the possibility that the title of Adichie’s collection The Thing around Your Neck refers

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__________________________________________________________________ implicitly to Rushdie’s metaphorical ropes ‘commanding’ the diasporic character to choose between two different cultural identities, Adichie’s characters evidently feel no such pressure to wrestle with their national or cultural identity. On the contrary, when Nnkem in the story ‘Imitation’ asks herself the question ‘Where is home?,’ she is thinking about much more concrete differences in the physical settings: It hardly seems right, referring to the house in Lagos, in the Victoria Garden City neighbourhood where mansions skulk behind high gates, as home. This is home, this brown house in suburban Philadelphia with sprinklers that make perfect water arcs in the summer. 12 She does miss home, though, her friends, the cadence of Igbo and Yoruba and pidgin English spoken around her. And when the snow covers the yellow fire hydrant on the street, she misses the Lagos sun that glares down even when it rains. She has sometimes thought about moving home, but never seriously, never concretely. She goes to a Pilates class twice a week in Philadelphia with her neighbour; … she expects banks to have drive-ins. America has grown on her, snaked its roots under her skin. 13 Given the cultural cosmopolitanism of the Nigerian characters in this collection, it is not surprising that to them, America’s racial politics seems narrow and backward and petty. About her white boyfriend in the title story ‘The Thing around Your Neck,’ the narrator says: You knew by people’s reactions that you two were abnormal the way the nasty ones were too nasty and the nice ones too nice. The old white men and women who muttered and glared at him, the black men who shook their heads at you, the black women whose pitying eyes bemoaned your lack of self-esteem, your self-loathing. Or the black women who smiled swift solidarity smiles; the black men who tried too hard to forgive you, saying a too-obvious hi to him, the white men and women who said “What a good-looking pair” too brightly, too loudly, as though to prove their own open-mindedness to themselves. 14 But if racial politics within America can be uncomfortable, identity politics within Nigeria can at times be deadly, as emphasised in the story ‘A Private Experience’ about two women sheltering together in a deserted shop when a

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__________________________________________________________________ sectarian riot breaks out in Kano. One of the women is a Hausa Muslim and the other an Igbo Christian. As they shelter together and help each other, other Hausa Muslims and Igbo Christians nearby on the streets are hacking each other down with machetes and clubbing each other with stones. Other reminders that Nigerian identity is far from unified are found throughout the collection, including the haunting recollections in the story ‘Ghosts’ of the war which tried and failed to establish the independent state of Biafra in 1967. To paraphrase Adélékè Adéèkó in the context of a different argument, Nigerians can neither embrace nor repudiate their national identity if they have never experienced it. And not having a secure sense of Nigerian national identity, they have even less of a sense of belonging to a Nigerian diaspora in the United States. If sectarian divisions are shown to be arbitrary in these stories, so too are national divisions. Indeed, several of the stories call attention to the elaborate institutional structures which are designed solely to enforce artificial divisions of nationality. When Nnkem in the story ‘Imitation’ finally receives her American green card, she is not thinking at all about nationality or cultural identity. Far from it; she is actually thinking about the practicalities of being exempt from the bureaucratic apparatus: ‘She would no longer have to apply for visas to get back into America, no longer have to put up with condescending questions at the American embassy.’ 15 The artificiality of nationality is again emphasised in the story ‘Ghosts’ when the narrator tells a friend about his physician daughter in America: “The hospital board had advertised for a doctor, and when she came they took one look at her medical degree from Nigeria and said they did not want a foreigner. But she is American-born you see, we had her while at Berkeley, I taught there when we went to America after the war - and so they had to let her stay.” 16 The point here is that the opportunities of the applicant are shaped more by an accident of birth than by her actual qualifications and experience. Thus, the story calls attention to the arbitrary nature of nationality and the absurdity of the whole edifice of regulations surrounding it. On the whole, the stories in this collection seem to suggest that although differences of nationality and ethnicity are socially constructed, differences of social class (or more precisely, differences of material wealth) are very real because they are about people’s actual material circumstances. To put it simply, in this rapidly globalising world, the real divisions are between the haves and the have-nots, regardless of so-called nationality or so-called diasporic status. For example, in the story ‘Imitation,’ Nnkem has much more in common with her affluent neighbours in suburban Philadelphia than with the vast majority of people

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__________________________________________________________________ in Nigeria, America, or anywhere else. In the story ‘The Arrangers of Marriage,’ the narrator is sent to marry an odious fellow Nigerian in America, but she cannot leave him simply because she lacks the financial means to do so. A journalist in the story ‘The American Embassy’ can pay to flee Nigeria when his life is in danger after writing an article criticising the government. That is the crucial difference between him and his fellow dissidents in Nigeria who must tow the line simply because they cannot afford to leave the country. Perhaps the most effective illustration of the argument that differences of power are no longer connected to nationality or diasporic status (if they ever were) is found in the title story ‘The Thing around Your Neck.’ In this story, the narrator addresses her story to ‘you,’ a Nigerian in America who began a relationship with a rich white boy who had travelled extensively in Africa and Asia, but: You did not want him to go to Nigeria, add it to the list of countries where he went to gawk at the lives of poor people who could never gawk back at his life. 17 The irony here is that the putative you have been gawking throughout the story at the lives of both the rich and the poor in America: You wanted to write about the surprising openness of people in America, how eagerly they told you about their mother fighting cancer, about their sister-in-law’s preemie, the kinds of things that one should hide or should reveal only to family members who wished them well … You wanted to write about the rich people who wore shabby clothes and tattered sneakers, who looked like the night watchmen in front of the large compounds in Lagos. You wanted to write that rich Americans were thin and poor Americans were fat and that many did not have a big house or car. 18 While pointing out cultural differences from a particular perspective, this narrative at the same time works to reduce distance by insistently using the word you, implying that this could be your perspective. Moreover, if you are tempted to dismiss these stories as somehow inauthentic because they are written by an elite author, mostly about the lives of elite people, it is as if your objections have been anticipated and refuted through your retort to your elite boyfriend who associates poverty with authenticity: He said you were wrong to call him self-righteous. You said he was wrong to call only the poor Indians in Bombay the real

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__________________________________________________________________ Indians. Did it mean he wasn’t a real American, since he was not like the poor fat people you and he had seen in Hartford? 19 The point here is that although differences of power in the contemporary world are based more on differences of wealth than on differences of national or ethnic origin, that does not make the lives of privileged people any less authentic than the lives of poor people. Moreover, being associated with wealth is not the same thing as controlling wealth, as we see very clearly in the story ‘Imitation’ where the housewife Nnkem, although living a materially comfortable life, is completely controlled by her husband because she is financially dependent on him. It brings us back to the old Marxist principle of power being based on owning or controlling the means of production, including labour, education, and capital itself. This, I think, is a more relevant theoretical approach than postcolonial categories like diaspora which, as these stories seem to suggest, may be increasingly irrelevant in the rapidly globalising world.

Notes 1

Adélékè Adéèkó, ‘Power Shift: America in the Nigerian Imagination’, The Global South 2, No. 2 (2008): 23. 2 Chimanmanda Ngozi Adichie, The Thing around Your Neck (New York: Anchor Books, 2009), 5. 3 Ibid., 46. 4 Ibid., 44. 5 Ibid., 115. 6 Ibid., 119. 7 Ibid., 76. 8 Ibid., 26. 9 Ibid., 24-25. 10 Salman Rushdie, East, West (London: Vintage, 1994), 93. 11 Ibid., 111. 12 Adichie, Thing around Your Neck, 34. 13 Ibid., 37. 14 Ibid., 125. 15 Ibid., 37. 16 Ibid., 68. 17 Ibid., 125-125. 18 Ibid., 118-119. 19 Ibid., 125.

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Bibliography Adéèkó, Adélékè. ‘Power Shift: America in the Nigerian Imagination’. The Global South 2, No. 2 (2008): 10–30. Adichie, Chimanmanda Ngozi. The Thing around Your Neck. New York: Anchor Books, 2009. Rushdie, Salman. East, West. London: Vintage, 1994. Elizabeth Jackson is a lecturer in Literatures in English at the Trinidad campus of the University of the West Indies. She has a PhD from the University of London, and has published books and articles on postcolonial literature, gender, and cultural identity.

Esmeralda Santiago: Writing Memories, Creating a Nation Anabela Alves Abstract A people without memories is a people without history. Esmeralda Santiago can be considered a natural born memoir writer. In this chapter, I intend to look at Esmeralda Santiago's work, namely When I Was Puerto Rican and Almost a Woman, in the light of post-colonial theories, trying to focus on the elaboration of alternative perspectives and in the rewriting of History. She began writing to document the challenges she had to face when moving to the United States, to make sense of her experiences, her peoples’ and especially those of the women who are most often forgotten in a patriarchal society. Thus, her memoirs tell not only about her personal diasporic experience, but also about the general experience of a displaced community of migrants, their difficulties of integration and search for identity. This is a process of struggle, self-discovery and self-affirmation. By writing about this experience of displacement, of ‘the unhomeliness of home,’ 1 Santiago will come to terms with her hybridity, will forge a nation in which she is neither inferior nor other, but an agent and a protagonist. Writing allows Santiago to disrupt boundaries, to reconcile with the past, to think of herself as a complex and hybrid citizen, to construct ‘homes away from home,’ 2 create in the process a new nation. Key Words: Esmeralda Santiago, memories, history, identity/ies. ***** 1. Introduction In this chapter, my object of study will be a Puerto Rican writer, Esmeralda Santiago, who describes in her works the feelings of alienation, displacement and dispossession among those who endure a diasporic experience. Puerto Ricans, colonised shortly after the US invasion in 1898, are both American citizens and colonial subjects by birth, according to international law. The Puerto Rican diaspora to the States is one of forced relocation due to massive social inequalities and underscores their shared contemporary condition as racial outsiders. This subaltern community has faced racism, sexism, oppression, discrimination, marginality and invisibility for decades. Considering that a people without memories is a people without history, a generation of writers has begun exploring Puerto Rican history and the experience of the diaspora to illustrate and explain the racialised and gendered oppression as well as the exclusion. Esmeralda Santiago can be considered a natural born memoir writer. This Latina, born in Puerto Rico moved to the US, to get away from poverty that marked her childhood. Economic factors clearly drove the relocation of many

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__________________________________________________________________ Puerto Ricans to the US, and particularly to New York and its surroundings. When work opportunities declined in Puerto Rico but flourished in the US, migrants headed north in record numbers. In New York, Santiago studied theatre and dance and even took a degree at Harvard. She began writing to document the challenges she had to face, to make sense of her experiences, her peoples’ and especially those of the women who are most often forgotten in a patriarchal society. Thus, her autobiographical work accounts not only for her personal experiences, but also for the general experience of a displaced community of immigrants, their difficulties of integration and search for identity. This is a process of struggle, self-discovery and self-affirmation. Writing allows Santiago to disrupt boundaries, to reconcile with the past, to think of herself as a complex and hybrid citizen, to construct ‘homes away from home,’ creating in the process a new nation. Most of her work, as memoir or autobiographical register, analyses the complex question of the Puerto Rican identity from the perspective and experience of a migrant woman. Among this category, we can find the memoirs When I Was Puerto Rican (1993) and Almost a Woman (1998), which will be the focus of this chapter. Male figures are clearly a minor presence in Santiago’s work, while female figures dominate the narratives, especially in the voices of the author/narrator herself, her grandmother, and her mother. There are still other female characters: those who proliferate in the stories told by her grandmother and the ones the author observes and describes. All of them, silently fighting for survival, get together to give voice to the Puerto Rican women, who so rarely receive this kind of attention, being educated in the culture of silence (invisibility and non-existence), given their doubly marginalised status as women and ethnic minority members. However, the position and portrayal of male figures is not gratuitous. Men are strategically used as instruments to allow for women to challenge their gender roles and to trigger their process of self-empowerment. 2. When I Was Puerto Rican In her first memoir, When I Was Puerto Rican (1993), Santiago describes the rural atmosphere of the poor neighbourhood where she grew up with her family in the 1950s. She depicts an idyllic childhood through the evoking of fragrances, flavours, smells, rituals and ceremonies, the worries and joys of a big and disorderly family. Despite poverty and many deprivations, Negi, as the family affectionately treats her, feels comfortable in this familiar environment. However, the constant conflicts between her parents overcloud this happiness, making them go through a painful succession of separations and reconciliations, moving from house to house and from place to place, from the rural countryside to the urban centre on the island and, later, across the ocean to the mainland. Women play a paramount role as mothers in traditional patriarchal cultures. They are both the source and the transmitters of adequate behaviour norms,

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__________________________________________________________________ especially to their daughters, who are the ones who can dishonour the family by their moral conduct. They represent power and authority inasmuch as they reproduce the primeval normative knowledge of Puerto Rican culture in the domestic sphere. Considering these conventions, the narrator comes of age to consider herself as a subject who challenges norms, someone who wishes to escape a confinement prescribed to her condition as a female in order to conquer other spheres, conventionally restricted and perceived as being masculine - education, the yearning for adventure, and writing. Finally, Mami, tired of her husband, of his constant absences, of the fights and infidelities, decides to separate and take her children to Brooklyn, ‘a place said to be full of promise.’ 3 Burdened with grief and sorrow for having to leave her homeland, Negi courageously accepts this new life, even though they never get to the promised paradise, for what lay around the corner was no better than what we’d left behind, that being in Brooklyn was not a new life but a continuation of the old one. That everything had changed, but nothing had changed. 4 Moving to another country, completely disparate from everything she has known so far, makes little Negi revaluate herself; the food they eat is different, the music they listen to is different, the medicines they take are different, the clothes they wear are different. She has to learn a new language, a new culture, a new lifestyle and a whole new set of indecipherable rules and expectations about a certain pattern of female behaviour. Her whole world is shaken to its structure, all her learning, acquisitions and values are challenged, and her identity is questioned. This is a common problem, typical of a diasporic experience, mainly of women and their narratives of displacement, familiar to those who immigrate to the US. Negi feels alienated, dislocated and displaced, as if belonging nowhere. She ends up becoming a ‘hybrid between this world and the other,’ that is, Puerto Rican all right, but simultaneously, American. Homi Bhabha calls this circumstance the ‘Third Space:’ ‘neither the one […] nor the other […] but something else besides which contests the terms and territories of both.’ 5 Or as Santiago puts it: ‘For me, the person I was becoming when we left was erased, and another one was created. The Puerto Rican jíbara who longed for the green quiet of a tropical afternoon was to become a hybrid who would never forgive the uprooting.’ 6 Hybridity, for Bhabha, comes through constant change and adaptation, and from being marginalised; hybridity is a condition, not a choice, because this process involves not only ‘the crossing of geopolitical borders, but also the traversing of multiple boundaries and barriers in space, time, race, culture, language and history.’ 7

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__________________________________________________________________ That world in Brooklyn from which I derived both comfort and anxiety was home, as was the other world, across the ocean, where my father still wrote poems. As was the other world, the one across the river, where I intended to make my life. I’d have to learn to straddle all of them, a rider on three horses, each headed in a different direction. 8 She later realises, when returning to her homeland, that everything in her has changed, she no longer likes the same things, and worst than that, people who were once part of her existence, part of her daily life, no longer recognise her as one of them, as a Puerto Rican: Boricuas on the island told me I was no longer Puerto Rican because I had lived afuera for so long. I didn’t feel welcome. I felt como que me fuí. Pero, I hadn’t left, I’d been taken from Puerto Rico. I had no choice about it. I was brought to the United States, and once here, I did everything that was expected from me and tried not to embarrass Puerto Ricans in any way. When I went back to Puerto Rico I felt totally unwelcome because I’d had this experience outside the island. I was all of a sudden persona non grata. I didn’t feel like fighting that. At least in the United States, if I tell people I’m Puerto Rican they don’t say, No, you’re not! I’m not going to live in an environment where I constantly have to defend my identity because I’ve already had to do that once in my life and I’m not going to do it at this late age. 9 Writing about this experience of displacement and discomfort, of ‘the unhomeliness of home,’ 10 will allow Santiago to come to terms with her hybridity, to create a nation in which she is neither inferior nor other, but agent and protagonist. 3. Almost a Woman In Almost a Woman, Santiago continues giving life to the incongruences and challenges of her experience in the US during the 1960s. Now a teenager and with some fluency in the language, Negi becomes her brothers and sisters’ voice and especially her mother’s. Mami desperately needs and depends on this voice to translate and interpret her family’s necessities while defending the little dignity they have left. Just two days after arriving in New York, a neighbour hesitantly asks Negi:

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__________________________________________________________________ “¿Tú eres hispana?” she asked, as she whirled the rope in lazy arcs. “No, I’m Puerto Rican.” “Same thing. Puerto Rican. Hispanic. That’s what we are here.” […] Two days in New York, and I’d already become someone else. It wasn’t hard to imagine that greater dangers lay ahead. 11 The girl explains that in the US all Spanish speakers are considered Hispanic. At the end of this conversation, Negi realises that she has already been classified in an arbitrary way beforehand and foresees eminent dangers in the future. She quickly realises that being Puerto Rican in New York is quite different from being Puerto Rican on the island, for in the US it implies a whole set of negative associations and connotations which will excuse and justify discrimination. In the US, they ‘belong to the marginal, the underdeveloped, the periphery, the “Other.” [They] are at the outer edge, the “rim”, of the metropolitan world - always “South” to someone else’s El Norte.’ 12 Negi relates the identity crisis which takes over her. The adverb in the title of the book already suggests an unfinished process Almost a Woman: almost, but not yet an entirely grown woman; her personal growth is not yet fully consummated. It seems this extends to other areas of her life. Negi is almost a woman, just like she is almost bilingual, almost Americanised, almost no longer Puerto Rican due to all the new acquisitions and learnings in the new culture which have estranged her from her roots. Everything seems to her hopelessly and fatally almost… It was good to learn English and to know how to act among Americans, but it was not good to behave like them. Mami made it clear that although we lived in the United States, we were to remain 100 percent Puerto Rican. The problem was that it was hard to tell where Puerto Rican ended and Americanized began. 13 Integrating and adapting to this new culture involves constant rethinking of her nationality, of her social origin, of her race, and even of her identity as a woman. The colour of the skin is the object of a conscious reflection. Negi is confronted by this issue when having to fill in some documents to apply for an unemployment benefit. She needs to categorise herself as: ‘White, Black, or Other.’ When I had to indicate my race, I always marked “Other,” because neither black nor white was appropriate. (…) I was neither black nor white; (…) my features were neither African nor European but a combination of both. 14 […]

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__________________________________________________________________ I wasn’t black, I wasn’t white. The racial middle in which I existed meant that people evaluated me on the spot. (…) Is she light enough to be white? Is she so dark as to be black? In New York I was Puerto Rican, an identity that carried with it a whole set of negative stereotypes I continually struggled to overcome. But in other places, where Puerto Ricans were in lower numbers, where I was from didn’t matter. I was simply too dark to be white, too white to be black. 15 By the end of the novel, Negi is still not far from where she began - almost ‘Americanised’ (almost Puerto Rican, because she cannot avoid being one), almost independent and almost a woman. Little Negi’s identity is still in the making, ‘never complete, always in process,’ 16 and as Ellen C. Mayock states, it is a personal identity deeply affected by her geographical past and present, by the cultural implications of that geography, by the constantly evolving mosaic of the combination of two distinctly different cultures, and, to complicate matters, by the changing “locations” of her developing adolescent self (or selves). 17 This manifold personal identity is common to the Puerto Rican national identity in the US, because it is likewise multiple, constantly (re)building itself and interacting with other foreign cultures, influenced by new historical and political events, that is, being incessantly and continually in process. 18 This narrative shows the different ways of adaptation to which immigrants recur in order to integrate in the new culture. Negi notices how each individual chooses, consciously or unconsciously, to carry out his or her national identity. Thus, and led by the hand of the main character, the concepts of nation, nationality and national identity as fixed and essentialist concepts, possible to define and analyse in absolute terms, are implicitly questioned. 19 4. Conclusion In conclusion, Santiago is a displaced woman who cannot feel at home neither in the United States, where she is cast as Other because of racial issues and secondclass citizenship, nor in Puerto Rico, for being Americanised. Because of her homelessness, she needs to find or create a room of her own, a country where she is not perceived as inferior. When she writes her memories, she heals her wounds, transcends physical borders and embraces all her facets. She recounts all the painful memories of her past, thus empowering her as a woman and letting her embrace both cultures equally. She is finally ‘[at] ease between past and present, English and Spanish, desire and reality, and narration and action.’ 20 The act of

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__________________________________________________________________ writing in itself is used as an instrument to explore and come to terms with her hybrid self: it is a way of exorcising her demons.

Notes 1

Jopi Nyman, ‘The Hybridity of the Asian American Subject’, in Reconstructing Hybridity: Post-Colonial Studies in Transition, eds. Joel Kuortti and Jopi Nyman (Amsterdam and New York: Editions Rodopi, 2007), 14. 2 James Clifford, ‘Diasporas’, Cultural Anthropology 9, No. 3 (August 1994): 302. 3 Ibid., 37. 4 Ibid., 247. 5 Robert J. C. Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race (London: Routledge, 1995), 23. 6 Ibid., 209. 7 Benzi Zhang, ‘Identity in Diaspora and Diaspora in Writing: The Poetics of Cultural Transrelation’, Journal of Intercultural Studies 21, No. 2 (2000): 126. 8 Esmeralda Santiago, Almost a Woman (New York: Vintage Books, 1998), 153. 9 Bridget Kevane and Juanita Heredia, eds., ‘A Puerto Rican Existentialist in Brooklyn’, in Latina Self-Portraits: Interviews with Contemporary Women Writers (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000), 131. 10 Nyman, ‘The Hybridity of the Asian American Subject’, 14. 11 Santiago, Almost a Woman, 4-5. 12 Stuart Hall, ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora’, in Colonial Discourse and PostColonial Theory: A Reader (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994), 396. 13 Ibid., 25. 14 Ibid., 56-57. 15 Ibid., 242. 16 Ibid., 390. 17 Ellen C. Mayock, ‘The Bicultural Construction of Self in Cisneros, Álvarez, and Santiago’, The Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingüe 23, No. 3 (1998): 223-229, accessed October 1, 2011, http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/viewarticle?data=dGJ yMPPp44rp2%2fdV0%2bnjisfk5Ie46bZRtqy0Tbek63nn5Kx95uXxjL6nr0ewpbBIr q2eTLior1Kzq55oy5zyit%2fk8Xnh6ueH7N%2fiVbCnsFG2pq9Mr66khN%2fk5V Xj5KR84LPfiOac8nnls79mpNfsVa%2buslC0rbA%2b5OXwhd%2fqu37z4ups4%2 b7y&hid=112. 18 Ivelisse Santiago-Stommes, ‘Procesando Etiquetas: El Proceso de ReConstrucción de la Identidad Personal y el Cuestionamiento de la Identidad Nacional en Casi una Mujer de Esmeralda Santiago’, in Grafemas (2004), accessed October 1, 2011, http://www-pub.naz.edu:9000/~hchacon6/grafemas/article 10.html. 19 Ibid., 10.

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Mayock, ‘The Bicultural Construction of Self in Cisneros, Álvarez, and Santiago’, 229.

Bibliography Clifford, James. ‘Diasporas’. Cultural Anthropology 9, No. 3 (August 1994): 302– 338. Hall, Stuart. ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora’. In Colonial Discourse and PostColonial Theory: A Reader, edited by Patrick Williams, and Laura Chrisman, 392– 403. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994. Kevane, Bridget. ‘A Puerto Rican Existentialist in Brooklyn’. In Latina SelfPortraits: Interviews with Contemporary Women Writers, edited by Bridget Kevane, and Juanita Heredia, 125–139. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000. Mayock, Ellen C. ‘The Bicultural Construction of Self in Cisneros, Álvarez, and Santiago’. The Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingüe 23, No. 3 (1998): 223–229. Accessed October 1, 2011. http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/viewarticle?data=dGJ yMPPp44rp2%2fdV0%2bnjisfk5Ie46bZRtqy0Tbek63nn5Kx95uXxjL6nr0ewpbBIr q2eTLior1Kzq55oy5zyit%2fk8Xnh6ueH7N%2fiVbCnsFG2pq9Mr66khN%2fk5V Xj5KR84LPfiOac8nnls79mpNfsVa%2buslC0rbA%2b5OXwhd%2fqu37z4ups4%2 b7y&hid=112. Nyman, Jopi. ‘The Hybridity of the Asian American Subject’. In Reconstructing Hybridity: Post-Colonial Studies in Transition, edited by Joel Kuortti, and Jopi Nyman, 191–204. Amsterdam and New York: Editions Rodopi, 2007. Santiago, Esmeralda. When I Was Puerto Rican. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. —––. Almost a Woman. New York: Vintage Books, 1998. Santiago-Stommes, Ivelisse. ‘Procesando Etiquetas: El Proceso de ReConstrucción de la Identidad Personal y el Cuestionamiento de la Identidad Nacional en Casi una Mujer de Esmeralda Santiago’. In Grafemas (2004). Accessed October 1, 2011. http://www-pub.naz.edu:9000/~hchacon6/grafemas/article 10.html.

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__________________________________________________________________ Young, Robert J. C. Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race. London: Routledge, 1995. Zhang, Benzi. ‘Identity in Diaspora and Diaspora in Writing: The Poetics of Cultural Transrelation’. Journal of Intercultural Studies 21, No. 2 (2000): 125– 142. Anabela Alves, MA in American Studies, specialty in History, Culture and Literature and PhD candidate in the same area of study (University of Coimbra).

Marriage Conventions in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane Asma Mansoor Abstract This chapter focuses on the multiple patterns in which marriage has been presented in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane, particularly with a special focus on the immigrant experience. Building the primary premise of this study on the idea that a home is a microcosmic reflection of the society at large and that it is also the theatre where relationships, particularly of marriage, enact themselves, the impact of changing social demographics on a home, and resultantly on marriage, has been explored. Therefore, the researcher has conducted a comparative analysis of various marital relations amongst the diasporic Bangladeshi community residing in the United Kingdom and the Bangladeshis’ residing in their home country. While the theme of marriage has been scrutinised for the sake of this study, the ideas that have been problematised explore which convention of marriage, i.e., of the East or of the West, is a better option, if marriage happens to be an end in itself and who are the real audience of Brick Lane. In order to address these problem areas, this article presents different approaches to marriage in various cultures across the world and why marriage has been labelled as a social institution. While maintaining its focus on Brick Lane, this study presents an analysis of the pressures that a married couple, experiences in an alien society. The problems faced by diasporic Bangladeshi brides and the impact of Western libertarianism have also been analysed. However, since the novel deals with the immigrant experience, an overview of the problems in marriage in Bangladesh itself has also been brought within the ambit of this article. Socio-historical notions pertaining to marriage and the diasporic experience have been utilised to create the theoretical framework of this study, while textual evidence from Brick Lane has been brought in to supplement the analysis. Key Words: Marriage, diaspora, culture, conventions, fragmentation, identity, bride. ***** 1. Introduction For an immigrant, a home is a place where fragmentation manifests itself in multiple patterns. While volatile pressures play tug-of-war with the decisions of an individual, their potent impact can be best seen in the schisms that emerge in marital relationships. Monica Ali’s novel Brick Lane elucidates the dynamics of such pressures by highlighting different conventions of marriage. The reason for this kind of a focus is that culture manifests itself through various social rituals including marriage. The latter serves as a signifier of the social rubric within

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__________________________________________________________________ which it takes place. This research paper endeavours to throw light on how marriage, being a social and cultural indicator, becomes a signifier of the cultural identities and obligations of the individuals involved and how in a liminal space, the kinetics that determine balance in marital contracts experience a parallel shift. The novel Brick Lane explores these alterations through a very intimate portrayal of the expat Bangladeshi couple, Nazneen and Chanu. Marriage as a Social Institution Marriage is generally termed as a ‘social institution’ 1 that protects an individual against ‘anomie.’ 2 In eastern societies, marriage is an important social ritual since it perpetuates the family name and consolidates the family wealth and reputation. While tracing the history of marriages across cultures, Jennifer Coontz writes: [...] marriage was not fundamentally about love. It was too vital an economic and political institution to be entered into solely on the basis of something as irrational as love. 3 Nazneen and Chanu’s marriage was an arranged marriage, a financially propitious opportunity for a poor village girl: The man she would marry was old. At least forty years old. He had a face like a frog. They would marry and he would take her back to England with him. 4 In this case, it was social constraints that would lead Nazneen and Chanu to tie the knot. This marriage is a very solid example of ‘marriage as a livelihood strategy.’ 5 In addition, Coontz’s research highlights that a traditional marriage is a kind of chemical process that aims at forging love as a by-product. However, despite such credenda governing marriage, what actually makes a marriage successful remains a contested issue. Reality shows that lacunae emerge in marital relationships when interests do not overlap. In the immigrant experience, barometric indicators in marital relationships display extremely mercurial readings. 2. Marriage and the Diasporic Experience In the case of the diasporic experience, marriage provides a substratum where an immigrant shall either establish roots or suffer displacement again. Therefore, one needs to comprehend the definition of the term diaspora. According to Rai and Reeves’ definition of diaspora in The Encyclopaedia of the Indian Diaspora: A diaspora exists precisely because it remembers the homeland. Without this memory [...], these migrants and settlers would be simply people in a new setting, into which they merge, bringing

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__________________________________________________________________ little or nothing to the new “home,” accepting in various ways and forms the mores and attitudes that already exist in their new country and society [...] The people of the diaspora, however, do not merely settle in new countries: they recreate in their socio-economic, political and cultural institutions a version of ... that homeland that they remember. 6 Having relocated to a new land, Chanu is soon disillusioned, owing to his incapability of creating his homeland in the UK: And then I found things were a bit different. These people here didn’t know the difference between me, who stepped off an aeroplane with a degree certificate, and the peasants who jumped off the boat possessing only the lice on their heads... . 7 Marriage becomes an effort on Chanu’s part to establish stronger roots in the home country, and to re-create the socio-cultural environment of his birthplace in the host country. This is done to mitigate the sense of exile that he experiences in the UK. At the same time as an example of the ‘Bengali bridal diaspora,’ 8 Nazneen’s routine chores indicate the confined space within which she functions as a homemaker. Her sense of ‘spatial continuity’ 9 flows on. Despite that, the magma of revolt simmers within her being: Every morning before she opened her eyes she thought, “if I were the wishing type, I know what I would wish” [...] Was it cheating? To think, “I know what I would wish”? Was it not the same as making the wish? 10 Yet, in a patriarchal Bangladeshi society, the man/woman binary enforces itself within the spatial limits of a home, through tacit social and cultural laws governing the roles of the spouses. For Chanu, a home is a place where he can enforce his own version of reality and dreams. Feeling lost, he has to have some familiar territory from where he can re-form his strategy for getting integrated into the British society. Their flat on Brick Lane thus, becomes Bangladesh in miniature, where he becomes the alpha male, complacently ignorant of the emotional requirements of his wife. Often she had the feeling he was not talking to her, or rather that she was only part of the larger audience for whom the speech was meant. He smiled at her but his eyes were always searching,

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__________________________________________________________________ as if she were a face in the crowd singled out for only a moment. 11 In an immigrant’s life, a marital relationship may help one to overcome a sense of identity crisis. Since an immigrant experience leads to fragmentation, a home becomes a place where, according to Francois Kral, these bits and pieces are rearranged in a cohesive order. At the same time, it also becomes the theatre where alterations in the sense of identity can discernibly manifest themselves. For instance, at the beginning of the novel, Chanu explicitly reveals his almost colonial veneration for Britain and British literature, but gradually as his dreams are shattered, he turns to quoting Tagore. Home and family, thus, provide him with the canvas to enact out the meanings of life as they shape and re-shape his personality. The Diasporic Bride While Monica Ali treats the complexities of the expatriate experience at great length in Brick Lane, she primarily focuses on the domestic sphere of an expat wife. As Chanu’s hopes wane, Nazneen, seems to have become more indelibly embedded on the folio of the expatriate experience. She gradually sheds the shroud of fatalism and learns to engrave a new future for herself. This process of alteration begins with a silent form of resistance against a husband for whom she felt the utmost loathing. Her lack of gratification manifests itself as she takes bold but silent steps to resist Chanu’s patriarchal authority. At the same time Monica Ali also refers to a number of other diasporic Bangladeshi women dealing with failing marital bonds. Fractured marital relationships manifest themselves in the UK in very much the same way as they did back in Bangladesh. Perhaps what is being suggested is that the exploitative patriarchal systems that were in practice back at home continue to be implemented in the domestic arena in the foreign interstitial space as well. Nonetheless, a migrant Bangladeshi woman remains mired in her native cultural system that is consolidated through marriage. Yet for a married, diasporic woman, the binary of Them and Us gains an added complexity. The Them primarily includes their husbands and their communities, rather than the foreign society. Bangladesh is not merely a geographical place for these expatriate women; it is also a mental outlook and disposition. Two other characters in the novel, Razia and Jorina, lie at the other extreme of the totem pole. In Jorina’s case, it is the economic pressures that drive her apart from her husband. However, in Razia’s case it is her in-laws back in Bangladesh who are an additional financial burden. In today’s world, according to Saskia Sassen, as quoted by Zeigler, ‘…battles lack clear boundaries and fields: there are many sites, many fronts, many forms, many politics.’ 12 These women have also drawn their own battle lines within the war zones defined by the immigrant

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__________________________________________________________________ experience. The reason for challenging the norms that run counter to their interests is that their individuality was at stake. Nazneen, however, does find a middle way between death and explicit social opprobrium. At the end of the novel, she stays behind, while her husband returns to Bangladesh. In doing so, she is ‘translating one’s social value into the host culture’ 13 independently of her husband. However, this socio-cultural mitosis was not without its problems. Living in a free society, Nazneen’s marriage could not remain impervious to the impact of the libertarian society to which they had been transplanted. Diasporic Marriages and Western Libertarianism During the 1960s and 70s personal happiness became the shibboleth of the era. According to Jennifer Coontz, ‘aspirations for personal fulfillment and sexual satisfaction returned to centre stage and were adopted by larger sectors of the population.’ 14 However, the outcome of these changes was a higher divorce rate. This caused a monumental alteration to social behaviours in the western societies and acts considered to be taboos acquired greater laissez faire. This was viewed as a threat by the more culture-protective South-Asian diaspora. An example that Monica Ali presents to highlight the impact of the Western culture on diasporic marriages in particular, is the marriage of Dr. Azad who is married to an Anglicised Bangladeshi woman. Yet this marriage disintegrates as well despite the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Azad had lived through the most trying times. Dr. Azad’s analysis of his situation comes up with a very important notion. It is irritation that mars relationships. Nazneen experienced both categories of love that Dr. Azad has so sadly described. Her experiences still add a question mark to the generalisations established by Dr. Azad. Her love for Karim, her lover, too wanes in the face of reality and its compulsions. Yet at the same time, her time-consolidated bond with Chanu could also not survive in the face of divergent interests either. For the purpose of this study, Nazneen’s relationship with Karim needs to be examined minutely as well. A younger British-born Bangladeshi man, he functioned as a sort of a catalyst in stimulating Nazneen’s revolt against self-denial. Karim, on the other hand, treats her as if she was an exotic item, ‘the real thing… A Bengali wife. A Bengali mother. An idea of home. An idea of himself that he found in her.’ 15 What Karim saw in her was a panaceum for his own displanted state, while Nazneen found satiety for her parched being. She is loaded with a feeling of guilt, and yet she basks in the sense of freedom she has acquired. However, when Chanu leaves and the coast is clear for Nazneen, she ultimately chooses not to marry Karim because they had ‘made each other up.’ 16 Both relationships that Nazneen had entered were contrapositionally apart. In one, she saw her husband with a blinding clarity. Karim had been shrouded in the mist of her dreams. At the end, as she develops a very clear, uncompromising view of life, she is able to take a decisive step. It is only when the perplexities are

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__________________________________________________________________ removed that she begins with her ‘adaptive strategies’ 17 which are defined as ‘[…] proposed cultural patterns that promote the survival and well-being of the community, families, and individual members of the group.’ 18 She knows that in order to enable her family to remain ecologically functional 19 in the liminal world to which they had been transferred, Nazneen needed to have a very lucid understanding not only of her own self, of her own culture, but also of the host environment and its social hierarchies. Probably that is why Nazneen found understanding in Razia when she told her about her break-up with Karim: ‘Everything goes against it. Family, duty, everything,’ Razia replied ‘In love… It is the English style.’ 20 This phrase reveals the impact of Western libertarian ideals on the diasporic Muslim communities from South Asia. Nazneen’s adoption of biculturalism enables her to pick up the pieces of her broken life and continue functioning in a productive manner. As Szopocznik and Kurtines elaborate, bicultural acculturation as ‘a linear process of accommodating to the host culture’ as the first two aspects being the ‘relinquishing or retaining characteristics of culture of origin.’ 21 Nazneen relinquishes some values and retains others, thus instituting a balance in her life. An Overview of Marriage Conventions in Bangladesh While Monica Ali’s narrative weaves back and forth between Bangladesh and the UK, through Hasina’s letters and Nazneen’s memory, one notices the predominance of the theme of marriage running through these embedded narratives. For a woman in the Bangladeshi society, death was to become the most viable means of evading social incarceration. At the same time, women who strove for the fulfilment of their dreams, stood exploited, as was Hasina. Having eloped at a very young age, Hasina does not find happiness in marriage. Through her letters, one notices that Bangladesh is not the paradise that Chanu imagines it to be. It is a corrupt victimising system where the vulnerable are played upon. Hasina tries to be a good wife every time she gets married, but she is preyed upon by the whimsical authority of the men in her life. Women characters that extend across the social spectrum reveal the suppression of women in both subtle and overt forms. The rich and beautiful Lovely is unhappy in marriage, so is the acid-attack victim, Monju. This abject state can be contrasted with the Bangladeshi immigrant Amina’s case who is stated to be filing for a divorce. Suffering from domestic violence, her plight is multiplied because she was a ‘co-wife.’ 22 While immigrant women like Amina suffer domestic abuse, in England they do have the means of extricating themselves from their predicaments, unlike their Bangladeshi counterparts. 3. Conclusion The reason why this chapter focuses on various matrimonial relations portrayed in Brick Lane is that the issue of marriage, being a representative of social

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__________________________________________________________________ behaviours, emerges as an indicator of social and cultural attitudes and their varying paradigms. A comparison of matrimonial issues developing in Bangladesh and those surfacing amongst the Bangladeshi diaspora in the United Kingdom leads to the observation that while the success of marital bonds in both areas seems to be shrouded in inscrutability, the important ideas that surface are that marriage does not seem to be an end in itself and that marriage is over rated if it is deemed to provide protection to a woman. Nazneen seems to be more secure without a male protector around her. Haseena remained most vulnerable in the presence of men. Marriage as a means of ensuring social security seems to be a fallacy within the periphery of Brick Lane’s plot. Despite the alien environment, Nazneen appears to be more secure and at home in comparison with Chanu. Moreover, Nazneen’s character punches holes in to another fallacy i.e., marriage provides economic security. While financial pressures can definitely break marriages, a relief in those pressures can make a marriage function smoothly as Nazneen’s taking up stitching suggest. Another observation that can be made is that while domestic abuse takes place in both the United Kingdom and in Bangladesh, the situation is far more grave for the women in Bangladesh, as compared with the condition of Bangladeshi women in the UK. What is produced in the ice rink at the end of Brick Lane is a liberated individual self. As a woman, Nazneen’s character brings about ‘the staggering alteration in power relations and in the production of individualities,’ 23 an idea that binds women across the global spectrum. For Monica Ali, marriage is both about personal choice as well as the collective functioning of an individual in the society. As Nazneen shows, she does not marry Karim after Chanu’s departure because of the sense of responsibility that she feels towards her daughters. Hence, the message that is implicitly conveyed through Brick Lane is that while it is not possible to decide whether the Eastern way of marriage is better or the Western one, however, what may make a marriage function is an objective realisation of the self in conjunction with social obligations like parenthood.

Notes 1

Peter Berger and Hansfried Kellner, ‘Marriage and the Construction of Reality: An Exercise in the Microsociology of Knowledge’, The Psychosocial Interior of the Family 4th Ed. Edited by Gerald Handel and Gail G. Whitchurch (New York: Aldine D. Gruyter, 1994), 19. 2 Ibid. 3 Jennifer Coontz, Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 7. 4 Monica Ali, Brick Lane (Great Britain: Black Swan, 2004), 17.

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Ravinder Kaur. ‘Bengali Bridal Diaspora: Marriage as a Livelihood Strategy’, Economic & Political Weekly EPW xlv, No. 5 (January 30, 2010):, 16. 6 Rai Rajesh and Peter Reeves, ‘Introduction’, The South Asian Diaspora: Transnational Networks and Changing Identities (New York: Routledge, 2009), 18. 7 Ibid., 34. 8 Kaur, ‘Bengali Bridal Diaspora’, 16. 9 Francois Kral, Critical Identities in Contemporary Anglophone Diasporic Literature (NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 37. 10 Ali, Brick Lane, 18. 11 Ibid., 42. 12 Garrett Ziegler. ‘East of the City: “Brick Lane”, Capitalism, and the Global Metropolis’, in Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts, 1:1, Transnational Migration, Race, and Citizenship (Autumn, 2007) Indiana University Press), 149. 13 Kral, Critical Identities in Contemporary Anglophone Diasporic Literature, 115. 14 Coontz, Marriage: A History, 254. 15 Ali, Brick Lane, 454. 16 Ibid., 426. 17 Algea O. Harrison, et al., ‘Family Ecologies of Ethnic Minority Children’, The Psychosocial Interior of the Family, 4th Ed, eds. Gerald Handel and Gail G. Whitchurch (New York: Aldine D. Gruyter, 1994), 187. 18 Ibid., 190. 19 Ibid., 188. 20 Ali, Brick Lane, 428. 21 As quoted in Harrison, et al., ‘Family Ecologies of Ethnic Minority Children’, 193. 22 Ibid., 72. 23 Helene Cixous, ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’, trans. Keith Cohen, Paula Cohen, Signs 1, No. 4 (Summer, 1976): 883, The University of Chicago Press.

Bibliography Ali, Monica. Brick Lane. Great Britain: Black Swan, 2004. Berger, Peter, and Hansfield Kellner. ‘Marriage and the Construction of Reality: An Exercise in the Microsociology of Knowledge’. The Psychosocial Interior of the Family, 4th Ed. Edited by Gerald Handel, and Gail G. Whitchurch. New York: Aldine D. Gruyter, 1994.

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__________________________________________________________________ Coontz, Jennifer. Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage. New York: Penguin Books, 2005. Cixous, Helene. ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’. Translated by Keith Cohen, and Paula Cohen. Signs 1, No. 4 (Summer, 1976), The University of Chicago Press. Harrison, Algea O., Melvin N. Wilson, Charles J. Pine, Samuel Q. Chan, and Raymond Buriel. ‘Family Ecologies of Ethnic Minority Children’. The Psychosocial Interior of the Family, 4th Ed. Edited by Gerald Handel, and Gail G. Whitchurch. New York: Aldine D. Gruyter, 1994. Kaur, Ravinder. ‘Bengali Bridal Diaspora: Marriage as a Livelihood Strategy’. Economic & Political Weekly EPW xlv, No. 5 (January 30, 2010). Accessed on 28th November, 2011. Kral, Francois. Critical Identities in Contemporary Anglophone Diasporic Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Rai, Rajesh, and Peter Reeves. ‘Introduction’, in The South Asian Diaspora: Transnational Networks and Changing Identities. New York: Routledge, 2009. Ziegler, Garrett. ‘East of the City: “Brick Lane”, Capitalism, and the Global Metropolis’. Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts, 1:1, Transnational Migration, Race, and Citizenship, 145–167. Indiana University Press. Autumn 2007. Asma Mansoor is a Lecturer in the Department of English, Female Campus, International Islamic University Islamabad.

Diaspoetics in the Literature of Karen Tei Yamashita: Brazilian and Japanese Diasporas Compared Claudio Braga and Glaucia R. Gonçalves Abstract Some diasporas have been given much attention in contemporary research, while others have not been properly considered, despite their relevance. This fact may be due to definitional predicaments, which have accompanied the term diaspora and the phenomenon itself. What makes a diaspora? What makes it different from other experiences of human mobility? The present work starts by offering a discussion which does not attempt to establish fixed concepts, but rather coherent perspectives on the notion of diaspora. Subsequently, it compares two literary representations of diasporic communities established in Brazil and Japan; they constitute two cases which have not been scrutinised in as much detail as they deserve. These diasporas are represented in Brazil-Maru and Circle K Cycles, both by Asian-American writer Karen Tei Yamashita and published respectively in 1992 and 2001. BrazilMaru is a novel which tells the story of a Japanese community in Brazil, while Circle K Cycles is a collection that blends fiction and non-fiction about Brazilians living in Japan. This chapter is structured on two axes, namely the collective and the individual. The collective is grounded on the examination of diasporic communities represented in both books. Diasporas are not simply located in one country or another. They also occupy a highly symbolic non-physical dimension, which we call the diasporic in-between. The individual aspect is explored through the analysis of Japanese and Brazilian diasporic subjectivities, illustrated by selected characters. In this approach, diasporic subjects are examined by taking into consideration their fluid and heterogeneous cultural identifications, constituted in diasporic mobility and continually reconstituted. In the conclusion, we outline textual, paratextual, biographical, and linguistic features of the literary works in their relation with diaspora and we present, as a final point, the notion of diaspoetics, articulated from the interpretation strategy we undertook based on propositions by key theorists of diaspora. Key Words: Diaspoetics, Brazilian diaspora, Japanese diaspora, Karen Tei Yamashita. ***** 1. Introduction Diaspora has been one of the most used and misused concepts in recent research. Relying on the Greek etymology of the word is still a safe way of approaching the topic; however, because of its emphasis on punishment, it does not account for the more positive contemporary connotation of opportunity and

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__________________________________________________________________ progress associated with human mobility. For instance, in ‘Rethinking “Babylon”: Iconoclastic Conceptions of the Diasporic Experience,’ Robin Cohen presents two opposite contexts for diaspora: the possibilities found in a more pluralistic society which accepts or at least tolerates the presence of foreigners, and the enhancement of creativity and surviving strategies in a hostile environment. In this chapter, both viewpoints are considered, since they seem to be intertwined complexly in the literature of the Asian-American author Karen Tei Yamashita. Portraying diasporas located in Brazil and Japan, her books BrazilMaru and Circle K Cycles, published in 1992 and 2001 respectively, provide the ground to discuss how a community improves itself against an environment of deprivation and also how it develops in an environment that manifests at least relative tolerance towards immigrants. Growing up in the United States with a Japanese background prompted the young Yamashita to search for the origin of her ancestors. Moved by a kind of diasporic restlessness, she went to Japan as an anthropology student, moved to Minnesota later, travelled to Brazil so as to further her research on the Japanese diaspora, returned to the United States, and then again went to Japan. Such experiences have helped Yamashita construct and reconstruct herself and are, unmistakably, mirrored in her fictional characters. Especially in the works we selected for analysis here, Yamashita employs literary devices which were, in our contention, carefully thought out to suit the themes on which she focuses. As we will argue later, her choices regarding form and content illustrate what we have termed diaspoetics. 2. Brazil-Maru and Circle K Cycles: the Story of Two Diasporas A great number of traits discussed by the main theorists of diaspora can be found in the communities represented in Brazil-Maru and Circle K Cycles. We find this quite relevant, given the fact that in most books and articles on diaspora rarely one finds the mention of Brazil or Japan, and the premise for our investigation is that indeed there is a Brazilian and a Japanese diaspora across the globe. Brazil-Maru, for instance, is also the name of one of the ships that took Japanese emigrants to Brazil in the first half of the twentieth century and alone implies the notion of movement as well as the historical background for the Japanese emigration: By the 1920s many Japanese, especially second sons without rights of inheritance, had left to find livelihood abroad. […] every year more and more poor tenant farmers who complained of high taxes and no future looked for opportunities far away. 1 The narrator also mentions earthquakes and religious persecution as reasons which prompted the Japanese dispersion:

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__________________________________________________________________ My parents had left Japan because they were Christians […] My father-in-law, Naotaro Uno, remembered his experience in military service. He had been bullied for being a yaso, a bad name for Christians. 2 Diaspora theorists such as Safran and Cohen have mentioned similar reasons that spurred diasporas. Cohen, for instance, states that dispersion can be motivated by ‘search of work, in pursuit of trade or to further colonial ambitions.’ 3 In BrazilMaru, readers are provided with the reasons that led to Japanese immigration to Brazil in the early twentieth century: Since 1908, they had arrived at this same port in shipload after shipload until there were thousands of Japanese, the majority labouring on coffee plantations in the State of São Paulo. 4 Jobs were scarce in Japan while Brazil as a hostland seemed attractive insofar as it needed workforce, especially in rural areas. Circle K Cycles, differently, is set in the 1980s and tells the story of descendants of Japanese immigrants who, in a kind of ironic twist, now cannot find jobs in Brazil. On the other side of the globe, however, Japan’s economy grows at high rates, which contributed to the Japanese government passing a law that allowed Japanese descendants to repatriate: Since 1990 a growing number of Japanese Brazilians and their families have migrated to Japan as contract laborers to work in the myriad parts and subparts factories that support the products of companies like Toyota, Mitsubishi, Yamaha, Sony, Subaru, Sanyo, and Suzuki. 5 Japanese-Brazilians find harsh work conditions in Japan, since their work permits only allow them to ‘circle the three Ks. Kitanai. Kitsui. Kigen. Work designated as dirty, difficult, dangerous.’ 6 Therefore, they have no alternative but to create their own surviving strategies, as any diaspora community would do in such circumstances: One marvels at the resourcefulness and energy of these people. They have rapidly built small businesses, services such as educational programs, child care facilities, documentation and legal services, and associations and networks of every kind including soccer teams, internet cafés, and samba schools. 7

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__________________________________________________________________ The surviving strategies of the Brazilian diaspora in Circle K Cycles are different from those portrayed in Brazil-Maru, since those early immigrants were allowed to buy land and run their own businesses. One of their local commerce chambers is even considered ‘a very important and profitable entity in the area.’ 8 Despite differences, the two diasporas represented in Brazil-Maru and in Circle K Cycles wish and need to hold together. According to Cohen, 9 diasporas indeed display strong ethnic consciousness, sustained over a long period and based on a sense of distinction, common history, and the belief in a common destiny. In Brazil-Maru, the Japanese meet in public places, such as the Miyasaka Club, in the state capital, or in communities in the countryside, where they speak Japanese, listen to Japanese music and eat Japanese food. In spite of being located in the heart of Brazil, the diasporic community of Brazil-Maru does not simply speak Japanese, but is devoted to teaching the language to the younger generations in their own local schools. Only a few members of the community learn Portuguese out of the absolute need to communicate with Brazilians. The language and their extreme isolation confer the status of foreigners even upon the later generations born in Brazil. Similar attempts to preserve cultural features are also portrayed in Circle K Cycles. Japanese-Brazilians import food from Brazil. They speak some Japanese but use the Portuguese language and have strong ties with the homeland. The matter of one’s native language in diaspora is also approached creatively by Yamashita, who writes an entire chapter in Portuguese to illustrate how symbolic the use of the native language by members of the community can be. Circle K Cycles includes also a chapter in Japanese, calling the readers’ attention to the fact that Japanese-Brazilians have to deal with a strange language on a daily basis. In addition, these chapters cause the English native speaker the same sensation of being an outsider, of being someone who cannot comprehend such a world in its entirety. The reader feels somehow illiterate, which is precisely how most Japanese-Brazilians feel in Japan. In addition to this, Yamashita also includes the story of a teacher whose job is to teach Portuguese to children born to Brazilian parents in Japan: “Now that you can speak Portuguese, you are full of questions. Why is that?” “Tia Célia says it’s good to ask questions to find out things. We practice asking questions all the time.” Alice thought about how speaking Portuguese had changed the relationship between Fátima and her daughter. It was as if they were trying to make up for lost time, for all the time Fátima spent working away from Iara. 10

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__________________________________________________________________ Since most Brazilians living in Japan cannot speak Japanese properly, teaching Portuguese to their children is crucial for a cohesive community. The teaching of Portuguese demonstrates how the language of the homeland continues to be relevant. Besides strengthening the cultural ties with Brazil it also fosters the creation of a kind of pidgin language necessary for dealing with day-to-day matters in the hostland. 3. Diasporic Subjects As Braziel and Mannur assert, ‘Diasporic subjects are marked by hybridity and heterogeneity - cultural, linguistic, ethnic, national - and these subjects are defined by a traversal of the boundaries demarcating nation and diaspora.’ 11 However, diasporas vary in space and time, i.e., homelands, hostlands, the diasporic enclave and their historical contexts shape specific groups. Accordingly, a study of diasporic subjects shows distinct levels of hybridity, heterogeneity and particular relations between diaspora and nation. As a result of cultural hybridism, diasporic subjects attempt at reinventing themselves in diaspora. Haru Okumura from Brazil-Maru and Miss Hamamatsu from Circle K Cycles are two characters who illustrate how subjects rearticulate themselves in diaspora. In a novel with five different narrators, Haru is the only woman character whose voice is heard. She represents a disempowered minority, isolated and subjugated within the already marginalized diasporic community. She is married to the local leader, a man who never pays attention to her needs and personal tastes. She spends her life working hard, having met with little recognition. Interestingly, as a woman narrator, she regards issues that are usually ignored by the male characters: Haru, for instance, narrates the final moments of those dying of terminal diseases, after having taken care of them for months. Being a woman, she is a representative of the diasporic underclass, in Gayatri Spivak’s terms: ‘the super-dominated, the super-exploited, but not in the same way.’ 12 Differently from Haru, Miss Hamamatsu, from Circle K Cycles, is part of the urban diasporic community clustered in an industrial district in contemporary Japan. Although most women that make up the Brazilian diaspora in Japan work in factories, Yamashita focuses on women characters who have various jobs other than as labourers in the local industry. Miss Hamamatsu, for instance, never addressed by her own name, forcing readers to focus only on her physical beauty, her youth and naiveté, is an eighteen-year-old beauty queen. The absence of a name also points to a complex net of identifications, skilfully woven by Yamashita. Half Italian half Japanese, her ancestors move to Brazil, where she was born. In Japan she spends her days in a small windowless backroom where she ‘dream[s] of working somewhere else, in the open, in an office that had a window at least and young men passing to and from who would of course turn their heads to appreciate her beauty.’ 13 Performing the same monotonous task - making copies of hundreds of video tapes featuring Brazilian TV programmes which are rented by

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__________________________________________________________________ Japanese Brazilians - every single day, in her electronic prison, she presses the repeat button hundreds of times and watches many of the programmes she is recording. She dreams of leading a TV show for children: ‘she would have Japanese and Brazilian children on her show, her little princes and princesses, talk to all the children out there, make heartfelt speeches about being kind to foreigners.’ 14 She cries while watching Brazilian movies on Japanese immigration because those stories could be her grandparents.’ She also cries over a Brazilian soap opera about the Italian immigration: She felt it was her story too, the story of her Italian side. Imagine. Her grandmother could have been Letícia Spiller. Miss Hamamatsu sank into the full sensation of the novela moment; it was one of the perks of her job. 15 Her identification with TV shows demonstrates how diasporic subjects can be influenced by mass cultural artefacts from the homeland. They provide fantasies and illusions which help Miss Hamamatsu escape the tough routine she faces in Japan. It is worth mentioning that the copies of TV shows, as simulacra, become more and more distanced from the original, but nevertheless serve the purpose of helping the Brazilian diaspora formulate its image of Brazil: ‘Home was a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy, further away than she could imagine.’ 16 The blurred images in these video tapes are metaphors which tell us how Brazil becomes a kind of imaginary homeland in diaspora, in Salman Rushdie’s terms. 17 As each copy becomes more and more blurred, the homeland is also transformed into a fabricated, at times idealised, place where the heart lies. In conclusion, the characters discussed in this chapter, as well as others from the two works under analysis here, clearly illustrate the predicament of diasporic subjects, despite today’s more positive view of the global dispersion of peoples. Although the timeframe of the two works differs (the early and the late twentieth century) both the Japanese and the Brazilian diasporas share characteristics and illustrate, directly or indirectly, that there is an inevitable human cost to human immigration. 4. Diasporic Literature and Diaspoetics Yamashita’s use of a hybrid genre, multiple narrative points of view, as well as her mixture of Portuguese, English, and Japanese are textual choices as relevant as her thematic focus. These rich and complex literary strategies employed by Yamashita together constitute what we call diaspoetics: a term which joins up the words diaspora and poetics. Diaspoetics attempts to encompass the notion of diaspora and the concept of poetics, in the sense employed by Jonathan Culler. 18 Unlike Tzvetan Todorov 19 and Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, 20 Culler offers a broader perspective on the term, defining poetics as ‘the attempt to account for literary

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__________________________________________________________________ effects by describing the conventions and reading operations that make them possible.’ 21 In this chapter, diaspora theory was the frame which made possible our own reading of the stories, leading us to identify, analyse and discuss the fictional content and the way it was put on paper, i.e., Yamashita’s diasporic literary effects. Diaspoetics, as an account of the resources and strategies of diasporic literature, cannot be limited to a list of features or rules locked in solitary interpretive tradition of literature as literature. It must be expanded, similarly to Culler’s notion of poetics, to extra-literary dimensions, articulated in the writer’s creative work. In this paper, diaspoetics is an open, detached and fluctuating interpretive strategy. It covers the specificities of the literary discourse of the writer under investigation, proving itself more appropriate than fixed, closed presuppositions. In conclusion, diaspoetics is the fusion of text, paratext, and context. These aspects allow us to probe deeply into the literary work, revealing new, diversified possibilities of meaning through the means of a combination of the literary and non-literary. It should be noted, finally, under the diaspoetics interpretive mode, the subsistence of a political positioning. By exposing the unfavourable conditions of minorities in diaspora, like the Japanese in Brazil and, especially, the JapaneseBrazilian in Japan, Yamashita’s works also decry, for instance, the brutality of the capitalist mode of production and how exclusionary modern societies can be. In this sense, Yamashita produces the type of literature that Culler identifies as dangerous since it ‘promotes the questioning of authority and social arrangements.’ 22 At the same time it highlights the existence of such a political position, Yamashita’s literature is constructed upon a foundation of aesthetic elements, which exist by themselves and are not subjected to a political discourse, but extend and surpass the political message.

Notes 1

Karen Tei Yamashita, Brazil-Maru (Minneapolis: Coffee House, 1992), 6. Ibid., 91. 3 Robin Cohen, ‘Diasporas and the Nation-State: From Victims to Challengers’, in Migration, Diasporas and Transnationalism, eds. Steven Vertovec and Robin Cohen (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1999), 274. 4 Yamashita, Brazil-Maru, 1. 5 Yamashita, Circle K Cycles (Minneapolis: Coffee House, 2001), 13-14. 6 Ibid., 32. 7 Ibid., 14. 8 Yamashita, Brazil-Maru, 20. 9 Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction (Seattle: Washington University Press). 2

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Yamashita, Circle K Cycles, 83. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur, ‘Nation, Migration, Globalization: Points of Contention in Diaspora Studies’, in Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader, eds. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003), 5. 12 Gayatri Spivak, ‘Diasporas Old and New: Women in Transnational World’, Textual Practice 2, No. 10 (1996): 249. 13 Yamashita, Circle K Cycles, 20. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid., 23. 16 Ibid., 20. 17 Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991 (London: Granta Books, 1992), 10. 18 Johnathan Culler, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 19 Tzvetan Todorov, Introduction to Poetics (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 1981). 20 Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics (London: Methuen, 1983). 21 Culler, Literary Theory, 70. 22 Ibid., 45. 11

Bibliography Braziel, Jana Evans, and Anita Mannur. ‘Nation, Migration, Globalization: Points of Contention in Diaspora Studies’. In Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader, edited by Jana Evans Braziel, and Anita Mannur, 1–21. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003. Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas: An Introduction. Seattle: Washington University Press, 1997. —––. ‘Diasporas and the Nation-State: From Victims to Challengers’. In Migration, Diasporas and Transnationalism, edited by Steven Vertovec, and Robin Cohen, 266– 279. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1999. Culler, Jonathan D. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith. Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. London: Methuen, 1983.

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__________________________________________________________________ Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991. London: Granta Books, 1992. Safran, William. ‘Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homelands and Return’. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 1, No. 1 (1991): 83–99. Spivak, Gayatri C. ‘Diasporas Old and New: Women in Transnational World’. Textual Practice 2, No. 10 (1996): 245–269. Tachibana, Reikoand Kimio Takahashi. ‘East-West: Diasporic Writings of Asia’. Comparative Literature Studies 45, No. 1 (2008): 1–3. Todorov, Tzvetan. Introduction to Poetics. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 1981. Yamashita, Karen Tei. Brazil-Maru. Minneapolis: Coffee House, 1992. —––. Circle K Cycles. Minneapolis: Coffee House, 2001. Claudio Braga received his doctorate degree in Comparative Literature from the Federal University of Minas Gerais in 2010. He is currently Professor of Literatures in English at the University of Brasilia, Brazil, and his research interests are postcolonial and diasporic literatures. Glaucia R. Goncalves received a PhD in Romance Languages with a minor in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1995. She is currently Associate Professor of Literatures in English at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, and her research interests are Immigration and Diaspora Studies.

Global Cosmopolitanism and Diasporic Singularities Jairus Omuteche Abstract Population movements are one of the characteristics of globalisation. They result in different types of immigration patterns; one of the most outstanding being the formation of diasporic communities. Writers probe the paradoxical, ambivalent, and at the same time complex nature of diaspora in a globalised world: the coexistence of singularities that characterise diaspora identities and cosmopolitanism that define globalisation, which is exemplified in Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory, 1 Brand’s What We All Long For, 2 and Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street. 3 These writers give a representative picture of the multi-faceted diasporic identities of the contemporary world - the African / Nigerian diaspora in Belgium, the Haitian diaspora in the USA, and diverse diasporas in Canada. They depict how diasporic individuals and societies assert space and how the geographies of diasporic belongings are (re)negotiated and evolve. They also depict the invasive global underground that has created an enormous network of illegitimate diasporas. Key Words: Diasporas, dialogic re-negotiations, home, belonging, identity, illegitimate diasporas. ***** 1. Introduction Edwidge Danticat, Dionne Brand, and Chika Unigwe depict the globalised nature of a diasporic scene, which is nevertheless characterised by varying resonances of contenting pluralities and singularities. This opens up an appraisal of the assumptions of the traditional understanding of globalisation as expansion or opening of frontiers - be they economic, juridical, or cultural - to the extent of mass participation. 4 The writers depict individuals and groups whose diasporic experiences of home and identity are shaped by the supposedly globalised phenomenon of the contemporary world. Their experiences display the contradictions inherent in this phenomenon. The global interconnections reveal cross-currents of fluidity and resistance. There are also anxieties of the constant transformation and re-drawing of frontiers. Within such a setting, the diasporic encounters display contestations between cosmopolitanism and singularities. 2. Geographies of Diaspora: Divergent Co-Existence Forces of globalisation impact differently on different diasporas. Different diasporic spaces are characterised by different global flows that influence the characters’ engagement with the receiving and sending countries. In Danticat and Unigwe, communication flow is very important as there are close contacts between

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__________________________________________________________________ diaspora and the sending country. This has enabled diasporic communities characterised by strong tendencies to singularity to evolve. In Brand, space, power and difference have intertwined to produce a fractured cosmopolitan city which foregrounds fragmented diasporic singularities in the early evolution of the different diasporas. The fragments range from class, racial, historical, cultural, regional, and ethnic in background. In Toronto, the city landscape is fragmented hierarchically. Tuyen’s family feel alienated and wedged in uncomfortable spaces because of the systematic and multidimensional social exclusion they are subjected to, but which they try hard to escape. Brand depicts the dilemma the immigrants face as they try to belong in the Toronto space-place. Positioned negatively from the outset, it proves a hard struggle to undo the impacts of marginalisation and persistent designation as aliens. Tuyen observes that even though her family has become richer and have moved into a spacious house in a wealthier neighbourhood of Toronto, they are still essentially apart and other in Richmond Hill. 5 Marginalised, the first generation immigrants try to build symbolic bridges of memory between the diaspora and their original homeland. This helps to psychologically deal with the impacts of discrimination. Propensity of singularities amidst diversity appears to point to the strategies of constructing imagined sense of home by appropriating space and designating it spiritually and culturally theirs. They converge on these reified spaces as points of identification and assertion of belonging in the host country. While Tuyen’s parents have a family business in Chinatown, her brother Binh, has a shop in Korea Town in Toronto. There are also Vietnamese neighbourhoods, black neighbourhoods, and such fragmented residential patterns that separate the immigrants in small contained pockets in the vastness of Toronto. The second generation manifest connections across members of different diasporic communities in Toronto resulting in the strengthening of transnational communalism. This is arguably politically beneficial as it enhances the assertion of belonging and laying bare the fact that discrimination and exclusion impacts on all those designated as minorities. Transnational interconnections break the binary relation of minority communities with majority societies as well as strengthen their claims against an oppressive national hegemony. 6 Tuyen and her friends represent such a diasporic consciousness that dialogues across diasporic groups as a strategy of resisting exclusion in the country of their settlement. They (re)create spaceplaces by embracing cultural diversity. A new cosmopolitan community evolves under the complex historical and social experiences that characterise Toronto. Affiliation to space is important to diasporic formation of home and belonging as it enhances identification with the new space-place. In Danticat, when Sophie arrives in New York from Haiti, her mother and Marc make a point to introduce her to a Haitian restaurant, Miracin’s in New Jersey. Marc, in praises of the restaurant, tells Sophie, ‘Miracin’s has the best Haitian food in America.’ 7 The food too is served perfomatively to enact Haitian culinary atmosphere. At the

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__________________________________________________________________ restaurant Haitians gather not only to eat Haitian food among their compatriots, but to engage with issues of their homeland. As they discuss the challenges facing Haiti, Sophie notices that their style of argument is deeply Haitian. 8 The Haitians consciously assert New York as home by importing their values and cultural norms. This is usually very helpful if the diasporic community is facing some sort of exclusion from the dominant culture of the receiving country. Their own landmarks such as distinct residential patterns, religious places, culture related entertainment/ sports facilities and activities, and eating places reconstitute a sense of community and presence. Nevertheless, it may be a result of the openness of the receiving society that allows multicultural expressiveness. When Sophie joins school we, however, realise that the Miracin’s restaurant is likely an escape place where Haitians reconstruct their sense of home and community in the face of a hostile diasporic landscape. She is sent to the Haitian Adventist School in New York. While the Haitians who run the school and her mother probably understand the challenges of Haitian immigrant children in American school system, Sophie feels alienated by this forced double belonging. It makes her feel as if she had never left Haiti. Outside the school, they face harassment and taunts. They are derogatorily called ‘the Frenchies,’ ‘boat people,’ and ‘Stinking Haitians.’ 9 It is within this setting in New York that Sophie finds herself in a cosmopolitan global city, but with her world defined by exclusionary closures that force the diasporas to mediate their space by asserting a countering singularity. To effectively make home in America, the Haitian diaspora negotiates the discrimination they face by emphasising their cultural identity specificity. The geographical spaces they appropriate in New York - the school, the college, and the restaurant - helps them to do this materially and symbolically. This is an exhibition of contextualised assertion of power to do in resisting and re-negotiating with the overarching subordinating power over deployed by the receiving country overtly or covertly. 10 The writers reveal that landscape is important in positioning individuals and communities. Landscapes reflect, directly or symbolically, the cultural forces that have produced them, encoding the social and economic arrangements that exist in a place at a particular time. 11 3. Dialogic Re-Negotiations and Re-Assertions of Identity and Home Different sets of hegemonic practices position the diasporas at margins of social experience. Exclusion from the economic and political mainstream causes contiguous pressures on the immigrants. Due to this pressure, the immigrants continually adopt strategies to develop and pursue feasible and alternative pathways to assert home and belong in spite of the policies of exclusion by the host. They bring to bear all their resources - resilience, creativity, resistance, etc. in their re-engagement with the host landscape and community. This re-

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__________________________________________________________________ engagement is dialogic in nature, involving constant re-negotiation and repositioning. I designate this as an optimisation process. It is a dialogic, dynamic and relational process as evidenced in the depiction of identity formations and assertion of belonging in diaspora by the three writers. In Brand, when Tuan, a civil engineer, and Cam, a doctor, immigrate to Canada from Vietnam, they are unable to continue with their professions. The Canadian authorities prohibit them to practice. Such closures make immigrants to innovatively seek out other pathways in the new space-places. The selected paths illustrate dynamic dialogic re-positionings used to offset the marginal positioning by the hegemonic status quo. The set of choices that Tuan and Cam take entail patience and resilience. They sacrifice their pride and industrially try to reconstruct their family fortunes by negotiating the best options: ‘Cam became a manicurist in a beauty salon near Chinatown while Tuan unloaded fruits and other products from trucks to the backs of stores on Spadina.’ 12 Later, they start a restaurant specialising in Vietnamese food. 13 Selective integration and closures by hegemonic controls positions the immigrants in certain ways. They can only earn a living and settle in particular ways and places. The immigrants are systematically forced to be what the dominant group defines them to be through regulations and norms that classify immigrants and hierarchically describe their place. Tuan and Cam realises these dynamics and are forced to make the best out of the available options, however marginalising, ‘They were being defined by the city.’ 14 In Unigwe, the women she depicts are alienated from socioeconomic assets of their country, Nigeria. Efe, Ama, and Sisi have a strong will to succeed in life, but class and gender forces exclude them in Lagos. This builds contiguous pressures in their psyche. They look around them and see what they are locked out of. In part, this contiguous pressure comes to account for their motivation to accept Dele’s offer and immigrate to Europe. In Belgium, they are declared personas non grata the moment they arrive, hence become Madam’s virtual sex slaves. As illegal immigrants in Belgium, their traffickers lay claim to most of the money they make from the forced prostitution. 15 But these now diasporic women actively re-appropriate their active power to do and exhibit the potential of active re-creation. They recreate their subjectivity and optimise the viable pathways, hence re-asserting and re-positioning themselves. It is Sisi, the most aware of the women, who realises the uncanny situation they have been forced into in Antwerp. As Sisi walks among tourists in this Belgium city, in which global flows eddy so fluidly, her position as a virtual slave to Dele and Madam in the same city is unsettling. 16 When she falls in love with Luc, her effort to re-situate her sense of self intensifies. She starts imagining a more meaningful life beyond her entrapped status. Luc’s love and faith in her slowly results in Sisi seeing herself as a worthy

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__________________________________________________________________ woman. She digs deep in her inner strength and reconstructs the possibility of freedom and reassertion of her humanity. 17 The optimisation process strategies of responding to the hegemonic power by the first generation and second generation immigrants as the diaspora evolves are markedly different. The first generation is depicted as being flexible in negotiating the obstacles of marginalisation and exclusion by re-positioning themselves through non-confrontational claims to inclusion. They seem to strategically resist the marginal spaces and positions to build and expand their place in the diaspora. In Brand, residential patterns also reveal the same trend with the immigrants making do with impoverished neighbourhoods or ghettos they are forced in, then working their way out. Concentrations of certain communities are associated with particular locales in towns where they are forced because of their incomes or covert hegemonic residential policies; though it may appear it is because of choice to live among compatriots. Arguing that domination, discrimination or oppression does not directly equate with powerlessness of the individual or group targeted, Bakare-Yusuf asserts ‘identity becomes a function of experience lived through creative praxis.’ 18 Power over does not necessarily imply disempowering the diaspora’s power to do. 19 The second generation, with a firm sense of entitlement feel indignant when they encounter institutionalised or culturally normalised marginalisation that constructs them as Other or minority versus a certain hegemony that is defined as more Canadian than themselves. Tuyen, Oku, Jackie, and Carla become friends at school because they realise they are being marginalised by the curriculum and the education system that has arrogated itself mainstream. 20 They challenge the assumptions of the cultural power that the dominant group use to exclude them and legitimise hegemony. As they grow up, they feel and confront the shifting ‘balance of power’ that is being waged to ‘change the dispositions and configurations of cultural power.’ 21 These power reconfigurations are meant to maintain and valorise difference for purposes of sustaining hierarchical social positions. Suspicious of the segregating and fragmenting strategies of hegemonic narrow constructions of typologies of identities, they attempt to re-shape and reclaim space for themselves in the city by asserting cosmopolitan identities and belonging. They disrupt the dictates of hegemonic order that they see as marginalising. The second generation seeks to change two sets of positioning influences that seem to be pushing them in two different directions. Essentially, they are struggling against the alienating hybridity and inbetweenness that diasporic marginality tends to entail. As they re-negotiate for coherent identities and assertive belonging, they have to defy the debilitating positions of in-betweenness that entrench and maintain marginalised positions and social hierarchies. Trapped between seemingly pre-defined social roles and positions that the ingroups and the dominant cultures reinforce and the openness and dialogism of

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__________________________________________________________________ cosmopolitanism, they have to move beyond this marginal interstice. As Lu puts it, ‘the self can be used strategically to hunt out an “available” position, allowing the individual to avoid being assigned one role according to tradition.’ 22 This is possible because self and other always enact a drama in which the self is in a relation of simultaneity that deals with relations of same and difference in space and time. 23 How one reformulates identity in the cosmopolitan space afforded by globalisation and transnational diasporas depends on available options. Dialogism involves constructing identity and re-asserting belonging through relating to others and space through re-negotiation and re-positioning. 4. The Global Underground and the Illegitimate Diasporas Global flows manifested in ease of transport and communications have spurned a vibrant global underground. In Unigwe, Dele is able to organise and traffic many girls to Europe for forced prostitution. Further, the organisation with Madams in the control of the girls in their bondage is enabled by communication such as mobile phones. The girls are instructed to send money back to Dele using Western Union. When Sisi fails to send her part on the appointed date, Dele orders her elimination the same day. It is through mobile phone connectivity and efficient transport network that Dele’s business of trafficking and power flourishes. In Brand, Quy, for a long time a part of the underground, comes to discover the impact of the internet as a central tool that the underground relies on in trafficking, laundering, and extortion. The globalisation underground is characterised by networks controlled by twofaced exhibition of power. One facet of power is projected through flaunting of opulence and easy money as in the case of Dele. This display of material power acts as a lure to those preyed on by the traffickers. The girls encounter the other face of the underground once they reach Europe. This is characterised by threatening power. First, the girls are stripped of their identity as the agents and Madams choose names they feel will be easy for European clients to use. Then, they strip them of legal status by confiscating their passports. 24 Under the threat of violence, what follows is commoditisation of their bodies. Unigwe and Brand show that the boundaries between the underground and the rest of the global system are fluid. It is flux, easily permeating the legitimate globalisation networks. Sisi’s parody of the tourist lifestyle reveals this flux coexistence of the two spheres. But at the same time, her awareness and performance of this flux demonstrate the irony of her situation, being in bondage in a free globalised city. 25 She also realises that despite its openness, the underworld is heavily policed. Besides contrabands, extortion, drugs and laundering, human trafficking is shown to make an important part of the lucrative shadowy networks. Binh is successful as a businessman in Toronto with all the right qualifications (an MBA

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__________________________________________________________________ degree from Toronto University); however, he makes his best money on drugs and human trafficking. Quy and Loc Tuc, a criminal passing for a monk, moves to Bangkok during the economic boom of the Asian Tigers. Quy finds himself in an underground global network that flourishes alongside the economic boom produced by expanding globalisation. Quy confesses that the underworld is elaborate, ‘What if I told you that there’s a web of people like me laying sticky strings all over the city?’ 26 He later joins up with a gang led by a monk with a Web site from which he controls a vast underground global empire. They are involved in an elaborate network dealing in counterfeits of all description and trafficking. When their empire disintegrates, Quy takes off with his boss’s laptop and mobile phone and finds himself in possession of information that enables him to reach Canada and link with Binh. On the way, he ‘acquires’ and ‘sells’ two girls ‘worth eighteen thousand dollars a piece’ in Canada. 27 In Toronto, Quy realises the unlimited possibilities the city offers as a nexus of the underground and the legitimate globalised world. 28 In this context, space seems flexible and multivocal due to its symbolic possibilities. Quy feels certain that he can re-constitute and re-situate himself in Toronto with an identity of his choice. Erasure and re-inscription are all a possibility in a globalised world that is fluid and porous, which is offered by the diversity of the diasporic city. It has the anonymity that Sisi felt in Antwerp as she wandered among the throngs of tourists when acting out as one of them and getting treated as one. The multivocality of the diverse cultural space enables the underground to operate as the double of the official globalisation, continually transgressing the permeable borders. It has a haunting power as it exists as a double other of what is considered official globalisation. 5. Conclusion Diasporic communities evolve from flows of immigration which work within the contemporary global dynamics. Location and dislocation shape experiences of identity and belonging as displacement and anxiety accompany immigration. The immigrants’ effort to navigate these anxieties and work out viable mechanisms of re-asserting home in the receiving country result in the formation of diasporas. For the first generation, immigration memory is a major component of how they deal with anxieties of immigration. The physical space is appropriated to develop identifiable terrains of belonging. These become cultural spaces which the immigrants identify with and through which they work their embeddedness in their new home; however, there are many other factors that influence the characteristics of embeddedness that emerges. There are empowered and disempowered immigrants as one aspect. Inequalities and the severity of exclusion also come to play in shaping migrants’ integration.

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Notes 1

Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory (London: Abacus, 1994). Dionne Brand, What We All Long For (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2005). 3 Chika Unigwe, On Black Sisters’ Street (London: Vintage Books, 2009). 4 Tony Spybey, Globalisation and World Society (Cambridge: Polity, 1996), 1. 5 Brand, What We All Long For, 54-55. 6 Ayhan Kaya, ‘Constructing Diasporas: Turkish Hip-Hop Youth in Berlin’ (PhD thesis, University of Warwick, 1997), 4. 7 Dandicat, Breath, Eyes, Memory, 53. 8 Ibid., 54. 9 Ibid., 66. 10 See the theorisation of power to and power over in Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, ‘In the Sea of Memory: Embodiment and Agency in the Black Diaspora’ (PhD thesis, University of Warwick, 2000). 11 Ibid., 3. 12 Brand, What We All Long For, 65. 13 Ibid., 66. 14 Ibid., 67. 15 Unigwe, On Black Sisters’ Street, 183-184. 16 Ibid., 254-259. 17 Ibid., 270-271. 18 Bakare-Yusuf, ‘In The Sea of Memory’. 19 Ibid., 5. 20 Brand, What We All Long For, 18. 21 Stuart Hall, ‘New Ethnicities’, in Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, eds. David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen (London: Routledge, 1996), 442. 22 Jenny Lu, ‘Between Homes: Examining the Notion of the Uncanny in Art Practices and Its Relationship to Post-Colonial Identity and the Contemporary Society in Taiwan’ ( PhD thesis, The University of Arts London, 2007), 98-99. 23 Michael Holquist, Dialogism: Bakhtin and his World (London: Routledge, 1990), 19. 24 Unigwe, On Black Sisters’ Street, 119 and 278-279. 25 Ibid., 254-258. 26 Brand, What We All Long For, 283. 27 Ibid., 287. 28 Ibid., 309. 2

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Bibliography Bakare-Yusuf, Bibi. ‘In The Sea of Memory: Embodiment and Agency in the Black Diaspora’. PhD thesis, University of Warwick, 2000. Brand, Dionne. What We All Long For. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2005. Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. London: Abacus, 1994. Hall, Stuart. ‘New Ethnicities’. In Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, edited by David Morley, and Kuan-Hsing Chen, 441–449. London: Routledge, 1996. Kaya, Ayhan. ‘Constructing Diasporas: Turkish Hip-Hop Youth in Berlin’. PhD thesis, University of Warwick, 1997. Lu, Jenny. ‘Between Homes: Examining the Notion of the Uncanny in Art Practices and Its Relationship to Post-Colonial Identity and the Contemporary Society in Taiwan’. PhD thesis, The University of Arts London, 2007. Holquist, Michael. Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World. London: Routledge, 1990. Robertson, Iain, and Penny Richards. Introduction to Studying Cultural Landscapes, edited by Iain Robertson, and Penny Richards, 1–8. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Spybey, Tony. Globalisation and World Society. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996. Unigwe, Chika. On Black Sisters’ Street. London: Vintage Books, 2009. Jairus Omuteche is a Lecturer in Literature at Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya and currently a Research Student at the University of Sunderland, UK. Research interests include Postcolonial Literatures; Comparative Studies; Theorising Globalisation, Immigration, Diasporas; Spaceplaces Representations/Interpretations; Representations of the experiences of Home, Identities, and Belonging in Literature in relation to the interface between Globalisation and Diasporas.

Walcott’s Poetry: Portrayal of Broken Boundaries Shri Krishan Rai and Anugamini Rai Abstract The well known Caribbean poet Derek Alton Walcott is an epitome of a writing which transcends all imaginative boundaries of this World. He has given a fresh and forceful insight to view this world in a different perspective which is not guided by the laws and conventions of colonialism. Walcott discards the preeminence of European culture even in his writing style. The abandoning of dead metaphors, oft repeated metaphors used by the European authors, is one of the salient features of his poetry. Walcott marks his presence with the tinge of his regional metaphors and provincial protagonists who bring the culture and tradition of Caribbean Countries to International forum. His epoch making epic Omeros is so powerful in its claim that it fetches the most prestigious prize (Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992) for this commonwealth writer. The Prodigal of Walcott substantiates not only his post colonial philosophy but also his faith in globalisation. Walcott underlines the theory of New Nations States with the use of Creole language, the language of the natives. This use of native language is a noteworthy move for rejecting the coloniser’s proper English Language. In his poetry, he not only uses the words of his local language but also snubs the grammar of the English language to undermine the colonial supremacy. Key Words: Postcolonial writing, transcending boundaries, new language, new metaphors, globalisation and rule transcending language. ***** Derek Alton Walcott is one of the most important West Indian poets writing today. Revolutionary cause of native Caribbean and strong ties with a western literary tradition are the driving forces of Walcott’s writing. On closely scrutinising all the poetic works of Derek Walcott to date, we can easily infer that he tries to enhance West Indian Literature in all means. Walcott’s search and explore for fresh metaphors and abandoning the borrowed metaphor confirms his anti colonial quest for identity with the help of language. Walcott commences with European literary tradition and culminates with his own indigenous creations. ‘The earlier Walcott, even including Another Life (1973), is generally regarded as lacking the innovative freedom of language characteristics of the later.’ 1 However, in the later stage of his career he has come into his own voice and authority. The early phase marks the inception of Walcott’s poetic career as an imitative and derivative phase. It was in this phase that Walcott’s first published poem appeared in The Voice of St. Lucia on August 2, 1944, when he was only fourteen

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__________________________________________________________________ years old. ‘1944,’ the forty-four lines of Miltonic-Wordsworthian blank verse, foreshadows the reach of his poetic objective. Despite its derivativeness and stylistic rough edges, the poem depicts a maturity beyond the poet’s age and mental level. Walcott’s independent thinking suggests of a poet who would attract controversy. In ‘1944,’ the young Walcott advanced the idea that one learns better about God from the teachings of nature than from the teachings of humankind and the Church. Walcott tries to achieve his own voice in the Caribbean phase of his writing. The revolutionary effort of Walcott is the focal point of this stage. His anti colonial route develops an alternative and liberating order of values and meanings. Naipaul writes, ‘in West Indian towns history seems dead, irrelevant.’ 2 However, Walcott takes the baleful reality of the Naipaulian ‘irrelevan[ce]’ and turns it into the virtue. There is really no denial of the past in Walcott as he returns again and again to his past. From the numerous poems one might infer the confrontation with history and acknowledgment of the past in Walcott. Omeros (1990), The Bounty (1997), Tiepolo’s Hound (2000) and Prodigal (2004) are the major accomplishments of the later phase of the poetry of Derek Walcott. This is the full-grown stage of the poet’s career where his works get the greatest reward in the form of Nobel Prize in the field of literature in 1992. The four major works are all searchingly self-aware, conscious of their peculiarities of mode, of the challenge of categorisation which they represent. Omeros is the most acclaimed work of Walcott in all aspects. It is a modern epic which is an amalgamation of myriad of things. The poet himself is the narrator who comes in and out sporadically. This style of narration resembles The Waste Land (1922) 3 of T. S. Eliot who uses the character of Tiresias for the development of plot in his most renowned creation. Though the poet selects a European work as an inspiration, he has so many references to underline his own identity; the reflection of his island. ‘The carriers were women, not the fair, gentler sex. / Instead, they were darker and stronger, and their gait / was made beautiful by balance ... .’ 4 The recuperation of Africa in Caribbean consciousness is manifested in these lines. In another crucial quest, Ma Kilman’s Journey into the forest to find the lost African root that will heal Philoctete’s wound. The poetic language of Walcott evinces his cultural division, employing both the formal, structured language of the English verse and the colonial dialect of his native island, St Lucia. From the very beginning of his poetic career, Walcott strikes the reader with a powerful experience of reality. His works present a pattern which draws a link between the New World of the America and the Old World of Europe. Traditional forms, has been dexterously exploited in the very first volume of his poetry, In a Green Night: Poems, 1948-60 5 (1962). The reverberating image of the shipwreck is the key concept of Walcott’s The Castaway and Other Poems (1965). 6 This vision enables Walcott to examine the synthesis of Western and African

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__________________________________________________________________ civilisation that he believes is necessary for the discovery of personal and cultural identity. The Prodigal is about the final home-coming of the poet. In this long poem, Walcott has exploited the Biblical legend to put across his perspective of life: The Prodigal covers a lot of ground, and not just spatially .With it, Walcott continues to work variations on the long narrative mode. The poem moves back and forth in time and memory, making connections across the span of his life and his books. 7 Every section of this poem can stand on its own as a complete poem and all the sections contribute to a whole. In an interview with J. P. White in 1990, Walcott, using the sea as a symbol for a way of movement and being that contrasts with those of what is conventionally called history, said: With the sea you can travel the horizon in any direction you can go from left to right or from right to left. It doesn’t proceed from A to B to C to D and so on. 8 This description is appropriate to the movement of The Prodigal. In this creation of Walcott the commencement and the culmination is hard to detect, the plot is almost negligible but Walcott creates a long poem with the help of his enticing writing skill. And imagery is the most remarkable feature of his writing skill. Comprising eighteen chapters, each divided into four subsections, this book is organised in three parts. In this kind of structure, it resembles Walcott’s Omeros (1990) 9 and Tiepolo’s Hound (2000). 10 Like the other creations of Walcott, in this poem also one verse sustains throughout ‘(…) a loose flexible blank verse, sometimes almost sliding into free verse.’ 11 The narrative movement of The Prodigal is lucid and smooth. In Part 1 and Part 2 the persona is travelling aboard elsewhere and in Part 3, he returns home here. This poem projects the dialogue between here and elsewhere, which has been a noteworthy aspect of Walcott’s poetry and his selfquest since The Fortunate Traveller (1981). 12 The images of Walcott look very naive but incisive. They compel the reader to rethink on the trivia which he generally leaves unnoticed. For instance, let us look at a striking image, ‘Her well oiled hair was parted in the middle / as straight as the highway into Cartagena.’ 13 There is a unique freshness in this type of images of Walcott. He exploits very common things and renders them uncommon with his remarkable writing skills. The images related to punctuation marks show Walcott’s poetic sensibility and novelty of his perception. For instance: Your shadow was a footnote; in some boulevard’s infinite Paragraph 14

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__________________________________________________________________ or Blessed are the small forms conjugating Horace, and the olive trees as twisted as Ovid’s syntax, 15 or …how many small crows like commas punctuating the drifts? 16 The images of Walcott evince how he imagines himself into a strange landscape, even while conveying a sense of their strangeness, they were not exactly strange, since he had long imagined them through his reading. For instance, his aerial view of the awesome expanse of the snow-blankete Alps is quite remarkable: There were the absolute, these peaks, the pitch of temperature and terror polar rigidities that magnetized a child these rocks bearded with icicles, crevasses from Andersen’s “Ice Maiden”, Whitter’s Snow Bound ‘this empire, this infernity of ice. 17 This shows not only his fear of height but also his deep childhood memory of fairy tales that had both inspired and terrified him. This terror is palpable in the paradoxical coinage of ‘infernity of ice.’ Walcott is neither a traditionalist nor a modernist, he belongs to no school.... He can be naturalist, expressionistic surrealistic imagistic, hermetic, confessional - you name it. He simply has absorbed, the way whales do the plankton or a paintbrush the palette, all the stylistic idioms the north could offer: now he is on his own and in big way… He is the man by whom the English language lives. 18 This statement of Joseph Brodsky reveals the personality of Walcott to a great extent. Walcott belongs to every schools and no school as well. But his writing technique especially the formation of images is every close to defamiliarisation of Victor Shklovsky of Russian Formalism. Following the concept of defamiliarisation, Walcott’s sentences defamiliarise very common things of daily life and provide them the literariness. For instance, let us consider the following image of a trembling ash of cigarette: ‘My body crumble, like the long, trembling ash / of a cigarette in the hand of a scholar.’ 19 Here the ‘crumbling of body’ and

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__________________________________________________________________ ‘trembling ash of cigarette’ are both familiar to the common man but this unique correlation applies the concept of literariness to common things and make them uncommon. Again, he presents one more similar image: ‘The unnamed trees forming a gentle tunnel over the buses.’ 20 The Prodigal suggests the paradox of Walcott’s own life. Though he loves his island, the demands and the compulsions of life drifts him away from his intimate island. He had to stay for decades in Boston and New York. This poem is a record of a journey which has neither a commencement nor a culmination. There is not so much plot in this poem but the poet’s fondness for metaphors turns the whole world into a poem. For example: Sunlight on the buildings on the hills over Genoa In the chill spring, the gulls know each other. Where the open channel breaks into high spray and a sailor dips deeper and higher on the bowsprit clouds will congeal into islands ,the rattling anchor-chain of an archipelago; Genoa thins . As Genoa thins, everything diminishes, the mountains, the dry hill with its castle. 21 and …so an adopted city slides into me, till my gestures echo those of its citizens and my shoesthat glidesover a sidewalk granting move without fear of falling, move as if it rooted in the metre of memory. 22 The poem receives a morose touch when the persona gets heart-rending news of the death of his twin brother Roddy, Walcott projects this gloomy situation also with mesmerising images: The same silent consequence that crept across your brother perilously sleeping, and all the others whose silence is no different from your brother’s… . All the questions tangle in one question. Why does the dove moan or the horse shake its mane? Or the lizard wait on the white wall then is gone? 23 The description of the city of Rome in Part 2 of the poem also provides a new dimension to the fresh images of Walcott: ‘I saw the walled city early in the morning / with its sprinkled streets; under the arcades / the beggar slept, unshifting

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__________________________________________________________________ as history.’ 24 The image of the sleeping beggar ‘unshifting as history’ is a highly refreshing and rewarding image that speaks volumes. The concept of metaphor in the writing of Walcott is a really poetic one. It comprehends figuration in the widest generic sense, as Rei Terada also claims, ‘[m]etaphor functions, as usual, [in Walcott] as a figure of figuration.’ 25 Walcott is very intimate with the natural world, especially with his island. Consequently, most of his images are triggered by the natural surroundings of this place. This intimacy is apparent in all his creations but it comes out very clearly in this poem at the end of Part 1 when he is back in New York City, an Italian neighbour asks him why he did not stay longer in Italy and he replies, ‘I have an island.’ 26 Later on the arrival in Cartagena from Baranquilla, he remarks, ‘Not a new coast, but home.’ 27 Because of his close affinity with painting his images are very close to reality and depict pictorial realism with symbolical overtones. For example: Into this fishing village, the hot zinc noon, its rags of shadow, the reeks from its drain, and the mass of files around the fish-market, where ribbed dogs skitter sideways, is this one where you vowed a life-long fealty, to the bloated women with ponderous breasts and the rum-raddled, occasional fisherman, 28 and Such as an implacable lust that came with age as a dirty old man leering at young things. 29 The realistic details in the images of Walcott are quite close to the writing style of Pre-Raphaelites of the nineteenth century. These images evoke the picture in the reader’s mind in such a manner that he starts to feel his presence in the exact ambience created by the poet. Images and metaphors invoking the description of people, places, events, moments, and some intangible essence such as the air; they invariably involve the use of a plethora of colours. 30 Being a Nobel Laureate Walcott is supposed to raise the issues of international stature and he performs this responsibility in his unique manner: But there was no partition in the sunshine of the small rusty garden that a crow crossed with no permit; instead the folded echo

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__________________________________________________________________ of interrogation, of conspiracy, surrounded it, although its open windows were steamed envelopes. 31 Through the image encapsulated in the first line, ‘no partition in sunshine’ obliquely indicates Walcott’s desire for demolishing all national geographical boundaries to promote the concept of the global village. With such eloquent images, Walcott artistically endeavours to tackle in an inconspicuous though emphatic manner such big issues as international brotherhood, globalisation and colonialism. Therefore, imagery is undoubtedly Walcott’s unassailable poetic forte. With the help of images Walcott has been successful in creating a rich textual density which adds to poetic beauty of the poem, uncovering his unique poetic skills which make him stand out as a very talented poet in the sphere of world poetry. Derek Walcott’s poetic talent was duly recognised when the Nobel Prize was conferred on him (1992). That imagery, which is indisputably the most striking feature, plays a pivotal role in his poetry and nobody can deny being deeply influenced by the charisma or hypnotism thereof. His images are so evocative and eloquent that the reader, while going through his poetry, feels as if he is confronting in his real life the landscapes or objects painted by the poet. While some critics opine that Walcott’s emphasis on technical adeptness resulted in neglect of the poem’s subject in favour of a word or phrase to satisfy the structure of the sequence, others applaud his experiment as fresh and challenging. Walcott has a propensity to defy socio-religious conventions. The hallmark of Walcott’s poetry is his forthright integrity to tell the whole truth, however unpleasant, without feeling queasy in the least. His artistic articulation of stark realities without any prejudices through his remarkable imagery speaks volumes about his strikingly cosmopolitan outlook. As a great poet who has to be rooted to the provincial soil in order to achieve a cosmopolitan distinctiveness, Walcott is deeply rooted to the centre of the Caribbean and poetically demonstrates the power of provincialism. Like any great poet Walcott always takes a centrifugal leap from his provincialism to achieve a cosmopolitan height and exhibits a cosmic ecology. Though the themes of Walcott spring from his native land, he never provincialises his local themes; to put it more succinctly Walcott’s provincialism easily assumes a unique cosmopolitanism which is a hall-mark of his poetry. Often scrutinising provincial, historical and social events, he reshapes the reality and presents it in a universal perspective with a remarkable artistic ingenuity of a master craftsman meeting all possible poetic exigencies. Apart from the functional dimension of vivifying various scenes, situations and ideas, his imagery also assumes an ornamental dimension that creates mosaic textural richness.

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__________________________________________________________________ The verse form of his later poetry is, on the whole, freer, more open, contributing to the overall effect of comparative directness and plainness. The rhetorical flourish and the rich melody are used now more discreetly, with more specific functional point. We can easily perceive a pattern or an interplay of images evincing remarkable artistic effectiveness and poetic ingenuity of Walcott. Demonstrating his vital poetic strategy, Walcott is doubtless at his best when he portrays undiluted social reality through common images though presented with an uncommon jerk. Through spotlighting his vision of life, which is basically dismal and deeply humanistic, he explores various socially relevant concerns which evoke at once the local and the universal, the contemporary and the perennial. A remarkable fusion of the local and the universal also vivifies his vision. What is truely remarkable is his commendable capacity to commingle contemporary with ‘unshifting history,’ 32 which renders his poetry profoundly meaningful and, above all, undying. Walcott’s variegated images, ranging from visual to auditory, geographical to zoological, meteorological to botanical and oceanic to landscape, help him to configurate his poetic sensibility with remarkable artistic finesse. Walcott successfully transcends any kind of poetic mediocrity by an evocative image, or cadence, or by the jolt of an unexpected metaphor. It is this evocativeness of image or unexpectedness of metaphor that not only prevents him from slipping into any kind of mediocrity which very many average poets fall prey to but also distinguishes him notably from very many contemporary practitioners of world poetry. Walcott’s message, highly subtle though considerably eloquent, is patently communicated through his immensely impressive imagery in his poetry. Walcott’s poetry, basically because of his artistically startling imagery communicating his positive eloquent message for humanity, will certainly have imperishable importance and undying value. Consequently, it would not be an exaggeration to comment that Derek Walcott is one of the most proficient living players of language who scraps for the cause of Caribbean identity and imagines the world without political and social boundaries.

Notes 1

Patricia Ismond, Abandoning Dead Metaphors: The Caribbean Phase of Derek Walcott’s Poetry (Jamaica: University of West Indies, 2001), 2. 2 V.S. Naipaul, The Middle Passage (New York: Vintage, 2002), 122. 3 T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922), September 8, 2012, http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/wjoodhasan/Documents/The%20Waste%20Land.pdf. 4 Derek Walcott, Omeros (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990), 74.

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Derek Walcott, Collected Poems 1948-1984 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1986). 6 Ibid. 7 Edward Baugh, Cambridge Studies in African and Caribbean Literature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 223. 8 William Baer, Conversation with Derek Walcott (Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 1996), 158-159. 9 Walcott, Omeros. 10 Derek Walcott, Tiepolo’s Hound (London: Faber and Faber, 2000). 11 Edward Baugh, Cambridge Studies in African and Caribbean Literature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 223. 12 Walcott, Collected Poem 1948-1984. 13 Derek Walcott, The Prodigal (London: Faber and Faber, 2005), 43. 14 Ibid., 30. 15 Ibid., 17. 16 Ibid., 10. 17 Ibid., 14. 18 Joseph Brodsky, ‘Blurb’ of The Prodigal by Derek Walcott (London: Faber and Faber, 2005). 19 Walcott, The Prodigal, 21. 20 Ibid., 29. 21 Ibid., 91. 22 Ibid., 88. 23 Ibid., 86-87. 24 Ibid., 47. 25 Modupe Oloagun, ‘Sensuous Images in Derek Walcott’s Another Life’, World Literature Written in English 27, No. 1 (1987): 107. 26 Walcott, The Prodigal, 39. 27 Ibid., 45. 28 Ibid., 94. 29 Ibid., 32. 30 Rei Terada, Derek Walcott’s Poetry: American Mimicry (Boston; Northeastern University Press, 1992), 10. 31 Walcott, The Prodigal, 38. 32 Ibid., 47.

Bibliography Baer, William. Conversation with Derek Walcott. Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 1996.

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__________________________________________________________________ Baugh, Edward. Cambridge Studies in African and Caribbean Literature. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Bobb, June. Beating a Resteless Drum: The Poetics of Kamau Brathwaite and Derek Walcott. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1998. Brown, Lloyd. ‘Caribbean Castaway New World Odyssey: Derek Walcott’s Poetry’. Journal of Commonwealth Literature 11, No. 2 (December 1976): 149– 159. Heaney, Seamus. ‘The Language of Exile’. Parnassus: Poetry in Review 8, No. 1 (Fall-Winter 1979): 5–11. Ismond, Patricia. Abandoning Dead Metaphors: The Caribbean Phase of Derek Walcott’s Poetry. Jamaica: University of West Indies, 2001. King, Bruce. Derek Walcott and West Indian Drama. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Literature Written in English 27, No. 1 (1987). Oloagun, Modupe. ‘Sensuous Images in Derek Walcott’s Another Life’. World Literature Written in English 27, No. 1 (1987): 106–118. Terada, Rei. Derek Walcott’s Poetry: American Mimicry. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992. Shri Krishan Rai is an Assistant Professor of English at National Institute of Technology Durgapur, WB, India. He has published several research papers in National and International peer-reviewed journals. At present he is working on Salman Rushdie and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Anugamini Rai teaches English at Durgapur Women’s College Durgapur, WB, India. Post colonial literature is her area of interest. At present she is working on religion and literature.

Part 3 Diasporic Generations

Gendered Diasporas across Generations: The New African Diaspora in Vancouver Gillian Creese Abstract The new African Diaspora in Vancouver, a product of post-1980s migration, is marginalised numerically, economically and socially, while processes of racialisation make it hyper-visible even in a diverse multi-ethnic metropolis where four in ten residents are immigrants. Diasporic identities, local communitybuilding, and transnational practices are gendered in complex ways as masculinities and femininities are renegotiated through processes of racialisation, downward class mobility, and new institutional contexts. The dominant forms of gendered identities and practices that have emerged in this context also shape new hybrid identities among the next generation of sons and daughters. In different ways, sons and daughters negotiate the new African diaspora created by their parents, and pervasive influences of African-American youth culture across the border. Young African-Canadians of both genders negotiate oppressive racialised scripts linked to the historical African-American diaspora, scripts that run counter to gendered norms in the local African diaspora and mainstream Canadian culture. The negotiation of these tensions is gendered. Young men bear the brunt of oppressive surveillance and policing, and come to identify more with a larger Black diaspora and the oppositional stance of African-American youth culture. In contrast, the misogyny of much African-American youth culture mutes it appeal to their sisters, who, especially as they begin to envision raising their own children in Canada, connect more strongly with the local African diaspora. Key Words: New African diaspora, migration, racialisation, gender, second generation. ***** 1. Introduction Diasporas involve ‘claims making practices’ among dispersed populations that mobilize identities, solidarities and political projects located in specific times and places. 1 As James Clifford argues, ‘the term diaspora is a signifier … of political struggles to define the local, as distinctive community, in historical contexts of displacement.’ 2 Although migrants from sub-Saharan Africa are extremely diverse, in some contexts pan-African diasporas and identities are emerging across divisions of nation, ethnicity, language and religion. 3 Given the size, geographic dispersion, and centuries of movements of peoples from Africa, African diasporas stemming from recent migrations may also have to negotiate relations with historical African diasporas in their new spaces of settlement. 4

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__________________________________________________________________ As political projects, contemporary African diasporas construct new forms of community and subjectivity that simultaneously reference past and present homes as territorial spaces, as imagined communities of belonging and/or un-belonging, as social relations embedded in hierarchies of power and privilege, and as practices of community building. However, little attention has been paid to the ways in which these processes are gendered. 5 Moreover, generational shifts produce new forms of hybridity as ‘identit[ies] which live with and through, not despite, difference.’ 6 This chapter addresses these lacunae by exploring gender and generation in the formation of a new African diaspora in Vancouver, Canada, a product of post 1980s migration from diverse countries in sub-Saharan Africa living in Canada’s third largest city in close spatial and cultural proximity to the American border. 7 Vancouver is a diverse metropolis where forty percent of the population are immigrants and an equal number identify as people of colour, and yet migrants from diverse nations within sub-Saharan Africa constitute only about 1% of the population. This new African diaspora navigates the social geography of the city and practices of (un)belonging in the context of local nation-building discourses and the African-American diaspora across the border. Although the latter does not overlap in spatial terms, it does culturally and in the social imaginary. A central element of the migration process from Africa to Canada involves ‘becoming Black.’ 8 This process of racialisation is mediated through dominant representations of the historic African-American diaspora, and contemporary forms of AfricanAmerican cultural production, particularly among young Black men, that celebrates a culture of resistance emerging from the dual practices of ghettoising and imprisoning significant numbers of African Americans. 9 Such practices and cultural productions are highly gendered, and speak differently to African immigrants and to their children raised in Canada, shaping gendered and generational practices within Vancouver’s new African diaspora. 2. Identity, Racialisation and Migration Whether they came as independent immigrants or as refugees, adult migrants from sub-Saharan Africa experience considerable downward economic and social mobility in Canada. In everyday interactions, in workplaces, schools, shops and on street corners, African migrants are differentiated from other Canadians. Two key practices demonstrate these processes of othering: pervasive queries about origins and responses to African English accents. The frequent refrain ‘where are you from?’ greets those from Africa on an almost daily basis and reinforces that Black bodies must be from somewhere else because they cannot be from here. As Tungu states: ‘Here you are Black. If you are twenty [years here], you are born here, nothing. They say “where are you from?” They still ask you.’ 10 Compulsory narratives of difference and foreign origins undermine belonging, and so too do local reactions to African English accents. Even for fluent English speakers from

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__________________________________________________________________ Commonwealth African countries, African accents are typically met with a mixture of incomprehension and public reproach. As Bizima, 11 a landed immigrant who came from Zambia, observed: ‘since we can’t talk like them, it’s really hard to convince them that you can talk sense, when they find out what accent you have.’ 12 As Pierre Bourdieu has observed, accents are indexes of authority that authorise or impede the right to speak and be heard. 13 Local accents are routinely privileged in Canada such that African English accents possess little authority or ability to be heard. African migrants to Canada enter a social imaginary where they are ‘already constructed, imagined and positioned’ through centuries of White privilege and discourses about Blackness. 14 Pejorative discourses about Black masculinity, in particular, circulate widely through the U.S. domination of local media and popular culture. 15 Not surprisingly, racialisation, marginalisation and downward mobility produce very ambivalent subjectivities of Canadianness even for those who are long time residents and have Canadian citizenship. As Bangila, a Canadian citizen originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, commented, travelling on a Canadian passport is an advantage, but at home in Canada he is treated as second class: Travelling with a Canadian passport. That is the only time you feel good about being a Canadian. But once you are in Canada, there is nothing good about being a Canadian. I am truly a Black person. 16 Indeed, learning to be Black in the context of White privilege is central to the formation of the new African diaspora in Vancouver. Facing similar challenges, with educational credentials unrecognised, underemployment, disparaging of African English accents and foreign Black bodies, various claims making practices are enacted to construct an African diaspora across differences of national origins, ethnicity, language and religion. Discourses of common African values - grounded in extended families, hierarchical gender relations, and deference to elders and fathers - are drawn on to forge links across differences in the African continent. 17 For parents, efforts to instil African cultural values means actively rejecting liberal individualism that dominates public discourse in Canada, and resisting the glorification of street life and opposition to authority so prevalent in AfricanAmerican youth culture. 3. Gendered Practices and the Diaspora Migration unsettles gender relations and identities so it should not be surprising that gender shapes diasporic claims making practices. 18 To some degree gender differences resemble divisions between public and private realms, distinguishing formal community development from family and neighbourly networks of mutual

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__________________________________________________________________ aid. Equally important, gendered diasporic practices involve divergent orientations toward Africa and the homeland on the one hand, and Canada and homemaking on the other hand. Much of women’s community organising is linked to homemaking within Canada by providing support to negotiate everyday realities of settlement. These supports range from helping new mothers or bereaved families with food and financial support, to providing information and strategies that help newer migrants negotiate unfamiliar institutions. Women form the backbone of a growing number of African settlement workers employed in non-profit immigrant agencies that provide integration supports through government funded programs. These are crucial forms of community building that give material substance to the idea of a local African community, but take second place to the arena of formal political organisations dominated by men. There have been created many formal organisations that focus on specific African nations with mandates of ‘upholding and preserving their culture.’ 19 These organisations, run by men, are oriented more toward developments in the homeland than to settlement issues in Canada. In addition, there are half a dozen local non-profit organisations geared directly toward supporting development initiatives in different African countries. 20 These bodies are also led mainly by men and are closely connected to maintaining ties and status within homeland communities. Men face a crisis in masculinity linked to downward class mobility and loss of social status in Canada, compounded by lessened authority over wives and children. Remaining involved in politics and development work in Africa, and sending remittances home to relatives, maintains men’s social standing within their homelands while positioning them as leaders within the local African community. Hence focusing on ties with the homeland can also reaffirm positive masculine identities in Canada. Women also face downward class mobility, combined with less access to family-based or affordable childcare and domestic support, and negotiate unfamiliar dangers facing their children. These pressures heighten women’s focus on homemaking in Canada as they simultaneously struggle to renegotiate more equitable domestic relationships by drawing on local discourses of women’s rights. Women are more likely to define new ways of mothering without fearing that this might undermine their identities as good mothers. For men, in contrast, identities as good fathers are firmly tied to exercising authority, leading to more intense conflicts between fathers and offspring, particularly with sons who bear the brunt of public surveillance that accompanies being young, Black and male in North America.

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__________________________________________________________________ 4. Generational Shifts: Children of Immigrants Negotiating the African Diaspora Members of the African community who grew up in Vancouver, develop hybrid identities and diasporic practices that are quite distinct from their parents. 21 The divergent emphasis on the homeland and homemaking come together in local spaces, and hyphenated, though often no less ambivalent identities as AfricanCanadian are more common. The next generation negotiates their place in the local African diaspora from three distinct locations: 1) through the values, beliefs and practices expressed within their families and the local African community; 2) through immersion in colloquial Canadian culture and institutions; and 3) through engagement with the African-American diaspora. Parenting in the context of migration is always unsettling since familiar parenting strategies often do not work well in a new environment. Expectations around authority, deference, and respect for elders, and fathers in particular, are presented as core African values that collide with the more individualistic orientation of Canadian society. Hence it is hard for youth to live up to parents’ expectations of what it is to be African, leading many parents to lament that their own children’s behaviour suggests they are ‘lost,’ and to question the Africanness of the next generation. 22 Jane, a Canadian-born woman in her mid-twenties, for example, notes that her father calls her ‘whitewashed.’ 23 Distance between immigrant parents and the next generation is further exacerbated, for many, by lack of fluency in their parent’s ancestral languages, impeding deeper forms of cultural understanding about the homeland. The children of African immigrants not only question their own Africanness, but also their Canadianness. For those born or raised in Canada, the quest to be recognised as Canadian is a critical element of belonging that simultaneously distances them from the immigrant diaspora. At the same time, being Black in Vancouver renders tenuous any straightforward claim to Canadian identity and reestablishes the centrality of their African ancestry. Canadianness, like Africanness, is both asserted and doubted in the same breath. Danielle, a university student who was born in metro Vancouver commented: ‘I sometimes felt a little like I wasn’t part of either world, the Canadian or African.’ Language separated her from the local African world, while being ‘the only Black child at school, in my church’ made her stand out when she ‘wanted so badly to be like everyone else.’ 24 Local institutions have a formative influence on children in ways that are embraced by the next generation and often resisted by immigrant parents. The values of western liberal individualism are explicitly inculcated through schools and enforced through other social institutions. Emphasis on individualism clashes with family-centred identities, and discourses of children’s rights conflict with expectations of stronger parental authority and discipline. As a result of such tensions, both parents and offspring perceive that ‘the school criticizes everything that [African] parents do.’ 25 Equally important, schools are a central site of

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__________________________________________________________________ interface with North American youth culture, and negotiating relations with peers may be even more critical to school experiences than anything in the formal curriculum. North American youth culture is saturated with forms of popular culture that normalise early (hetero)sexuality, glorify risk-taking activities, particularly drug and alcohol consumption, encourage conspicuous consumption and materialism, and valorise adolescent autonomy, all of which are antithetical to the idealised visions of adolescent experience in their homelands that migrants bring with them. For the children of migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, like other adolescents, learning to fit in and be accepted by their peers is a central preoccupation. 26 Mediating relations with peers is both racialised and gendered, and central to connections with the new Vancouver-based and historical African-American diasporas. For adolescent boys and young men, negotiating masculinity means earning respect from other boys and learning to stand up for themselves under imminent threat of aggression from other young men ever ready to put them in their place. 27 For young Black men, adolescent masculinity is negotiated in a space in which images of Black masculinity are saturated with pejorative associations of violence and criminality embedded in North American popular culture, historical legacies, and contemporary marginalisation. 28 Youthful confrontations are played out on a field of White privilege in which young men in the African diaspora describe learning to walk a fine line between defending themselves and ‘earning respect,’ and simultaneously learning to be ‘humble,’ ‘mellow’ and ‘cautious’ so as not to arouse the interest of authorities. Harassment by the police, border guards, or others in authority, challenges about the right to occupy public spaces, and being perceived as the trouble-makers when youthful confrontations do occur, are all routine parts of learning to live through the devalued status of young Black men in Canada. 29 Young women in the local African diaspora face different pressure to embody particular forms of heterosexual femininity. Images of Black femininity in North America coalesce around hyper sexuality and masculinised forms of domination and strength. 30 Young African-Canadian women find it nearly impossible to measure up to norms rooted in White middle-class femininity. Though threats of violence are less often a means of policing relations among women and girls, exclusion, gossip, and other psychological forms of harassment can be equally problematic. 31 Like their male counterparts, African-Canadian adolescent girls struggle to fit in and stand up for themselves. For girls, however, the double-edge of Black femininity provides few routes for earning respect since sexual double standards mark hyper-sexuality and too much independence as a means of denigrating young women. Instead, earning respect is mediated through greater attention to academic performance, leading girls to stand up more to their teachers when they are underestimated, and enlisting the support of others to pursue grievances. 32

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__________________________________________________________________ Hence young African-Canadians of both genders must negotiate oppressive racialised scripts linked to the historical African-American diaspora as they try to fit in and stand up for themselves, scripts that run counter to gendered norms in the local African diaspora and conventional (White middle class) Canadian culture. Yet they navigate these tensions differently. In turning to academic achievement and building support networks, young women lean closer to their parents and further away from the images of Black femininity in American popular culture. Young men, on the other hand, even those who value academic achievement, negotiate masculinity in more solitary ways. Routine racialised encounters with police and other authorities, which young African-Canadian women do not experience in the same way, reinforces similarities between young Black men’s lives in Vancouver and in the United States. 5. Conclusion The oppositional stance of African-American youth culture, fostered out of intense marginalisation of young Black men in the United States, has a strong resonance for many of the sons of African immigrants in Vancouver. They are more likely to conceive of themselves as part of a larger Black diaspora, and hence further removed from their father’s notions of proper African masculinity. In contrast, the intense misogyny of so much African-American youth culture mutes its appeal to their sisters. Jane sees these gendered differences as central to the continuing estrangement between her brothers and her father. Her father, she says, ‘hates African-American culture [and is] always trying to differentiate himself’ as an African. 33 Her brothers, in contrast, embrace a street-wise Black masculinity as a way of negotiating a local space of respect. She acknowledges that her brothers face more coercive forms of racism than she encounters because they are young, Black, and male, and this shapes their affinity with African-American identities. Moreover, young women tend to identify more with the local African community as they begin to contemplate raising their own children in Canada. Parenting practices that instil respect for authority and the importance of extended family networks - the very things most rebelled against as adolescents - are being reclaimed by young women as culturally appropriate ways to parent the third generation of African-Canadian youngsters. Young women are drawing together home making and homeland with explicit reference to the need to connect their own future children to the local African community and to larger extended families in Africa. For young men who embrace the scripts of oppositional masculinity, it remains to be seen whether similar shifts occur as they age and may become fathers, or whether the gendered experiences of being young, Black, and male in Canada continue to mitigate rebuilding stronger connections and identities with the local African community in ways that their sisters are already envisioning.

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Notes 1

Rogers Brubaker, ‘The “Diaspora” Diaspora’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 28 (2005): 1-19. 2 James Clifford, ‘Diasporas’, Cultural Anthropology 9 (1994): 308. 3 For example see Gillian Creese, The New African Diaspora in Vancouver: Migration, Exclusion and Belonging (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011); Mattia Fumanti and Pnina Werbner, ‘The Moral Economy of the African Diaspora: Citizenship, Networking and Permeable Ethnicity’, African Diaspora 3 (2010): 312; Nicole Gregoire, ‘Identity Politics, Social Movement and the State: “PanAfrican” Associations and the Making of an “African Community” in Belgium’, African Diaspora 3 (2010): 160-182; and Pnina Werbner, ‘Many Gateways to the Gateway City: Elites, Class and Policy Networking in the London African Diaspora’, African Diaspora 3 (2010): 132-159. 4 Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, ‘Rewriting the African Diaspora: Beyond the Black Atlantic’, African Affairs 104 (2005): 56. 5 Ewa Morawska, ‘“Diaspora” Diasporas Representations of their Homelands: Exploring the Polymorphs’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 34 (2011): 1029-1048. 6 Stuart Hall, ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora’, in Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, ed. Jonathan Rutherford (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990), 235. 7 This chapter is based on three overlapping research projects. Interviews with women and men from 21 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (which appears in The New African Diaspora in Vancouver, 2011); focus groups with African youth who arrived in their teen years (appearing in Gillian Creese, Edith Ngene Kambere and Mambo Masinda, ‘“You Have to Stand up for Yourself”: African Immigrant and Refugee Teens Negotiate Settlement in Vancouver’, Metropolis British Columbia Working Paper Series No. 11-16 (2011); and in Gillian Creese, Edith Ngene Kambere and Mambo Masinda, ‘Voices of African Immigrant and Refugee Youth: Negotiating Migration and Schooling in Canada’, in African-Born Educators and Students in Transnational America: Reprocessing Race, Language, and Ability, eds. Immaculee Harushimana, Chinwe Ikpeze and Shirley Mthethwa-Sommers (New York: Peter Lang, in press); and an on going project interviewing members of the 1.5 and 2nd generation who grew up in Vancouver with parents who migrated from Africa. 8 Awad El Karim Ibrahim, ‘Becoming Black: Rap and Hip-Hop, Race, Gender, Identity, and the Politics of ESL Learning’, TESOL Quarterly 33 (1999): 349-369. 9 Patricia Hill Collins, Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism (New York: Routledge, 2005). 10 Creese, The New African Diaspora in Vancouver, 199. 11 Pseudonyms are used to refer to all interviewees.

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Creese, The New African Diaspora in Vancouver, 47. Pierre Bourdieu, ‘The Economics of Linguistic Exchanges’, Social Science Information 16 (1977): 645-668. 14 Ibrahim, ‘Becoming Black: Rap and Hip-Hop, Race, Gender, Identity, and the Politics of ESL Learning’, 353. 15 For example see Gamal Abdel-Shehid, Who da Man? Black Masculinities and Sporting Culture (Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 2005); Collins, Black Sexual Politics; and Ibrahim, ‘Becoming Black: Rap and Hip-Hop, Race, Gender, Identity, and the Politics of ESL Learning’. 16 Creese, The New African Diaspora in Vancouver, 203. 17 John Arthur, Invisible Sojourners: African Immigrant Diaspora in the United States (Westport: Praeger, 2000); and Atsuko Matsuoka and John Sorenson, Ghosts and Shadows: Construction of Identity and Community in an African Diaspora (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001). 18 Katherine Donato, et al., ‘A Glass Half Full? Gender in Migration Studies’, International Migration Review 40 (2006): 3-26; Patricia Pessar, ‘Engendering Migration Studies: The Case of New Immigrants in the United States’, in Gender and US Immigration: Contemporary Trends, ed. P. Hondagneu-Sotelo (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 20-42. 19 Mambo Masinda and Edith Ngene Kambere, Needs Assessment and Services Delivery Plan for African Immigrants and Refugees in Vancouver Metropolitan Area, British Columbia (Vancouver: United Way of the Lower Mainland and Umoja Operation Compassion Society, 2008), 43. 20 Creese, The New African Diaspora in Vancouver, 218. 21 For the purposes of this chapter the term second generation will be used to refer to those born in Africa and raised largely in Canada (the 1.5 generation) and the Canadian born (2nd generation proper). I have not yet conducted enough interviews with the 1.5 and 2nd generation to delineate differences that may exist among these groups, but that will form part of an ongoing analysis. 22 Creese, The New African Diaspora in Vancouver; and Creese, Kambere and Masinda, ‘You Have to Stand up for Yourself’. 23 Unpublished interview data on the second generation. 24 Ibid. 25 Creese, Kambere and Masinda, ‘Voices of African Immigrant and Refugee Youth’. 26 Ibid.; and Creese, Kambere and Masinda, ‘You Have to Stand up for Yourself’. 27 R. W. Connell, Masculinities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). 28 Collins, Black Sexual Politics. 29 Creese, Kambere and Masinda, ‘Voices of African Immigrant and Refugee Youth’. 13

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Collins, Black Sexual Politics. Dawn Currie, Deirdre Kelly and Shuana Pomerantz, ‘Girl Power’: Girls Reinventing Girlhood (New York: Peter Lang, 2009). 32 Creese, Kambere and Masinda, ‘Voices of African Immigrant and Refugee Youth’. 33 Unpublished interview data on the second generation. 31

Bibliography Abdel-Shehid, Gamal. Who da Man? Black Masculinities and Sporting Cultures. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 2005. Arthur, John. Invisible Sojourners: African Immigrant Diaspora in the United States. Westport: Praeger, 2000. Bourdieu, Pierre. ‘The Economics of Linguistic Exchanges’. Social Science Information 16 (1977): 645–668. Brubaker, Rogers. ‘The “Diaspora” Diaspora’. Ethnic and Racial Studies 28 (2005): 1–19. Clifford, James. ‘Diasporas’. Cultural Anthropology 9 (1994): 302–338. Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism. New York: Routledge, 2005. Connell, R. W. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Creese, Gillian. The New African Diaspora in Vancouver: Migration, Exclusion and Belonging. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011. Creese, Gillian, Edith Ngene Kambere, and Mambo Masinda. “‘You Have to Stand Up For Yourself:” African Immigrant and Refugee Teens Negotiate Settlement in Vancouver’. Metropolis British Columbia Working Paper Series No. 11-16 (2011). —––. ‘Voices of African Immigrant and Refugee Youth: Negotiating Migration and Schooling in Canada’. In African-Born Educators and Students in Transnational America: Reprocessing Race, Language, and Ability, edited by Immaculee Harushimana, Chinwe Ikpeze, and Shirley Mthethwa-Sommers. New York: Peter Lang, in press.

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__________________________________________________________________ Currie, Dawn, Deirdre Kelly, and Shuana Pomerantz. ‘Girl Power’: Girls Reinventing Girlhood. New York: Peter Lang, 2009. Donato, Katherine, Donna Gabaccia, Jennifer Holdaway, Martin Manalansan, and Patricia Pessar. ‘A Glass Half Full? Gender in Migration Studies’. International Migration Review 40 (2006): 3–26. Fumanti, Mattia, and Pnina Werbner. ‘The Moral Economy of the African Diaspora: Citizenship, Networking and Permeable Ethnicity’. African Diaspora 3 (2010): 3–12. Gregoire, Nicole. ‘Identity Politics, Social Movement and the State: “Pan-African” Associations and the Making of an “African Community” in Belgium’. African Diaspora 3 (2010): 160–182. Hall, Stuart. ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora’. In Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, edited by Jonathan Rutherford, 222–237. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990. Ibrahim, Awad El Karim. ‘Becoming Black: Rap and Hip-Hop, Race, Gender, Identity, and the Politics of ESL Learning’. TESOL Quarterly 33 (1999): 349–369. Masinda, Mambo, and Edith Ngene Kambere. Needs Assessment and Services Delivery Plan for African Immigrants and Refugees in Vancouver Metropolitan Area, British Columbia. Vancouver: United Way of the Lower Mainland and Umoja Operation Compassion Society, 2008. Matsuoka, Atsuko, and John Sorenson. Ghosts and Shadows: Construction of Identity and Community in an African Diaspora. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. Morawska, Ewa. “‘Diaspora” Diasporas’ Representations of Their Homelands: Exploring the Polymorphs’. Ethnic and Racial Studies 34 (2011): 1029–1048. Pessar, Patricia. ‘Engendering Migration Studies: The Case of New Immigrants in the United States’. In Gender and US Immigration: Contemporary Trends, edited by P. Hondagneu-Sotelo, 20–42. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

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__________________________________________________________________ Werbner, Pnina. ‘Many Gateways to the Gateway City: Elites, Class and Policy Networking in the London African Diaspora’. African Diaspora 3 (2010): 132– 159. Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe. ‘Rewriting the African Diaspora: Beyond the Black Atlantic’. African Affairs 104 (2005): 35–68. Gillian Creese is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of British Columbia. Her research interests include migration, racialisation and gender; equity issues in work and trade unions; and feminist research methods.

Young Migrant: Rooted Generations of Germany in Fatih Akin’s Films Yildirim Uysal Abstract This chapter will attempt to sociologically analyse the cultural reflections of young immigrant-rooted generations in Fatih Akin’s films. The films which we want to examine can be listed as: Kurz und Schmerzlos - 1998, Im Juli - 2000, Solino 2002, Gegen die Wand - 2004, Auf der Anderen Seite - 2007 and Soul Kitchen 2009. Our chapter will be focusing on the common, parallel and basic notions in these Akin films which lead us to the idea of the young migrant-rooted generations of German society. Fatih Akin, born in 1973 a German director of Turkish descent, is one of the fine examples of Turks who have become bilingual and bicultural German citizens since the beginning of the migration of the Turkish citizens to Germany. Akin has been walking on a way that he is familiar to while producing his movies. He uses his advantage on these issues which he has a look at from the inside. Akin has used the notions in his films from Turkish culture or the cultural paradoxes which Germans of Turkish origin who were born and raised in Germany have. He is also giving a place to the characters from different ethnic groups of German society in his movies, not only Turkish migrants. By doing so, it can be understood that he is trying to deal with the cultural differences and social matters of ethnic minorities in Germany. He is picturing their low income, poorly educated social standing and their German which they speak with an accent. We are hoping that focusing on these lost generations who could neither stay as Turk, Greek or Italian nor could they be entirely German, with the assistance of Akin’s movies, will be an endeavour for understanding particularly for today German society and the other foremost countries of Europe who have the same problem of migrating lost generation. .

Key Words: Young migrant rooted, Germany, Fatih Akin, minority, ethnic group, generation. ***** Migration to Germany from several countries in the 1960s is a widely known fact due to the needs of the German industry. It is one of the most important migration waves in modern history. Fatih Akin, a 1973-born film director is a child of one of those migrant families.. He was born and raised in Hamburg, Germany and as a Turkish-rooted German, in his movies he prefers to always tell the stories of migrant-rooted young people. Akin mostly tells stories about drugs, illegal acts, the districts of the cities where immigrant people live and their unusual lives. He reflects upon the lives of

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__________________________________________________________________ the migrants to us with a documentaristic sensitivity. He does that very easily because he himself also comes from the same environment and circumstances. Akin states that he was a member of a gang when he was 15-16 years old but he was never involved in illegal acts himself. 1 Fatih Akin uses the characters who immigrated from different countries although is of Turkish descent. He displays the Southern European ‘others’ of German society. 2 In his 1998 film, Kurz und Schmerzlos, characters of Turkish, Greek, and Serbian descent lead the plot. In Solino (2002), Akin displays an Italian family who migrated to Germany in the 1960s and the scenario of Soul Kitchen, a 2009 production, is related with two Greek-rooted brothers. Although he uses characters of Turkish descent in his other three movies, in my project, it is aimed to reflect upon the fact that he underlines that your roots are unimportant if you are a migrant. Because the major amount of migrant-rooted young people share the same features and class positions in their private lives. The second, third and later generations of migrant families have blended in the society and are leading their lives as bilingual and bicultural people. Fatih Akin also mostly casts the actors / actresses who have the same ethnic origins in their real lives for the migrant-rooted characters. In Kurz und Schmerzlos, the Turkish-descent character Cebrail is played by Mehmet Kurtulus of Turkish origin, the Greek-rooted character Costa is played by Adam Bousdoukos of Greek descent and the Serbian-rooted character Bobby is played by Aleksandar Jovanovic of Serbian descent. The director follows the same pattern in his other movies Im Juli, Auf der Anderen Seite and Soul Kitchen. Akin moves up this situation by one level, i.e., in Gegen Die Wand, he casted the actors who have very parallel points in their private lives with the characters they act. Sibel Kekilli has a tempestuous background in her own life like the Sibel character and Birol Unel was born in Mersin and his Turkish is limited, like Cahit Tomruk the character he acts.. This choice empowers the impact of the film on the people who can make a connection between the character in the movie and the real ethnic root of the actor. This kind of preferences make the film closer to a documentary and also, it eases the actor / actress in the part to be acted because they play roles they are familiar with due to their real life experience and background. Akin himself has been accused of being an orientalist but Nilufer Gole thinks that he is neither a German nor a Turk; he gets a new place for himself. That place is a hybrid one, which contains the notions from both cultures, but also reaches a new, different form apart from German and Turkish cultures. 3 A vast majority of the first generation who immigrated to Germany could not find their expectations and found Germany unfamiliar. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that there was an explicit discrimination for them by German society. A large number of the immigrant families, especially from Turkey, come from rural areas People from the rural regions are conservative in general. Since first years of migration, a lot of conservative norms and acts are based on the rural life in Turkey

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__________________________________________________________________ is easily observed. The reaction of young generations to this conservative approach can be observed in the somewhat crazy behaviours and responses of Sibel in Gegen Die Wand for there is an obvious conflict between rural cultural values of Turkey and modernist - urban cultural values of Germany. As it could be expected, young migrant-rooted Turks make their preference in the favour of German societal values and this situation results in a deeper conflict between the youth and their families. We can define three different immigrant types in Fatih Akin films: first, the ones who have learnt little or no German at all. Those people prefer to stay as a community in specific regions of metropolis and form their districts by the people who came from the same country. Some immigrants, especially the older ones or the ones from first generation did not / could not learn German and did not / could not adapt themselves to German societal culture. The second type is largely formed with by young immigrants and these immigrants are from later generations. Like Cebrail or Costa in Kurz und Schmerzlos, Gigi and Giancarlo in Solino, Sibel and Cahit in Gegen die Wand and Zinos and Illias in Soul Kitchen. It is the most common type in German society and also the type most underlined in Akin’s movies. The third type is a version which was grown and shaped under the effect of ‘only’ German culture and it is the form which German society and state would be pleased to see in German society. We have only Nejat character in Auf der Anderen Seite for this category. They prefer using mostly German in their private life unlike the second type defined above. Moreover, they know very little or close to nothing about Turkish culture. In some examples, there are some German citizens whose name and surname is Turkish but they cannot speak Turkish, like the young singer Cihan Karaca or some who speak very limited Turkish, like the comedian Kaya Yanar. These young migrant-rooted people have some common notions: they are usually under educated. They mostly have social positions in low income class, as a consequence they have a tendency to commit crime like robbery, violent actions, mafia-style acts etc. Using drugs, drinking alcohol drinks and smoking is rather widespread. They have great desire to benefit from all the facilities and opportunities German social state has to offer. They can speak both German and the language of the country where their family came from, but they speak both of the languages with an accent. They are under the influence of both German culture and the culture of their family’s original country; their life includes the notions from both cultures. According to Haldun Cibali, deculturisation can be the term which is used to define the case of third or fourth generation immigrants. He thinks that both complete assimilation and ethnic integration are the two inevitable results for immigrant-rooted people. Both cases are anomaly situations, according to him. 4

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__________________________________________________________________ Some later immigrant generations have no relation or interest with the country where their families came from. They were brought up as no different from someone with complete German ethnic roots. Some people in this classification do not know even a single word in their family’s language and they are shaped in German culture but it must be accepted that when the whole population of immigrants are considered these people compose a low percentage group. Some of the people who belong to this defined category dislike Turkish-rooted people in Germany, like Cahit Tomruk character in Gegen die Wand. They also do not like Turkish customs which are still applied in Germany by Turkish minority. In some examples, young immigrant-rooted people have a condescending view of their families’ countries, mostly due to economical criteria. This depreciatory behaviour is reflected in social relations and they do not much prefer to construct a communication when they visit their countries of origin; the behaviours of Gigi in Solino in his return to Italy is an explicit example. However, the first generation who was born or raised up in Turkey miss their motherland and dream of returning to their hometowns someday, like the mother in Solino and like Ali Aksu in Auf der Anderen Seite. Additionally, it can also be inferred as in intensive desire of young immigrant rooted people to flee from the life they lead and have a regular and quiet life that does not contain violence and crime. If we look from gender perspective, it can be said that migrant rooted women could adapt to the new conditions much better than the migrant rooted men. For instance, Melek character in Im Juli who can express herself in Turkish and in German very well is a women with courage and individual preferences. There is no difference between her and a German woman culturally and as social stance until she states her name. 5 In Akin’s films, the road of the scenarios passes through the country of origin of the migrated family many times. In Kurz und Schmerzlos, Cebrail bought a flight ticket to Turkey to return permanently just before the end of the film. In Im Juli, the four main characters meet in Turkey at the final of the film. In Solino, the brothers erase the resentment between them in Italy, the origin country of their family. In Gegen die Wand, Sibel and Cahit return to Turkey separately and meet in Turkey again. In Auf der Anderen Seite, Nejat comes to Turkey and begins to run a book shop. In my view, the director would like to underline the case of ‘not being able to be a part of Germany’ by making his characters return to their origin country. For instance, Turkey is pictured in the movies as a place where all the problems came to an end and solved. Turkey is displayed as a mystical place. Such an approach must be resulting from the long years of disappointment of migrant people. They could neither be a part of German society nor completely integrate nor stay as 100% Turk. This case of being in the middle must have frustrated and discouraged the migrant-rooted people and they have a secret longing in their subconscious for their motherland, with regards to Fatih Akin’s movies.

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__________________________________________________________________ In all six films of Akin which I have examined, the scene which has affected me most is in Gegen die Wand. In that scene, Sibel and Cahit go to visit Sibel’s parents. Cahit begins to play a Turkish table game with the other guys of Sibel’s family. One of the guys proposes to other guy to visit the brothel in next days because of the coming of new women. Cahit asks that ‘why do not you fuck your women?’ One of Turkish descent guys get angry against this question and warns Cahit: ‘Never and ever use that “f[***]” word by relating to our wives, do you understand it man?’ It seems that scene and the dialogue excellently display differences between German cultural world and the Turkish minority culture. The act of F*****g can be associated with any women except for the wife but it is making love with the wife because wife is honourable; she symbolises privacy and venerability of the family. In that respect, using ‘wife’ and ‘fuck’ words in the same sentence means a great violation of Turkish cultural norms. Cahit is not aware of the violation which he does because he was brought up with German cultural values entirely. The concept of honour, as we see in the example above, is one of the determinative characteristics of conservative culture which is so common in Turkish rural side. Generally, it controls the rural and urban areas but it is more powerful in rural areas as an extension of Turkish traditional culture. If we consider that almost all Turkish immigrants migrate from rural Turkey, we can better comprehend why the killings in the name of honour are still committed in Germany. The immigrant community exhibits a protective stance about its cultural values and tries to keep conservative values alive in a modernist - Western society. In Gegen die Wand, Niko provokes Cahit with honor concept and uses unpleasant words about his ostensible wife, Sibel. Finally, Cahit kills Niko. This murdering can be read as a significant element presenting to the audience that Cahit slowly starts to show a tendency to practice to Turkish cultural values. Before the murdering of Niko, Sibel does the same thing. She threats Niko with whom she had a one-night-stand, by saying: ‘I am a married Turkish woman and my husband will kill you if you are around me again.’ Sometimes, conservative young Turkish-rooted people follow a role which is claimed to be a ‘guard of honour’ over Turkish-rooted women in Germany; even if they have not ever met them. In in the bus scene of Auf der Anderen Seite, two Turkish-rooted guys try to persuade Yeter, the prostitute with whom Nejat’s father wants to marry, to give up prostitution by reminding her that she is a Muslim and a Turk. We can see the same behaviour in Gegen die Wand. When it is published on the newspaper that Sibel betrayed her husband, her family burns all of her the photos and cease communicating with their own daughter. this can be considered as the traces of conservative Turkish rural culture on the immigrant community in Germany. In that respect, in Auf der Anderen Seite, Nejat, a very positive example, comes from an immigrant family but does not treat Yeter, Sibel and such migrantrooted women the way the other immigrant men do. He is not a kind of man who

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__________________________________________________________________ causes problems in the name of honour violations of Yeter or Sibel. He respects their life style and past. He does not accuse them because of what they have done along their whole lives. In one scene, Yeter states her emulation to Nejat and his decency: ‘I want my daughter not to be an ignorant woman. I would like that she is educated, enlightened and a good human. Same like you.’ Yeter actually tells what migrant-rooted people want to see in their children, she represents the demand and the desire of the majority of migrant rooted people about their kids. The director constructs a cultural dichotomy in Auf der anderen Seite through father and son. Ali Aksu represents Turkish culture and Nejat Aksu German culture. Fatih Akin can be accepted on the side of Turkish culture by making Nejat owns a shop and a life in Turkey and by sending him to East Black Sea region to find his father at the end of the movie. The director prefers to display the notions of Turkish culture in several examples: Turkish meals, Turkish music in a lot of scenes, Turkish traditions like kissing the hand of older people and touching it on the forehand, black tea service etc. Akin’s attitude contains admiration to Turkish culture but it does not change the fact that Turkish-rooted young are moving away from Turkish culture and language generation by generation. To construct his cinema understanding on a mass which he is familiar allows to Fatih Akin that he can present the life of a social group which has not been considered much in European Cinema until today. However, it must be more true to evaluate this endeavour of Akin as a try to the future but not to the past. He is exhibiting the current lives of these young people as clue but may be, the notion he interrogates is how their future will be and indirectly, how the future of German society will be. If we consider all these young people are the part of the future of German society, we can accept beforehand that the negative points in their lives affect also German society in a negative way. Akin’s cinema is not aiming to prepare a prescription but it realises eminently the function which ‘a sociological cinema’ should accomplish by taking attention of society and political authorities to this sub-culture and societal sub-group.

Notes 1

Elektronik Gazete, ‘Kısa ve Acısız’, last modified September 17, 2012, accessed May 12, 2012, http://www.freewebs.com/egazete/kisaveacisiz.htm. 2 Haldun Cibali, ‘Fatih Akın Sineması'nda Kimlik Vurgusu’, Otobug, last modified August 2, 2011, accessed May 14, 2012, http://www.otobug.com/yazi-1052-fatihakin-sinemasinda-kimlik-vurgusu. 3 Yeni Aktüel, ‘Avrupa'nın Yeni Merkezi İstanbul Olacak’, Interview with Nilüfer Göle, last modified 2012, accessed May 9, 2012, http://www.yeniaktuel.com.tr/top109-2,[email protected]. 4 Cibali, ‘Fatih Akın Sineması'nda Kimlik Vurgusu’.

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Hale H. Künüçen and Nuray Hilal Ateş, ‘Fatih Akın’ın Filmlerinde Kadının Sunum Biçimi’, Academia.edu, last modified 2012, accessed May 19, 2012, http://baskent.academia.edu/HHALEKUNUCEN/Papers/1039539/Fatih_Akinin_Fi lmlerinde_Kadinin_Sunum_Bicimi.

Bibliography Aktüel, Yeni. ‘Avrupa'nın Yeni Merkezi İstanbul Olacak’. Interview with Nilüfer Göle). Last modified 2012. Accessed May 9, 2012. http://www.yeniaktuel.com.tr/top109-2,[email protected]. Cibali, Haldun. ‘Fatih Akın Sineması'nda Kimlik Vurgusu’. Otobug. Last modified August 2, 2011. Accessed May 14, 2012. http://www.otobug.com/yazi-1052-fatihakin-sinemasinda-kimlik-vurgusu. Elektronik Gazete. ‘Kısa ve Acısız’. Last modified September 17, 2012. Accessed May 12, 2012. http://www.freewebs.com/egazete/kisaveacisiz.htm. Künüçen, H. Hale, and Nuray Hilal Ateş. ‘Fatih Akın’ın Filmlerinde Kadının Sunum Biçimi’. Academia.edu. Last modified 2012. Accessed: May 19, 2012. http://baskent.academia.edu/HHALEKUNUCEN/Papers/1039539/Fatih_Akinin_Fi lmlerinde_Kadinin_Sunum_Bicimi. Yildirim Uysal is a research assistant in the Department of Sociology at The Middle Eastern Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.

Linguistic Attitudes and Linguistic Practices in the Global Age: The Case of the First Generation of Serbian Highly Educated Migrants Ana Jovanović and Ivana Vučina Simović Abstract In this chapter, 1 we analyse language attitudes and linguistic practices in the global age diaspora through the example of the first generation of Serbian highly educated migrants, those with undergraduate or graduate degree who had left their country of origin during the last two decades. We focus on relations that exist between informants’ attitudes toward the maintenance/shift of ethnic/national identity and language and their actual linguistic practices in home domain, particularly in communication with their children. Through the analysis of data obtained through a questionnaire administered in 2010, we observe the influence of the ideological component in the process of language maintenance/shift in the conditions of life in the global age diaspora. The data obtained through a questionnaire show that this group of informants possesses stable attitudes toward the maintenance/shift of their native language and ethnic/national identity, which do not alter significantly with the length of their stay in the host country. In the age where the media and the internet are highly accessible, these individuals come to the host country with already formed attitudes and expectations which strongly influence their linguistic ideologies. Similarly, their linguistic practices are not likely to change over time, which might point to the fact that right after leaving the country of origin these migrants take on a specific model of linguistic behaviour that significantly influences the process of language shift. Nevertheless, our sociolinguistic analysis indicates that these informants have good preconditions for faster social, economic, and linguistic integration in the majority community and are also considerably closer to cultural and linguistic assimilation than the migrants from the previous immigration waves. Key Words: Diaspora, language attitudes, language ideology, linguistic practices, language maintenance/shift, Serbian language. ***** 1. Language and Identity in the Global Age Diaspora Even though the word diaspora (Old Greek diaspeiro) has a long history which dates back to the Antiquity, its contemporary meaning in numerous languages in the world, related to group migrations, was created in recent times. 2 Since the 1970s migration has become one of major characteristics of modern societies (especially those that go from poorer, developing countries, to wealthier countries of the West), thus, the term diaspora begins to be used more frequently, in a wider

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__________________________________________________________________ meaning and in more varied contexts. 3 This practice has reached such proportions in the age of globalisation that the diaspora is considered today a global reality, which will certainly make nation-states change significantly in the future. 4 In this chapter we part from a definition of diasporas as population groups with certain common features who live among majority groups with different characteristics. 5 It is important to emphasise a dynamic character of diasporas, a characteristic on which contemporary definitions insist: Diasporas - rather like amoeba - evolve, mutate, take on different forms, live, die, and are resurrected - depending on the needs of those who use them as survival tools. For diasporas are social survival tools. 6 The same comparisons can be ascribed to migrants’ language and identity: regardless of whether an ethnic/national language (in migrant context often called heritage language) or a majority language and identity are concerned, they have always been dynamic and have represented effective tools for which the speakers reached in order to satisfy their needs. Today, more than ever, migrants are able to make use of both languages and identities. Namely, globalisation is facilitating a creation of transnational spaces in which contact with the homeland through the use of the heritage language, and the heritage language itself, may be maintained through emails, the Internet and satellite television, as well as through (...) the mass media. 7 Therefore, migrants can choose between ethnic language maintenance/shift and maintenance/loss of their ethnic identity ‘in order to ally themselves more closely with either the host society (…) or their own diasporic group.’ 8 Social, political and linguistic ideologies and attitudes also play a significant role in making the mentioned choices. 9 Although these are subjective constructs, they have an objective strength. 10 Thus, the explicit or implicit manifestation of language ideologies not only gives an insight into an overall understanding of reality of the given speech community, but also influences the choice of a linguistic form and structure and, eventually, the choice of the very linguistic code. Consequently, it influences the language maintenance/shift. 11 Although it is postulated that attitudes influence behaviour, the relation between the attitudes of an individual and his/her behaviour seem to be very complex. A direct relationship between attitudes and behaviours cannot be established because a number of objective and subjective factors intervene in the final behavioural outcome. 12 Some researchers have tried to study this dynamics carefully, hoping they would succeed in predicting certain language practices

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__________________________________________________________________ through the language attitudes, but their results have been quite contradictory. 13 Therefore, this question remains open. 14 2. Serbian Diaspora and Its Study Serbian people, as the other population of former Yugoslavia, are traditionally inclined to emigrate. It is estimated that the Serbian home country has today approximately 8.5 million residents, who currently live either in the Republic of Serbia, the Republic of Montenegro or the Republic of Srpska. The diaspora has about 2.8 million of registered migrants, while its real number is considered to be twice as high. 15 Our study is dedicated to recent migrants, those who left Serbia or some of the former Yugoslav republics in the last two or three decades. Unlike the previous migration waves of predominantly rural origin and/or individuals without a particular professional training, these late movements are marked by highly educated and skilled workers, who took the advantage they had in obtaining immigration visas to move mostly to USA, Canada and Australia, but also to South Africa and West European countries. 16 For this particular kind of migration, a number of terms have been coined: intellectual exodus, brain drain, exodus of professionals, migration of intelligence, among many. Recently, a phrase expert diaspora also appeared introduced by the members of a nongovernmental organisation GEPS (Group of Experts for Prosperity of Serbia) seated in Belgrade. 17 Evidently, this phenomenon did provoke attention in the intellectual circles of Serbia, but the migrations outflow of highly educated migrants did not induce any systematic research in the field. 18 The overall phenomena created in the context of Serbian diaspora have represented, especially during the last few decades, the object of research in different disciplines of social and humanistic orientation. There are also various (socio) linguistic and philological works that discuss questions regarding the Serbian language and literacy in diaspora. Nevertheless, the above-mentioned studies rarely take into account the data on the most recent migrations and the maintenance and loss of their language and identity. 3. Results and Discussion Our research focuses on the dynamics that exist between speakers’ attitudes toward the maintenance of the ethnic language and their overall linguistic practices manifested through the use of the ethnic and/or majority language. For that purpose, we elaborated a questionnaire that consisted of closed and semi-closed questions organised in three categories: demographic information, attitudes toward the use of the ethnic and/or majority language, and linguistic practices. 19 The questionnaire was administered in 2010 through email correspondence following the so-called snowball sampling technique. 20 In spite of limitations that this

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__________________________________________________________________ technique presents, it allowed us to approach a portion of insufficiently investigated population of Serbian migrants, that of highly educated individuals. The total of 96 respondents pertains to the first generation of Serbian migrants residing in 25 different countries of all continents. Importantly and, again, due to the data collection technique, most participants (79%) are between 20 and 40 years of age, while the remaining 21% are older than 40. A closer look at the data revealed three clusters in the length of their stay in the host country, that is, a group of immigrants who reside in the host country from one to five years (33%), that of the individuals who live in the host country from five to ten years (34%), and those who are out of their home country for more than ten years (33%). The sample shows some evidence to support the view that certain migratory movements are related to specific years and socio-political events in Serbia associated with them (e.g., bombardment in 1999, assassination of the prime minister in 2003 and the consequent slowdown in the process of reform). As much as 91.5% of our participants have a graduate or post-graduate degree (master’s or doctorate), while eight participants (8.5%) have only high school degrees, of which two were at the college at the time the questionnaire was administered. Importantly, only two participants were unemployed, while all others reported that they were professionally active. The range of professions varies greatly, but in most cases (92%), a high level of education is required, which might indicate that this group of participants is well integrated within the host country. 3.1 Language Attitudes Virtually all respondents claimed to have strong feelings about the Serbian language being preserved in their home environment and transmitted to their children (current or prospect) (average score 6.4 on the scale from 1 to 7). This finding is challenging some studies that were looking at the relationship between the level of parental education and the use of the majority/minority language. Namely, the higher the educational level of the informants was, the greater their shift away from L1 use. 21 However, the other aspects of acculturation we examined go in line with the mentioned tendency. Namely, it seems that our informants are not as concerned with the preservation of their children’s ethnic identity as they are with their language maintenance. It is significantly less important to them whether their children will declare themselves as Serbian (4.4), and even less so whether they will marry a person of the Serbian origin (2.3). This phenomenon might be explained in the light of the fact that most of these respondents do not form part of greater diasporic communities in a sense that they are well integrated in the host community. Many of them do not have strong ethnic and religious affiliations, and even feel a certain stigma when declared as Serbs. This is actually in contrast with previous Serbian migratory waves. In case of these individuals, their contacts with other Serbs are mainly through family and friendship connections, and, in fact, many of them feel as pertaining to both home

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__________________________________________________________________ and host cultures. There were also respondents who emphasised that they are cosmopolitan and that they do not feel strong affiliation to any specific ethnicity. The importance given to the language maintenance might also be explained in light of family cohesion. Language is perceived as a link between the generations and cultural values of the ethno-linguistic group; thus, in that sense, it is a positive symbol of cultural pride and a tool that strengthens family cohesion. 22 In order to investigate attitudes toward the use of Serbian, we were aiming to consider possible differences between male and female participants, as well as the possible influence of endogamy and exogamy on participants’ attitudes. In this sample, there are 43% female and 56% male participants. Seventy participants (67%) have marital status, while 26 participants (23%) are single. As many as forty-three participants (45% of the whole sample) live in endogamous marriage, which makes 63% of all married individuals. The remaining 27 married participants (37% of the individuals with marital status) live in exogamous marriage. There are slight differences between male and female participants in the sample since the women tend to give more relevance to their children’s fluency in the ethnic language in comparison to the men. At the same time, it is less important to the participating women that their children marry a person of the same origin, which indicates certain inconsistencies in the female attitudes toward the maintenance of the ethnic language and identity. As far as the endogamy/exogamy dichotomy is concerned, there is no significant difference as to the attitudes toward the Serbian language, i.e., both groups give great importance to their children’s fluency in Serbian. However, although relatively low scores were recorded in both groups in questions relative to the maintenance of national identity, a statistically significant difference was detected between participants from endogamous and exogamous marriages. Namely, endogamous couples tend to prefer endogamous marriages for their children. All participants of the study, independently of their level of education or length of stay in the host country, reported a high level of communicative competence both in Serbian (the average grade 6.96 out of 7) and in the majority language (5.67). It is interesting to observe, however, that all participants with high school education self-evaluated their competence in Serbian with a maximum grade, while the participants with university education or higher proved to be somewhat more critical as to their perceived competence in the ethnic language. Finally, the data suggest that there is a certain correlation between self-reported communicative competence and the attitudes of the participants toward the maintenance of the national identity. Namely, the better they are at the majority language, the lesser importance is given to the maintenance of the national identity of their children.

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__________________________________________________________________ 3.2 Linguistic Practices According to the results of the questionnaire, all participants use the Serbian language on a daily basis, mostly with family and friends, in reading and writing, less so with neighbours and at work. This information is important as it provides additional evidence that these participants do not live in major Serbian immigrant communities. These participants show consistency between their stated beliefs about the importance of the Serbian language and its use. Out of 43 individuals who reported having children all parents in endogamous marriages use Serbian to talk to their children. The use of the majority language in communication with children is present only in mixed marriages, but the Serbian language keeps priority even in these cases. In fact, only two (male) participants do not communicate with their children in Serbian but use the majority language. All female participants talk to their children in Serbian although five of them reported the tendency to switch to the majority language in their spouses’ presence. This seems to be an effective and reasonable strategy for communication in exogamous marriages, but only few participants have reported its use. In addition to using Serbian more frequently in family communication, the participants who are married to a person of the same origin seem to use it more frequently with their friends and neighbours. The analysis further shows that those participants who have scored higher on the self-reported evaluation of communicative competence in the Serbian language tend to use it more frequently with their friends. Although a causal relationship cannot be established, it could be postulated that better self-perception leads to higher motivation, which in turn stimulates language users to actively search for the opportunities for language use. In this way, their fluency improves and their motivation is enhanced. On the contrary, when there are not many opportunities to communicate, the confidence of the language users is jeopardised, which negatively influences their motivation and leads to higher anxiety and less active participation in communication. The final observation addresses relationships influenced by the length of stay in the host country. It seems that regardless of the number of years they have spent in immigration, these participants remain reluctant to change their attitudes toward the maintenance of the Serbian language and identity or their attitudes toward linguistic practices. It seems that in the global age where the media and the internet are highly accessible, these individuals come to the host country with already formed attitudes and expectations which strongly influence their linguistic ideologies. Similarly, their linguistic practices are not likely to change over time, which might point to the fact that after leaving the country of origin these migrants take on a specific model of linguistic behaviour that influences the process of language shift to a great extent.

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__________________________________________________________________ 4. Final Remarks As representatives of recent Serbian migratory movements, this group of research participants proves to be well integrated within the host country, both through the efficient use of the majority language and through successful professional practice. The migrants in this study show that their language practices are in accordance with their stated language attitudes. Furthermore, their approach toward the use and importance of the Serbian language seem to be quite stable, as well as those that concern attitudes toward the maintenance of their children’s national identity. Although they do use Serbian in daily communication and try (or intend) to transmit it to their offspring, it may be postulated that their high intercultural sensitivity, manifested in the openness toward exogamy, makes them more susceptible to cultural assimilation and, in last instance, to ethnic assimilation as well. It may also be that high competence in the majority language opens new possibilities for the migrants, which might then lead to a quicker acculturation within the host community. When the global age has provided ample opportunities for the migrants to keep tight bonds with their home country, it seems that it is up to the individual whether they would actively try to maintain their ethnic language and transmit it to their children. The motifs for these choices are a worthwhile field for future research.

Notes 1

This chapter was completed within the project 178014: ‘The Dynamics of the Structures of the Contemporary Serbian Language’, financed by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Serbia. 2 For detailed discussion see: Stéphane Dufoix, Roger Waldinger and William Rodamor, Diasporas (Berkeley, LA, and London: University of California Press, 2008), 4-19. 3 Roger Waldinger, ‘Foreword’, in Diasporas, eds. Stéphane Dufoix, Roger Waldinger, and William Rodamor (Berkeley, LA, and London: University of California Press, 2008), xi. Minna Rozen, ‘Preface’, in Homelands and Diasporas: Greeks, Jews and Their Migrations, ed. Minna Rozen (London: I. B. Tauris, 2008), 31. 4 Rozen, ‘Preface’, 21 and 31. 5 Ibid., 21. 6 Ibid., 24. 7 Jaine Beswick, ‘Diasporas and Language’, in Diasporas: Concepts, Intersections, Identities, eds. Kim Knott and Sean McLoughlin (London: Zed Books, 2010), 135. 8 Ibid., 135-136.

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__________________________________________________________________ 9

Ivana Vučina Simović, ‘Stavovi Govornika Prema Jevrejsko-Španskom Jeziku: U Prilog Stvaranju Tipologije Održavanja/Zamene Jezika’, PhD diss., University of Belgrade, 2010. 10 Ranko Bugarski, Jezik u Društvu (Ranko Bugarski. Sabrana Dela 4) (Belgrade: Čigoja, 2004), 83-84. 11 Ivana Vučina Simović and Jelena Filipović, Etnički Identitet i Zamena Jezika u Sefardskoj Zajednici u Beogradu (Belgrade: Zavod za udžbenike, 2009), 115. 12 See Ana Jovanović, Student and Teacher Attitudes in Foreign Language Instruction (Belgrade: Andrejević Endowment, 2009). 13 Peter Garrett, Nikolas Coupland and Angie Williams, Investigating Language Attitudes. Social Meanings of Dialect, Ethnicity and Performance (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003), 8. 14 For detailed discussion see: Hans J. Ladegaard, ‘Language Attitudes and Sociolinguistic Behaviour: Exploring Attitude-Behaviour Relations in Language’, Journal of Sociolinguistics 4 (2000): 214-233. 15 Marko Lopušina and Dušan Lopušina, Ilustrovana Istorija Srpske Dijaspore (Belgrade: Evro-Giunti, 2006), 20. 16 Vladimir Grečić, ‘Ekonomski Aspekti Egzodusa Naučnika i Visokoobrazovanih Kadrova’, in Problemi Migracije Naučnih i Tehničkih Kadrova, ed. Nikola Čobeljić (Belgrade: SANU, Ekonomski zbornik, vol. IX, 1992), 115. Nikola Čobeljić, ‘Jugoslovenski Egzodus Naučnih i Tehničkih Kadrova: Uzroci, Posledice, Perspective’, in Problemi Migracije Naučnih i Tehničkih Kadrova, ed. Nikola Čobeljić (Belgrade: SANU, Ekonomski zbornik, vol. IX, 1992), 22-23. 17 Jovan Filipović and Goran Putnik, ‘Serbian Diaspora Virtual University: Human Resource Potential’, 3rd International Symposium on the Development of Public Administration in South East Europe, 18-19th June 2009, Ljubljana, Slovenia. 18 Čobeljić, ‘Jugoslovenski Egzodus Naučnih i Tehničkih Kadrova’, 23. 19 See Ivana Vučina Simović and Ana Jovanović, ‘Uloga Prve Generacije Govornika Srpskog Jezika u Procesu Održavanja/Zamene Jezika u Dijaspori’, in Srpski Jezik, Književnost, Umetnost, ed. Miloš Kovačević (Kragujevac: Filološkoumetnički fakultet, 2011), 335-349. 20 Matthew J. Salganik and Douglas D. Heckathorn, ‘Sampling and Estimation in Hidden Populations Using Respondent-Driven Sampling’, Sociological Methodology 34 (2004): 193-239. 21 Doucet Jacques, ‘First Generation of Serbo-Croatian Speakers in Queensland: Language Maintenance and Language Shift’, in Language in Australia, ed. Suzanne Romaine (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 270-284. 22 Schwartz Mila, ‘Family Language Policy: Core Issues in an Emerging Field’, Applied Linguistics Review 1 (2010): 175.

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Bibliography Beswick, Jaine. ‘Diasporas and Language’. In Diasporas: Concepts, Intersections, Identities, edited by Kim Knott, and Sean McLoughlin, 134–138. London: Zed Books, 2010. Bugarski, Ranko. Jezik u Društvu (Ranko Bugarski. Sabrana Dela 4). Belgrade: Čigoja, 2004. Čobeljić, Nikola. ‘Jugoslovenski Egzodus Naučnih i Tehničkih Kadrova: Uzroci, Posledice, Perspektive’. In Problemi Migracije Naučnih i Tehničkih Kadrova, edited by Nikola Čobeljić, 19–38. Belgrade: SANU (Ekonomski zbornik, vol. IX), 1992. Doucet, Jacques. ‘First Generation of Serbo-Croatian Speakers in Queensland: Language Maintenance and Language Shift’. In Language in Australia, edited by Suzanne Romaine, 270–284. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Dufoix, Stéphane, Roger Waldinger, and William Rodamor. Diasporas. Berkeley, LA, and London: University of California Press, 2008. Filipović, Jovan, and Goran Putnik. ‘Serbian Diaspora Virtual University: Human Resource Potential’. 3rd International Symposium on the Development of Public Administration in South East Europe, 18-19th June 2009, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Garrett, Peter, Nikolas Coupland, and Angie Williams. Investigating Language Attitudes. Social Meanings of Dialect, Ethnicity and Performance. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003. Grečić, Vladimir. ‘Ekonomski Aspekti Egzodusa Naučnika i Visokoobrazovanih Kadrova’. In Problemi Migracije Naučnih i Tehničkih Kadrova, edited by Nikola Čobeljić, 101–123. Belgrade: SANU (Ekonomski zbornik, vol. IX), 1992. Jovanović, Ana. Student and Teacher Attitudes in Foreign Language Instruction. Belgrade: Andrejević Endowment, 2009. Ladegaard, Hans J. ‘Language Attitudes and Sociolinguistic Behaviour: Exploring Attitude-Behaviour Relations in Language’. Journal of Sociolinguistics 4 (2000): 214–233.

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__________________________________________________________________ Lopušina, Marko, and Dušan Lopušina. Ilustrovana Istorija Srpske Dijaspore. Belgrade: Evro-Giunti, 2006. Rozen, Minna. ‘Preface’. In Homelands and Diasporas: Greeks, Jews and Their Migrations, edited by Minna Rozen, 21–32. London: I. B. Tauris, 2008. Salganik, Matthew J., and Douglas D. Heckathorn. ‘Sampling and Estimation in Hidden Populations Using Respondent-Driven Sampling’. Sociological Methodology 34 (2004): 193–239. Schwartz, Mila. ‘Family Language Policy: Core Issues in an Emerging Field’. Applied Linguistics Review 1 (2010): 171–192. Vučina Simović, Ivana. ‘Stavovi Govornika Prema Jevrejsko-Španskom Jeziku: U Prilog Stvaranju Tipologije Održavanja/Zamene Jezika’. PhD diss., University of Belgrade, 2010. Vučina Simović, Ivana, and Jelena Filipović. Etnički Identitet i Zamena Jezika u Sefardskoj Zajednici u Beogradu. Belgrade: Zavod za udžbenike, 2009. Vučina Simović, Ivana, and Ana Jovanović. ‘Uloga Prve Generacije Govornika Srpskog Jezika u Procesu Održavanja/Zamene Jezika u Dijaspori’. In Srpski Jezik, Književnost, Umetnost, edited by Miloš Kovačević, 335–349. Kragujevac: Filološko-umetnički fakultet, 2011. Waldinger, Roger. ‘Foreword’. In Diasporas, edited by Dufoix, Stéphane, Roger Waldinger, and William Rodamor, xi–xii. Berkeley, LA, and London: University of California Press, 2008. Ana Jovanović is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Philology and Arts at the University of Kragujevac, Serbia. Her primary field of research is related to second/foreign language education with particular focus on individual differences. Lately, she finds herself drawn to the field of sociolinguistics and the issues associated with language maintenance/shift in diasporic communities. Ivana Vučina Simović works as Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Philology and Arts in Kragujevac, Serbia. She was a co-author of a book on historical sociolinguistics of Judeo-Spanish in Belgrade and author and co-author of a number of articles on sociolinguistics (language maintenance/shift, language death, language attitudes, etc.), Judeo-Spanish language, and Sephardic studies.

Part 4 Shifting and Maintaining Identities

Searching for Authenticity through Desire: Greek Canadian Women and the Heritage Fling Anastasia Panagakos Abstract Among European and North American travellers Greece is well known as a romantic tourist destination. Short-term romances between local Greek men and tourist women remain a common summer occurrence. This chapter examines the sexual relations between Greek men and Greek Canadian women vacationing in Greece. Constructions of Greek Canadian female sexuality bridges foreign and local Greek conceptions of femininity and is a gender category forged in the nostalgic longings of the diaspora. Because of their Greek ancestry, Mediterranean looks, and familiarity with language and culture, Greek Canadian women exhibit ambiguous identities that are often perceived simultaneously through cultural binaries: outsiders/insiders, Other/Greek, dirty/clean, and Eve/Virgin Mary. While on vacation in their ancestral homeland, some Greek Canadian women engage in short term romances as an authentic counter to the incomplete diasporic identity they bring with them from Canada. Drawing on long-term fieldwork, this chapter explores the conception of nostalgia and diasporic identity in Greek women’s desires. It shows how their desire for an experience of ethnic authenticity is challenged by gender relations and class-inflected cultural difference. Local men subvert women’s economic power through challenging their cultural literacy (such as a lack in language skills, etiquette, or sexual knowledge). On the other hand, the women wield their own economic power and sense of freedom because of their connections with the West. The chapter explores constructions of Greek authenticity and gender negotiations in diasporic, cross-class heterosexual desires. Key Words: Greek diaspora, authenticity, romance tourism, gender identity, class, heterosexuality. ***** I became interested in a variation of the romance tourism theme while researching transnational migration and marriage practices among Greek Canadian women who were residing in Greece. The focus of that research was to understand how women born and raised in the Greek Canadian diaspora viewed Greece as the idyllic homeland, particularly in choosing to marry a Greek man and settle in Greece permanently, while looking at the consequences for gender identity, family relations, and ethnicity. I also encountered many women of Greek heritage who were born in Canada, Australia, the United States, Germany, Britain, and Sweden who did not want to settle permanently in Greece but were visiting. While the issue of sex was fairly clear among those who had married, what did sex in Greece mean

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__________________________________________________________________ to these other women on holiday? Were they having sex? If so, did it fit Sofka Zinovieff’s notion of kamáki and would the Greek men themselves perceive of these women differently because of their Greek heritage? 1 Zinovieff describes the sexual predation of lower-class Greek men on foreign tourist women as kamáki or spear fishing. Kamáki reveals underlying issues of class division, male competition, and prestige. Kamáki is a type of revenge system by which lower class men can gain prestige and a feeling of superiority in their conquest of tourist women who come from seemingly superior societies like Britain or Germany. I argue that the sexual and romantic encounters between local Greek men and women of Greek ancestry from Canada constitute a unique form of romance tourism that blurs the boundaries between foreign and native. The erotic of romance tourism is bound in concepts of pleasure, globalisation, gender identity, ethnicity, and authenticity. I address how Greek Canadian romance tourism functions as an ethnosexual frontier or a place where erotic locations are controlled, policed, regulated and restricted, but also constantly penetrated by individuals forging sexual links with ethnic others across boundaries. 2 There is a script for heritage flings in Greece, regulated by certain social conventions and unwritten rules of conduct. Sexual desires themselves are conceived of in accordance with what constitutes an authentic experience and furthers the sense of belonging, nostalgia, or empowerment. As Freidus and Romero-Daza note, the landscape of tourism in countries with a strong tendency towards machismo privilege and naturalise male dominance (including virility and promiscuity) while demeaning women who demonstrate similar characteristics. 3 Greece’s gendered geographies operate much the same in which the places of everyday life are inscribed as either female or male, private or public, foreign or familiar. 4 The liminal position of Greek Canadian women visiting Greece is like Freidus and Romero-Daza’s subjects in Costa Rica where the women are in a state of limbo, outside their normal social existence. The liminal phase is complicated by the subject position of the women as being both Greek and foreign simultaneously. Whereas strictly foreign tourist women are usually encountered in prescribed tourist locations, Greek Canadian women are just as likely to be vacationing in predominantly local landscapes such as villages and small towns thus disrupting the usual tourist narrative. This disruption allows us to examine identity construction for both the travelling women and the local men through the process of body work or the ways in which normative identities are given over to deviance because a person’s body does not meet certain cultural standards. 5 1. Imagining Greece: Returning to Where You Never Were While researching the migration of Canadian-born Greek women to Greece, I was struck by the use of the term going back as a way of describing the migration process. Having been born in Canada, none of these young women who desired to

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__________________________________________________________________ live in Greece had ever lived there before. Growing up in a tight immigrant community these young women were reminded daily of their hybrid Greek/Canadian identities and were exposed to the nostalgic longings for Greece of their parents’ generation. 6 The allure of Greece was reinforced by extended family, friends, priests, and occasional summer trips to Greece. For some, going back was the completion of these nostalgic longings for something that appeared to them as tangible, attainable, and desirable. The satisfaction of fulfilling the return came in the authentic expression of their ethnic identity through marriage to a local Greek man. The globalisation of transportation and communication, the progressive multicultural landscape of Canada, and the transnational aspects of the Greek diaspora work to make this longing a genuine possibility. 7 My research found that many women, after experiencing summer flings, went back to Canada and plotted their return to Greece in earnest. Ethnicity and gender may appear to be eternally fixed and reproducible social categories, yet they are created through routine behaviour which ‘precede[s], constrain[s], and exceed[s] the performer.’ 8 The essence of ethnicity as performance is exposed through travel between Greece and the diaspora which is projected onto the body. Travel requires the individual to confront the reality that identity is not fixed or even essential. When Greek Canadian women move between Greece and Canada as tourists, visitors, or migrants, they already have a notion that ethnicity is fluid although they may not be able to articulate it as such. Many described the disorientation of their youth straddled between two cultures in which they never fit in entirely. Others used their cultural marginality as a source of empowerment, as a justification for being able to break gender rules and conventions, often with mixed results. Women are able to navigate their social worlds through what I call nostalgia work. Greek Canadian women work at constructing identities based on the values of Greek femininity which stress heterosexuality, motherhood, good housekeeping and womanly virtue to compensate for deviant behaviours such as choosing full time careers and choosing to move to Greece, away from the natal family. Nostalgia work becomes evident when informants describe their failed efforts in performing their Greek femininity such as not living up to the standards of their Greek mothers-in-law or husbands. Nostalgia work operates as a testing ground for identity formation during visits to Greece and after migrating. Manipulating nostalgic discourses of diaspora means that the individual can try out different variations of Greek femininity with people such as boyfriends or lovers, husbands, girlfriends, mothers-in-law, and their own families. Always within a heteronormative context, nostalgic discourses are the ways in which Greekness is remembered and inscribed on an individual and then read, critiqued or accepted by others. These include a woman’s sense of style and deportment, domestic capabilities, sexual mores, Greek language skills, adherence to religious practices, deference, and overall commitment to preserving the Greek culture. Anna Karpathakis noted that for some Greek women in the diaspora, proper femininity

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__________________________________________________________________ was only achieved when economic success allowed a woman to quit low paid jobs in the informal sector to devote her time to being a lady, synonymous here with housewife and mother. 9 While paid work and careers is important to many Greek Canadian women who live their lives physically and nostalgically between Greece and Canada today, there is still that sense of being a proper kyría or lady that is at odds with other types of behaviour. How gender is performed is contested when the borders of community, nationality, class or culture are in question. While a singular Greek female body or gender identity does not exist, an idealised notion of Greek womanhood is a key marker of inclusion or exclusion. When a Greek Canadian woman moves from one situation or cultural milieu to the next, she is confronted with the ruptures of her own ethnic and gendered identity which span the spectrum from feelings of despair and loneliness to a sense of belonging, inclusion, and satisfaction. The ambiguities of being both foreign and familiar are difficult to negotiate as women move between the homeland and diaspora. Whether a Greek Canadian woman is deemed foreign or familiar may depend on the location of her romantic encounter and also influence the potential outcomes. The most typical romantic encounters tend to begin in tourist locations like bars, discos, coffeehouses and beaches. The pattern of these encounters is similar to what one might find in other countries, i.e., short term sexual encounters which are deemed romance by the woman and sexual conquest by the men. A heritage fling was influenced by the circumstances of the woman’s visit to Greece. A woman travelling with her family was less likely to engage in romantic encounters than a woman travelling alone or with friends. Romantic encounters in Athens appeared to be more varied and also carried more anonymity. The romantic encounters that occurred in the smaller towns and ancestral villages proved to be the most problematic in terms of identity for both the men and the women. The nature of the relationship as either a fling or something more serious was questioned almost from the beginning. 2. Tourism and the Diasporic Greek Summertime Greece is made for lovers and romance and the opportunities for short term encounters are bountiful. A seduction of place that occurs is not so much about movement or travel in itself but how the meaning of that place is negotiated by the traveller and the local people alike. Jessica Jacobs notes that tourist landscapes can exist in a seductive combination of being both outside of modernity and yet accessible to tourists and travellers. 10 Greek Canadian women also desired a space outside of modernity and being with a man who embodied their sense of antimodernity, which was paramount to fulfilling that desire. Informants spoke of Greek men as being more authentic than the Greek Canadian men they had grown up with back in Canada. 11 Greek Canadian men were usually better educated and had better jobs than their Greek counterparts but lacked in Greekness such as the ability to speak Greek properly or that intangible sense of

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__________________________________________________________________ manliness. Whereas Greek Canadian women found lovers easily, the same could not be said of their male counterparts. Greek women had an aversion to Greek Canadian men and often came across as aloof or standoffish when approached in social situations. With their masculinity in question, Greek Canadian men did not often attempt relationships with Greek women and chose to mask their gender discomfort with misbehaviour such as degrading Greek women for their appearance or lack of education and class. The favourable view of Greek machismo indicates an internalisation of patriarchal ideals and indeed displays of machismo may offer women a model in which to contrast or complement their own constructions of Greek femininity. Lower class Greek men would proposition tourist women and view them as game to be hunted. Greek men would also proposition Greek Canadian women who were away from the village and not under the watchful gaze of kin. Visits to islands like Mykonos or Rhodes meant stressing the Western aspects of identity, including sexual freedom, flamboyant behaviours, and flaunting wealth. Since the women speak Greek, it is impossible for the men to discuss or insult the women with their friends. Greek men were often surprised when their seemingly foreign prey turned out to be of Greek ancestry thus more familiar than they cared for. As Zinovieff noted, strictly Greek women were not pursued in kamáki and once it was discovered that they were Greek, they were often put down as smelling of sheep, a reference relating perhaps to their village origins. 12 3. City, Village, Beach, Bar: Locating Heritage Flings The treatment of Greek Canadian women tourists hinged on the woman’s behaviour and not necessarily a well developed stereotype as it did for strictly foreign women tourists with no Greek ancestry. The men seemed unsure on how to proceed with women of Greek ancestry and perhaps had doubts as to how easy it would be to get sexually involved with them. Geography and location were key factors dictating which script would be pursued, in other words, one that leaned toward conquest/kamáki or one in which the men allowed the women to pursue them. As expected, the locations geared towards tourists or that allowed anonymity provided the best opportunity for kamáki whereas locations such as small provincial towns or ancestral villages were deemed risky. Sexual encounters in the village were tricky to negotiate and fraught with potential problems. In small villages there is little privacy and discrete locations are difficult to come by, but not impossible. I learned that elementary school yards, unoccupied houses, outlying chapels, and even the cemetery provided adequate coverage for romantic encounters. For the local men these encounters were sexual in nature and there was some of the competitive kamáki discourse at play although it was often veiled. An informant noted that text messaging facilitated romantic encounters with Greek women from abroad because two people could plan to meet later over texting and no one around them knew. He relates with a laugh, ‘When I

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__________________________________________________________________ was younger, you had to either talk directly to the girl which everyone would see and talk about or you called whatever house she was staying at.’ 13 Text messaging was used by local men to talk about the women they were interested in since they could not speak about them out loud since the women knew Greek and were often socialising with the men at the time. For the women, however, the encounters seemed to satisfy their desire for an authentic Greek male experience previously lacking in their relationships back in the diaspora. Informants described feeling happy when their lovers already knew the back story to their families and that the men even sounded and looked right. Village romances highlight the importance of nostalgia work, memory, and location in their heritage flings. Village men embody nostalgia for what immigrant Greeks have lost when living abroad, while being with them restores, at least temporarily, a feeling of belonging and place. Not all experiences were positive, however, and several Greek Canadian informants reported to have been treated ‘like a prostitute’ by village men or the shame that was brought upon their family if the romance was discovered. 14 A Greek man negotiates his sexuality and subjectivity based on the ethnicity of the woman he is with and the location of the relationship. Sexual relations with a strictly foreign tourist woman appeals to his sense of machismo and in many cases is a simple one-night stand that is restricted within the confines of tourist areas. Whereas a foreigner may never return to Greece, the likelihood of a Greek Canadian woman returning to the same place repeatedly is higher and can create complicated situations, especially if her previous partners know one another. Greek Canadian women, who are mostly Greek Orthodox Christians, are also caught between the Christian female archetypes of Eve and the Virgin Mary, as temptress or virgin. Much has been done about the honour and shame complex in Mediterranean anthropology and how it relates to the control and regulation of women’s bodies, physical movement, and gender identity. 15 Women who participate in heritage flings walk a very fine line between being cast as an immoral western Eve or a virtuous Greek Mary. 4. Conclusions Most of my Greek Canadian informants were able to relate at least one sexual encounter while vacationing in Greece and spoke of these in the typical western discourse of romance and yet felt a real connection to the homeland through their exploits. Women who experienced serial romances over several years always couched the experience as more than just physical but that there had been a deeper emotional connection as well. This perspective is consistent with the views of other diasporic Greek Canadian women who seem to develop a deep nostalgia for Greece while they are growing up in suburban Canada. Greece for them is remembered without the hardship of famine and war as it is constructed for their parents, but instead, it is an idyllic land filled with mystery, connections to history

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__________________________________________________________________ and religion, and the possibility of romance. Sexual desires themselves are conceived of through authenticity which furthers the sense of belonging, nostalgia, or empowerment. Economics can disrupt a romantic or authentic experience and spoil the emotional gratification of the relationship. 16 For the local men the benefits are sexual and can be a boost to one’s masculinity but if the relationship progresses into marriage, the possibility of immigrating to Canada becomes more viable, which could further one’s socioeconomic standing particularly given Greece’s current debt crisis. Mobility is complicated by the possibility that the men lose their appeal once they are decontextualised outside of their Greek geographies. That heterosexual Greek Canadian men and Greek women largely fall outside of the intrigues of romance tourism only serves to reiterate how bounded the system is in particular tropes. Greek Canadian women engage in gender play during vacations across an ethnosexual frontier in which they are difficult to categorise. While their foreign ways may brand them as outsiders, their knowledge of Greek customs and language, ancestry, and physical appearance makes them relative insiders. Mobilised across these sexual boundaries and national borders, these desires then shape the larger meaning of what it means to be Greek, Canadian, female, sexually liberated, and authentic.

Notes 1

Sofka Zinovieff, ‘Hunters and Hunted: Kamaki and the Ambiguities of Sexual Predation in a Greek Town’, in Contested Identities: Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece, eds. Peter Loizos and Efthimios Papataxiarchis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 203-222. 2 Joanne Nagel, Race, Ethnicity, and Sexuality: Intimate Intersections, Forbidden Frontiers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); Susan Frohlick, ‘Fluid Exchanges: The Negotiation of Intimacy between Tourist Women and Local Men in a Transnational Town in Caribbean Costa Rica’, City and Society 19 (2007): 1: 139-168. 3 Andrea Freidus and Nancy Romero-Daza, ‘The Space Between: Globalization, Liminal Spaces and Personal Relations in Rural Costa Rica’, Gender, Place and Culture 16 (2009): 683-702. 4 Michael Herzfeld, ‘Silence, Submission, and Subversion: Towards a Poetics of Womanhood’, in Contested Identities: Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece, eds. Peter Loizos and Efthimios Papataxiarchis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 79-97; Renee Hirschon, Heirs to the Greek Catasrophe: The Social Life of Asia Minor Refugees in Piraeus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). 5 Debra Gimlin, Body Work: Beauty and Self-Image in American Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).

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__________________________________________________________________ 6

Anastasia Panagakos, ‘Romancing the Homeland: Transnational Lifestyles and Gender in the Greek Diaspora’ (PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2003). 7 Peggy Levitt and Mary C. Waters, eds., The Changing Face of Home: The Transnational Lives of the Second Generation (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2002). 8 Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’ (New York and London: Routledge, 1993), 234. 9 Anna Karpathakis, ‘I Don’t Have to Worry about Money Anymore and I Can Live Like a Lady: Greek Immigrant Women and Assimilation’, in Greek American Families: Traditions and Transformations, eds. Sam Tsemberis, Anna Karpathakis and Harry Psomiades (New York: Pella Publishing, 1999), 151-175. 10 Jessica Jacobs, ‘Have Sex Will Travel: Romantic “Sex Tourism” and Women Negotiating Modernity in the Sinai’, Gender, Place & Culture 16 (2009): 43-61. 11 Panagakos, ‘Romancing the Homeland’. 12 Zinovieff, ‘Hunters and Hunted’. 13 The name of the interviewee has been withheld to protect their identity. Anonymous 1, Interviewed by the author, 2001. 14 The names of the interviewees have been withheld to protect their identity. Anonymous 2,3,4, and 5, Interviewed by the author, 2001 & 2005. 15 Peter Loizos and Efthimios Papataxiarchis, eds., Contested Identities: Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991). 16 Frohlick, ‘Fluid Exchanges’.

Bibliography Adler, Judith. ‘Travel as Performed Art’. American Journal of Sociology 94 (1987): 1366–1391. Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996. Brah, Avtar. Cartographies of Diaspora. London: Routledge, 1996. Braidotti, Rosi. Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Bryceson, Debora, and Ulla Vuorela eds. The Transnational Family: New European Frontiers and Global Networks. Oxford and New York: Berg Press, 2002.

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__________________________________________________________________ Burayidi, Michael A., ed. Multiculturalism in Cross-National Perspective. New York: University Press of America, 1997. Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’. New York and London: Routledge, 1993. Carling, Jorgen. ‘The Human Dynamics of Migrant Transnationalism’. Ethnic and Racial Studies 31(2008): 1452–1477. Chimbos, Peter. ‘Occupational Distribution and Social Mobility of GreekCanadian Immigrants’. Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora 14 (1987): 131–143. Christou, Anastasia. Narratives of Place, Culture and Identity: Second-Generation Greek-Americans Return Home. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006. Collins, Francis L. ‘Transnationalism Unbound: Detailing New Subjects, Registers and Spatialities of Cross-Border Lives’. Geography Compass 3 (2009): 434–458. Crouch, David. ‘Flirting with Space: Tourism Geographies as Sensuous/Expressive Practice’. In Seductions of Place: Geographical Perspectives on Globalization and Touristed Landscapes, edited by Carolyn Cartier, and Alan. A. Lew. London: Routledge, 2005. Dragojlovic, Ana. ‘Dutch Women and Balinese Men: Intimacies, Popular Discourses and Citizenship Rights’. Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 9 (2008): 332–345. Dubsich, Jill. ‘Foreign Chickens and Other Outsiders: Gender and Community in Rural Greece’. American Ethnologist 20 (1993): 272–287. Fabian, Johannes. Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. Faist, Thomas. ‘Transnational Social Spaces out of International Migration: Evolution, Significance, and Future Prospects’. European Journal of Sociology 39 (1998): 213–247. Fortier, Anne Marie. Migrant Belongings: Memory, Space, Identity. Oxford: Berg, 2000.

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__________________________________________________________________ Freidus, Andrea, and Nancy Romero-Daza. ‘The Space Between: Globalization, Liminal Spaces and Personal Relations in Rural Costa Rica’. Gender, Place and Culture 16 (2009): 683–702. Friedl, Ernestine. ‘The Position of Women: Appearance and Reality’. In Gender and Power in Rural Greece, edited by Jill Dubsich. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. Frohlick, Susan. ‘Fluid Exchanges: The Negotiation of Intimacy between Tourist Women and Local Men in a Transnational Town in Caribbean Costa Rica’. City and Society 19 (2007): 139–168. Gielis, Ruben. ‘A Global Sense of Migrant Places: Towards a Place Perspective in the Study of Migrant Transnationalism’. Global Networks 9 (2009): 271–287. Gimlin, Debra L. Body Work: Beauty and Self-Image in American Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Glick Schiller, Nina, Linda Basch, and Cristina Szanton-Blanc. ‘From Immigrant to Transmigrant. Theorizing Transnational Migration’. Anthropological Quarterly 68 (1995): 48–63. Herzfeld, Michael. ‘Silence, Submission, and Subversion: Towards a Poetics of Womanhood’. In Contested Identities: Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece, edited by Peter Loizos, and Efthimios Papataxiarchis, 79–97. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991. Hirschon, Renee. Heirs to the Greek Catastrophe: The Social Life of Asia Minor Refugees in Piraeus. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. Jacobs, Jessica. ‘Have Sex Will Travel: Romantic “Sex Tourism” and Women Negotiating Modernity in the Sinai’. Gender, Place & Culture 16 (2009): 43–61. Kaplan, Caren. Questions of Travel: Postmodern Discourses of Displacement. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1996.

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__________________________________________________________________ Karpathakis, Anna. ‘“I Don’t Have to Worry about Money Anymore and I Can Live Like a Lady:” Greek Immigrant Women and Assimilation’. In Greek American Families: Traditions and Transformations, edited by Sam Tsemberis, Anna Karpathakis, and Harry Psomiades, 151–175. New York: Pella Publishing, 1999. Kibria, Nazli. ‘Of Blood, Belonging and Homeland Trips’. In The Changing Face of Home: The Transnational Lives of the Second Generation, edited by Peggy Levitt, and Mary Waters, 295–311. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2002. King, Russell, and Anastasia Christou. ‘Cultural Geographies of Counter-Diasporic Migration: Perspectives from the Study of Second-Generation “Returnees” to Greece’. Population, Space and Place 16 (2010): 103–119. Nagel, Joanne. Race, Ethnicity, and Sexuality: Intimate Intersections, Forbidden Frontiers. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Panagakos, Anastasia. ‘Romancing the Homeland: Transnational Lifestyles and Gender in the Greek Diaspora’. PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2003. Paxson, Heather. ‘Rationalizing Sex: Family Planning and the Making of Modern Lovers in Urban Greece’. American Ethnologist 29 (2002): 307–334. Tsuda, Takeyuk, ed. Diasporic Homecomings: Ethnic Return Migration in Comparative Perspective. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. Zinovieff, Sofka. ‘Hunters and Hunted: Kamaki and the Ambiguities of Sexual Predation in a Greek Town’. In Contested Identities: Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece, edited by Peter Loizos, and Efthimios Papataxiarchis, 203–220. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991. Anastasia Panagakos is a professor of anthropology at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento, California. Her research interests include marriage practices, gender, and tourism in the Greek diaspora. Her current project is an ethnographic study of a folk dance competition in California and its importance in the construction of Greek diasporic youth culture.

Diasporic Circassian National Identity: An Example of the Circassian Diaspora in Jordan Natalia Agnieszka Hapek Abstract This chapter draws on a research project conducted in Jordan to explore the role of the Circassian minority in that country as well as the construction of Circasianness and the diasporic consciousness of being Circassian. The chapter examines in particular the dawn of the Circassian national movement. It also presents some factors that have contributed to achieving a high social status of Circassians within the Jordanian society. After the Caucasian War, which ended in 1864, most of Circassians had to leave their homeland (nowadays 80-90 per cent of the population live in diaspora). They mostly managed to maintain a sense of distinctiveness, based on their culture and the common experience of forced migration although, in many cases, they did not avoid assimilation and the awareness of being Circassian became dormant. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Circassians obtained a chance of re-establishing relations with their homeland and the situation of the Circassian diaspora started to change. Now Circassians are witnessing a major change, which may be called an awakening. Globalisation and the new media, especially the Internet, play an important role in that process, which has helped to construct the new idea of a global Circassian diaspora. Also the organisation of the Olympic Games in Sochi (former Circassian land) in 2014 may be perceived as a catalyst. Nowadays Circassians are beginning to shape the way they perceive and present themselves. Among these endeavours revitalisation of Circassian language must be mentioned. Political actions are being undertaken within the diasporas. The problem of the lack of possibility of satisfactory return to the homeland has also been raised. This revival may be particularly observed in Jordan, as Circassians living there have always been one of the most, if not the most, active Circassian diaspora. Key Words: Circassian, Caucasus, Adyghe, Kabardian, Jordan, diaspora, identity, language, revitalisation, revival. ***** 1. Introduction Circassians (self-designation: Adyghe) originate in the North-West Caucasus. After the Caucasian War, which ended in 1864, they were cleansed from their homeland by tsarist Russians. According to the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation, ‘over 1.5 million Circassians were murdered or deported to the Ottoman Empire. Less than 800,000 survived the tragic exodus (...).’ 1 Now only about 10 per cent of Circassians live in the North-West Caucasus. The whole

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__________________________________________________________________ Circassian population worldwide can be estimated at about 5-6 million (estimates vary from 3,7 2 to 8,5 million 3 ). The biggest Circassian diasporas can be found in the Middle East, especially in Turkey, Syria and Jordan. Since 2005, the Circassian Congress has been calling the Russian Federation to acknowledge that the policy of the Russian Empire towards Circassians, i.e., the expulsion in which a high number of deportees perished due to the military campaign, famine, epidemics and the fact that many ships with deportees sank on the Black Sea was genocide. In 2011, the Circassian genocide was recognised by Georgia. Common memories of deportation and suffering have become a significant part of the Circassian identity. Nowadays a major transition may be observed, which is the beginning of Circassian national movement. The recognition of the genocide is one of the most important issues raised by those movements. Also the issue of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games to be held in Sochi is sensitive as in 1864 Sochi was the last Circassian city and the port of Circassian deportation to the Ottoman Empire. Sochi is a symbol of Circassian expulsion and a witness of Circassian tragedy. Although the first cause of these national movements was the collapse of the Soviet Union, the very important catalysts started to play their roles only recently: the new media (the Internet) and the organisation of the Sochi Olympic Games. 2. Historical Background The Circassian-Russian war started in 1763. The Russian conquest of Circassian lands ended over a century later, in 1864. Circassians were not only defeated, but also expelled from their land. First deportees appeared in Jordan in 1878 and settled in Amman. Different Circassian sub-ethnic groups (so called tribes) settled also in a few other locations. The estimated number of all arrivals was about 3,5 thousand. A high level of co-operation existed among them and a good standard of living was achieved. (...) Circassian was the principal language of communication and exogamous marriages were rare. (...) Circassian society was very stable and secure (...). 4 The number of Circassians currently living in Jordan is estimated between 20 and 130 thousand. 5 The second one seems to be much more accurate (according to the members of the Circassian Charity Association). They have played an important role in Jordanian economy, commerce, industry, agriculture and especially in politics (as members of parliament or senators) and the military. Circassians were present - as ministers - in most of the Jordanian cabinets. They have occupied a wide range of posts in the government (for example in the 1950s, a Circassian politician, Sa’id al-Mufti was the Prime Minister four times), in

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__________________________________________________________________ military, security, diplomacy, etc. At present, they are reserved (together with the Chechens) a quota of three seats in the Lower House of the Parliament and two seats in the Upper House. Circassian loyalty to the Hashemite dynasty gave them a certain reputation of good, responsible citizens and some political influence. Due to Jordanian liberal approach, Circassians were able to establish a number of organisations and institutions that were aimed at preserving their identity, culture and language. However, the significant role Circassians played in Jordan has distracted them from considerable efforts to maintain elements of their identity, e.g. their language. 3. The Circassian Charity Association and Prince Hamza School The Circassian Charity Association (CCA) in Amman was founded in 1932 (as the Circassian Fraternity Association) and was the second oldest charity organisation in Jordan. Then, after 1951, when all the associations in Jordan were dissolved, the Association was re-established and re-registered under its current name. It consists of the Center (based in Amman) and six branches, located in towns of appreciable Circassian population (Sweileh, Wadi al-Seer, Na’ur, Russeifa, Zarqa, and Jerash). There is also the Ladies’ Branch of the Association, located in Amman. The Association is a member of the International Circassian Association (ICA). The institution’s objectives include development and strengthening of the relations between members of the Circassian community. As it is a charity organisation, its goal is also to provide the welfare of the community (Circassians, but not necessarily members of the Association) and to support families in need. The Association is also active in different fields of social and cultural life. It encourages young Circassians to keep their identity, continue traditions and customs. The CCA maintains contacts with other Circassian organisations and communities. It organises exchanges and scholarships (about 15 every year) offered to high school graduates in educational institutions of the Caucasus. The Association publishes a Circassian magazine Nart (in Arabic language; sometimes short texts in the Circassian language are included), devoted mostly to the history, culture and news concerning Circassians living in Jordan and abroad. The institution’s website was created recently to spread the news and to facilitate the contact. In response to the needs of the young Circassian generation, the CCA has been organising Circassian language courses. At present the language is taught by a teacher from Kabardino-Balkaria, while courses are opened for all Circassians and free of charge. Recently the Association’s Branch in Wadi al-Seer has opened a kindergarten (Prince Ali Ibn Al-Hussein Kindergarten), where children will be familiarised with Circassian language and culture.

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__________________________________________________________________ Although the CCA is not officially involved in politics and operates as a charity organisation, it cooperates with new Circassian movements, like 21st May Group. The association’s headquarters is the place where, for instance, the group’s lectures and some meetings are held. Nart exemplifies the CCA’s adjustment to the changing situation - in 2011 for the first time in the history May 21 was not only a day of Circassian mourning, but also a day of Circassian protests in front of Russian embassies in different countries. Some pictures of the protests were later published in Nart, including a New York picture of people holding a banner ‘Free Circassia Now,’ a picture from Istanbul, showing Circassians with ‘No Sochi 2014’ banners and a picture from Amman, showing Circassians with banners ‘Recognition of the genocide suffered by Circassians is a responsibility of Russia’ or ‘We demand Russia to recognise the national and historical rights of the Circassian people.’ Also there was published a meaningful picture from Maykop (the Republic of Adygea) showing people holding a banner ‘1763-∞?!’ (in 1763 the Russian-Circassian war started). 6 Though officially the Association does not support new movements or organisation of protests in front of the embassies, it does not avoid or ignore this topic. Despite the undergoing transition of Circassians, the CCA has been dealing with a few problems that make its efficient activity challenging. A lack of a general plan and a lack of a strong, charismatic leadership must be mentioned among such problems. The Prince Hamza School (PHS) is managed by the Ladies’ Branch of the CCA. It was started as a kindergarten project in 1974. At present there is a kindergarten, a primary school (grades 1-6), a middle school (grades 7-10) and a secondary school (2 years). The PHS is a private institution. Currently (school year 2011-12), it is attended by approximately 850 students (including 98 in the kindergarten), the majority of which (about 90 per cent) are of Circassian origin. 7 The School is the only educational institution in Jordan at which Circassians can learn their language and culture. Grades in Circassian language, however, are not shown on the final certificate due to the Jordanian law (which allows showing on the final school leaving certificate only grades in Arabic and English language). Because of that, many students are not motivated enough to learn the language, therefore, they do not endeavour to do that. As fees in the PHS are lower than in other private schools and it has a good reputation, sometimes also parents of non-Circassian descent decide to send their children to the PHS. They are aware that the children will be taught the Circassian language and acquainted with Circassian history and culture. Language teachers in the PHS are native speakers of Circassian language (Kabardian, i.e. the Eastern dialect) coming from the Caucasus. They use books and materials brought mainly from Kabardino-Balkaria. Circassian language is taught in grades 1-10 (from four lessons a week in grade one to two classes a week in the last grade). Language classes are meant not only to teach students the

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__________________________________________________________________ language, but also to acquaint them with the Circassian culture, songs, traditions, poems etc. The PHS also runs a Circassian dance troupe called Albroz with approximately 60 young dancers. They give shows not only in Jordan, but also abroad, e.g. in Germany or Scotland. 4. Al-Ahli Club, Al-Jeel al-Jadeed Club, and the International Circassian Cultural Academy Al-Ahli Club was established in 1944. Its activities are concentrated mostly on sports and culture. It has become famous especially for its basketball, football and handball teams and for achievements in martial arts. Members of Al-Ahli sport teams have been taking part in many games and tournaments, both national and international ones; they are often chosen to become members of the national squads. 8 The Club was set up to help Circassians fully participate in various aspects of modern life. It is open for non-Circassians, for instance most of the members of Al-Ahli’s famous handball team are of Arab origin. 9 Al-Ahli plays also a role in social life, especially regarding men’s and women’s equality. One of its purposes is to strengthen bonds among members of the Club and preserve the spirit of belonging to the Club. It encourages the members to volunteer for different projects, e.g. parcelling of aid supplies. Al-Ahli has also participated in Jordanian cultural life. In 1993 the Folklore Committee was established and since then it has started many projects to preserve Circassian traditions, culture and their rich heritage. A dance troupe famous for its professional and spectacular shows was set up. Al-Jeel al-Jadeed Club was opened in 1950 (1949). It played a special role in Circassian cultural life, especially at the beginning of the 1960s, when a charismatic Circassian writer and historian, Kuba Shaban, came from the Caucasus and brought a new spirit. Thanks to Shaban a revival of Circassian culture emerged in Jordan, including staging plays in the Circassian language. Shaban also created a new Circassian alphabet based on the Latin script (Latin characters were used for Circassian in 1920s and 1930s, then in 1937-1938 Cyrillic letters were implemented due to the politics of the Soviet Union). As Shaban left for the US, the community was left without a leader capable of continuing his work. The next revival, though not so important, came in the early 1980s. Al-Jeel is opened mostly for people of Circassian origin and is trying to maintain Circassian distinctiveness. The Club is famous for its dance troupe, including musicians playing on traditional Circassian instruments and singers performing traditional Circassian songs. It is currently led by Sawzer Dishack, a Circassian from the US. It has also several different sport teams and offers activities like basketball, football, or martial arts. In 2010 many members of the dance troupe left Al-Jeel and together with their coach Yinal Hatk joined a new organisation called the International Circassian Cultural Academy (ICCA). Despite this fact, Al-Jeel’s ensemble was quickly

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__________________________________________________________________ rebuilt. It aims not only to preserve the national dances and music, but also to acquaint its young members with Circassian history and language. Coaches and leaders of Al-Jeel motivate young dancers and members of sport teams to learn the history and the language. 10 Summer camps and other activities are organised, for instance, a trip for the members of the dance troupe to the Caucasus. The International Circassian Cultural Academy (ICCA) was established in 2010 and its main goal is to acquaint young Circassians with their traditions and heritage. It runs a dance troupe called the Highlanders, which - though new - has already gained a good reputation and has found its space in Jordanian cultural sphere. The ICCA offers also Circassian language courses and lectures on different historical and cultural topics. Plans of the ICCA for 2012 have been mostly related to education: to publish a book about Circassian history, to launch Circassian language classes, to establish a library of the ICCA, and to gather books about Circassian history, language, customs and traditions. 11 5. Other Institutions and Organisations The National Adighe Radio and Television (NART TV) was established in 2007 as the first Circassian satellite channel, covering areas with considerable Circassian communities (Middle East, Turkey, Russia). It broadcasts mostly in the Circassian language. It was set up to preserve the language and increase the number of its speakers (NART broadcasts Circassian language courses), develop and strengthen connections among Circassians worldwide, preserve Circassian identity, culture and heritage, and present the Circassian history to the world. 12 Circassians commemorate the tragedy of their nation (i.e. expulsion, genocide, and the dispersion of the nation) on May 21. In 2010 the 21st of May Group was created. It aims to regain Circassian national and historical rights, raise national awareness and call for the recognition of the Circassian genocide. The group maintains contacts with other Circassian organisations abroad and in the Caucasus. It organises lectures, meetings and different actions concerning the genocide and Sochi Olympic Games (for example on May 21 in 2011 and 2012 the group organised protests in front of the Russian Embassy in Amman, while its members had also a meeting with the vice-president of the Jordanian Olympic Committee). The Jordanian-Circassian Political Movement (Al-Hirak al-Siyasi al-Sharkasi al-Urduni) is a new movement that consists of some well known and influential Circassians (ex-ministers of Jordanian cabinets, scholars, activists). It came to exist as a result of changes and reforms witnessed in the Jordanian political area. For the Circassian community, it has become a necessity to react to these changes, so that they could keep what they had gained in the past years, increase the benefits and provide new plans and visions for the future of Circassians and the whole Jordanian society. The following are mentioned as Al-Hirak’s goals: development of the political awareness of the Circassian community, preparation for the upcoming elections, undertaking actions to make the existing quota of three seats

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__________________________________________________________________ in the parliament (for both Circassians and Chechens) a minimum, not the maximum limit, and contribution to the building of Jordanian future. Al-Hirak’s purpose is also to help preserve Circassian language and culture by making sure Circassians are a respected part of the Jordanian society with their own traditions, language and heritage. 13 6. Language and Identity Preservation Problems As mentioned above, there are a few different possibilities to learn the language. However, the number of its speakers systematically decreases (only about 17 per cent of young Circassians can use the language). 14 As Nart Qakhoon from the Prince Hamza School said, to learn the language either a will or a need is necessary; the situation in Jordan shows the lack of both of them. The main problem is the fact that Circassian is nowadays usually not used at homes, so young people speak Arabic within their families. Even if they learn Circassian, for example, at school or in other institutions, they are not able to use it fluently. Circassian institutions have yet not created a real need for young people to learn the language; 15 however, there are some attempts - like coaches of dance ensembles speaking to the dancers in Circassian. Despite the fact that every year 15 scholarships are offered and students go to the Caucasus to study there, none of them has so far gone to the Caucasus to study the Circassian language. Because of that, there is a lack of people able to speak both Arabic and Circassian and qualified to teach the language. Teachers hailed from the Caucasus face problems to communicate with students in Arabic and to explain to them Circassian grammar or vocabulary. Also, materials brought from the Caucasus are not always appropriate to teach the language in the Middle East. The Circassian Cyrillic alphabet is sometimes mentioned as an obstacle for young people to learn the language; however, teachers usually claim that the problem is not in the alphabet itself, but in students’ attitude towards learning the language. A few versions of the modernised Circassian Latin script are available: the one created by Kuba Shaban, the new one for Kabardian created by Amjad Jaimoukha 16 (sometimes used by Circassians in the US) and the one created by Muhammad Bitar. 17 None of them has gained popularity within Circassians in Jordan. Though Circassians have never had any obstacles to learn or to use their language in Jordan, they mostly did not manage to preserve it. Most of them have maintained their sense of distinctiveness, national pride, but in some cases the pride of Circassian origin is not accompanied by an awareness of Circassian history, customs, traditions. As an example, one of the coaches of the dance troupe in Al-Jeel al-Jadeed Club said that in 2010 he had asked 40 young dancers about Sochi and about the date May 21. At that time only 2 out of 40 young Circassians (5 per cent) knew what Sochi meant, only 4 (10 per cent) knew what had happened on 21st May 1864. 18

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__________________________________________________________________ Perhaps, paradoxically, the good situation of Circassians living in Jordan (i.e. good economic and social situation, lack of obstacles to maintain their identity and culture, and the possibility of creating Circassian organisations, clubs, institutions etc.) has not motivated them to put enough effort to preserve the language and some aspects of their identity. In some particular cases being Circassian has even become only an empty term, but due to the recently observed revival, the situation has been changing. Circassians, especially young, are becoming active and aware of their rights and identity. It is hard to predict the future shape of the Circassian community in Jordan, but new waves of activism and the power of the Internet create new opportunities.

Notes 1

UNPO: Circassia, Unrepresended Nations and Peoples Organization, accessed June 12, 2012, http://www.unpo.org/members/7869. 2 Ibid. 3 Zamir Shukhov, ‘Cherkesskaya Diaspora. Repetriatsya ili Assymilatsya’, accessed June 12, 2012, http://www.elot.ru/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2445&ItI tem=1. 4 Amjad Jaimoukha, The Circassians: A Handbook (Richmond: Curzon Press 2001), 107. 5 Ulle Rannut, Maintenance of the Circassian Language in Jordan. SelfIdentification, Attitudes, Policies and Practices as Indicators of Linguistic Vitality, (Amman 2011), 6-10; Jaimoukha, The Circassians: A Handbook, 107; Shukhov, ‘Cherkesskaya Diaspora. Repetriatsya ili Assymilatsya’. 6 Rozi Bulad, ‘Yuhayyun Dhikra Al-ibada Al-jama’iyya wa Al-tahjeer’, Nart 6, No. 97 (2011): 8-14. 7 Personal interviews with Sirsa Sholakh and Abeer Al-Mufti, Amman, March 21, 2012. 8 Amjad Jaimoukha, ‘The Circassians in Jordan (A Brief Introduction)’, Circassian World, accessed May 12, 2012, http://www.circassianworld.com/Circassians_in_Jordan.html. 9 Personal interview with Said Shuqom, Amman, June 7, 2012. 10 Personal interview with Sawzer Dishack, Amman, June 4, 2012. 11 Personal interviews with members of the ICCA, Amman, May 24, 2012. 12 National Adighe Radio and Television, accessed June 25, 2012, http://www.narttv.tv/about.html. 13 Personal interviews with Dr. Muhammad Kheir Mamser, Amman, March 3 and March 21, 2012; personal interview with dr. Mohy Al-Deen Touq, Amman, April 4, 2012.

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__________________________________________________________________ 14

Jaimoukha, ‘The Circassians in Jordan: A Brief Introduction’. Personal interview with Nart Qakhoon, Amman, June 13, 2012. 16 Jaimoukha, The Circassians: A Handbook, 320-324. 17 Personal interview with Muhammad Bitar, Amman, March 15, 2012. 18 Personal interview with Yanal Masha, Amman, April 12, 2012. 15

Bibliography Al-Ahli Club. Accessed June 18, 2012. http://www.ahliclub.jo/. Al-Jeel al-Jadeed Club. Accessed June 18, 2012. http://aljeelaljadeed.com/. Bulad, Rozi. ‘Yuhayyun Dhikra Al-ibada Al-jama’iyya wa Al-tahjeer’. Nart 6, No. 97 (2011): 8–14. Jaimoukha, Amjad. The Circassians: A Handbook. Richmond: Curzon Press, 2001. —––. ‘The Circassians in Jordan: A Brief Introduction’. Circassian World. Accessed May 12, 2012. http://www.circassianworld.com/Circassians_in_Jordan.html. National Adighe Radio and http://www.narttv.tv/about.html.

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25,

2012.

Personal interviews with (in chronological order): dr. Muhammad Kheir Mamser (Amman, March 3 and March 21, 2012), Muhammad Bitar (Amman, March 15, 2012), Sirsa Sholakh and Abeer Al-Mufti (Amman, March 21, 2012), dr. Mohy AlDeen Touq (Amman, April 4, 2012), Yanal Masha (Amman, April 12, 2012), members of the International Circassian Cultural Academy (Amman, May 24, 2012), Sawzer Dishack (Amman, June 4, 2012), Said Shuqom (Amman, June 7, 2012), Nart Qakhoon (Amman, June 13, 2012). Rannut, Ulle. Maintenance of the Circassian Language in Jordan. SelfIdentification, Attitudes, Policies and Practices as Indicators of Linguistic Vitality. Amman 2011. Shukhov, Zamir. ‘Cherkesskaya Diaspora. Repetriatsya ili Assymilatsya’. Accessed June 12, 2012. http://www.elot.ru/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2445&ItI ItI=1.

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__________________________________________________________________ UNPO: Circassia, Unrepresended Nations and Peoples Organization. Accessed June 12, 2012. http://www.unpo.org/members/7869. Natalia Agnieszka Hapek holds a B.A. and M.A. degree in Oriental Studies (specialisation: Arabic Studies) from the University of Warsaw, Poland. Currently she is a PhD student of Oriental Studies at the same university. She also studies Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Warsaw, Section ‘Collegium Bobolanum’ and Law (as a part of Inter-Faculty Individual Studies in the Humanities) at the University of Warsaw. Her research interests and experience span a wide range of subjects: contemporary history and politics of the Middle East and the North Caucasus, Islam, inter-religious dialogue and international law. She has published a number of articles devoted to the history of the North Caucasus, history and politics of the Arabian Peninsula, and Islam. From December 2011 to June 2012, as an M.A. candidate, she was conducting a research project in Jordan to explore the role of the Circassian minority in the history, politics and social affairs of Jordan as well as the construction of Circassianness and the diasporic consciousness of being Circassian.

Traditional Rituals or Return of the Empire Siranush Dvoyan Abstract After the collapse of the Soviet Empire, a mass emigration began from the independent countries of the former empire to Russia. This phenomenon was at the beginning defined as migration from economically weaker countries to a country with bigger resources. That was true for emigrants from Armenia as well, which was facing war and economic blockade. In the course of time, the number of emigrating families and the tendency of settling in different cities of Russia increased. Over five hundred thousand people live now in several large cities of Russia - in Moscow, in St. Petersburge, in Nijniy Novgorod, in Tolyati. Some of them have already become citizens of the Russian Federation, the others are still hoping that very soon there will be no need for citizenship. What does it mean? The first question that arises when examining the lives of people immigrating to the territories of the former empire is what social environment the emigrants have created and whether or not they can be considered an emigrant community. For my research I use some family video records of my relatives living in Nijniy Novgorod, and some of my friends family video records. From the recorded videos, it becomes obvious that the main topic of the ritual is sharing joy or grief with relatives at least formally. On the other hand, it is obvious that these feelings are not shared through songs or verbal means, e.g. toasts or good wishes. The songs sung during those ceremonies are those popular in show-business and the good wishes sound nearly as they do during similar ceremonies in their motherland. In this regard, these rituals do not essentially differ from the rituals held in their motherland and do not have any impact on the inner lives of the emigrants expressing feelings of a migrant. The ceremony developed in the motherland is repeated not out of nostalgia but because the emigrants have not gone through an experience of becoming migrants, an essential transformation with which a subject of the empire could signal the end of the empire. Continuing to perceive Russia as a successor of the Soviet Union, the migrants contribute to the re-establishment of the empire. Key Words: Emigration, empire, transformation, identity, subjectivity, ideology, virtual communication, post-Soviet, Armenia, Soviet Union. ***** 1. Introduction The beginning of the 1990s is considered to be the era of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The end of the Soviet Empire heralded the beginning of

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__________________________________________________________________ independent states and national self-determination on the territories of almost all countries, regardless of the economic systems adopted by them. Independent Armenia adopted liberal system, in the depth of which the wild period of capital accumulation was getting obvious, though. Later, after 1997, Armenia claimed itself to be a country in transition, which was defined by a period of crisis on the way of transition from the socialist system to capitalism, which is not over yet. This period, labelled as transitional, resulted in complicated situations of formation of the society. The processes of diasporisation can play a very important role in the process of the formation of the society under such circumstances. I am going to speak about some peculiarities of those processes, which, in my opinion, have post-soviet characteristics. After the declaration of independence, Armenia got into a blockade and a serious economic crisis. As a result, the first big wave of emigration to Russia, European countries and the United States started. The second big wave took place after 1997, when several active leaders of the governing bodies of the time were assassinated in the Parliament. The third wave has started since 2008, when the unfavourable economic and political conditions started to become as current norms. 1 Thus, as we can observe, in the cases of all the three waves, we deal with different inducements for emigration. The first wave, according to description by the emigrants, was for earning their piece of bread. Those emigrants, who were migrating during these years, were mostly leaving the country without their families and most of them were coming back. The second wave was also related to the piece of bread, but had one crucial difference, i.e., the majority of those who migrated during these years tried to leave with their families, or within some time period they tried to come back and take their families with them. The third wave was substantially different from the first two, because an essential part of those who left during those times had a primary desire of leaving their motherland. If we take into consideration the above mentioned inducements, the basis between the first two and the last emigration waves and thus the processes of diasporisation should be quite different from each other. In this case I will refer only to the emigration to Russia, as those to Europe and the USA are significantly different from it. In the case of the first wave of emigration, the possibility of diasporisation was very little, leaving the home did not result in such phenomenon because of one simple reason - the migrant did not leave their country with a prospective of establishing living and staying there. This is very similar to the internal emigrations which were very common during the Soviet times on the territory of Soviet Union, which got a common name khopan em gnum/going to the wastelands (the word comes from spoken language and is literally translated as going to work on the uncultivated lands/wastelands). During those years there were large construction and road construction projects in the northern parts of Russia. Thus, for a migrant, who worked there for several months in the year, this was a

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__________________________________________________________________ seasonal job with extra profits. Moreover, there were a few songs, popular in that time, which mainly featured the process of seeing off and expectation, which was mostly materialistic. Those who were migrating during the first wave to Russia would use that very term of I’m going to the wastelands to describe their departure. As for the second wave, though, when they were leaving with their families, this expression was used much less. They would rather say I am leaving for Russia, which had a similar meaning to I am moving to live in Russia. There were already less cases of migrating for the reason of seasonal work only. Then people leave their homeland with their families and settle down in another place, it is nothing else but the first step to diasporisation. From this moment onwards, the issues of relating to foreigners, identity and other questions should come out. And it is here that the peculiarities of post-Soviet societies appear. I am interested in observing the diasporisation experiences that the migrants go through. For that reason I have used the video recordings made in those families: the recordings are mostly related to the gathering occasions. 2 I have considered two main types of gatherings joyful celebrations and grief rituals, since these are the informal occasions where collectivity display the collective anxieties and emotions. Formal celebrations are held on the state level and aim mainly to show the good relations between the two countries. 2. Collective Anxieties Family gatherings are mostly on the occasion of wedding ceremonies or birthday celebrations. The recorded videos mostly demonstrate the split in collectivity, in the sense that those recordings are made not only for the family archive, which is very common for family videos, but are rather made for sending them to homeland. In any case the links to the homeland are not broken. This is explained by emigrants as a desire of making their relatives far in the homeland participate in their joy. The evidence of that are such ceremonies as drinking a special toast to those relatives who are far away from us (from emigrants - S.D.) as well as a personalised toast to each of those relatives. This virtual communication is nothing else but an indestructible link to the parent collectivity through the capabilities of technology, where memory ties are most significant. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that drinking a toast to relatives who are far away is a part of general ceremony, which is typically Armenian. In every similar Armenian gathering, no matter where the gathering takes place, there is such a ritual, where individual or group toasts to all the relatives are obligatory. The toastmaster, who is in charge of organizing and executing the ritual, introduces those relatives one by one, mentioning special features for each and every person. With a careful study, one can notice, that those toasts are offered with particular diligence and persistence, so that the person is presented with the most complete description. In this way, regardless of whether the recipient is physically present or not, seems that every time the connection with them is re-established through the

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__________________________________________________________________ speech and the ritual itself. It seems that there is something missing and efforts for the re-establishment of that missing part are made through rituals. In the depth of it, we deal with collective anxiety, which I would call anxiety of missing social links. Let clarify the matter, those family celebrations include gatherings of relatives in both meanings - kin relatives as well as people belonging to the same nation. Such a sense of relationship leads to sharing feelings and emotions with each other and to creating collective emotions. This is what, in a sense, spontaneously brings the community together at least in the modern era. These collective emotions are the powers that create the collectivity. But these emotions obey to the rituals, since wedding ceremonies are similar to each other and repeat within the time; at the same time, they are spontaneous, as every time a new ceremony takes place, it happens within a new collectivity. The toasts, which follow one another, are made according to established rituals, but at the same time, in each case they are different and unique. It is just the matter of what kind of connection is established every time between the approved ritual and every unique case. Does any connection take place at all or not? To understand this, one should study the ways of expressing the emotions; and one of this ways is mussic. An important part of wedding cereminies is accompanying music. Studying the primary cultures, one can notice that music has served as the general means through which people formed collectivity. Some tribes have preserved this function of music until nowadays. People express their appreciation and prayer via and through music. Therefore, it is not only a way of expressing emotions, but also a means of transferring them and letting others connect and become part of them. Thus, songs and music cannot be occasional at any ritual. What kind of songs and music are played at Armenian wedding ceremonies? It is mostly popular music performed by the representatives of show-business and partly modernised versions of folk songs. A careful study will show that popular music represented by show-business, regardless of its language, rapidly enters and becomes an essential part of ceremonies. It seems that the fact that those songs are widely accepted plays a bigger role than their accordance to the ceremony. On the other hand, the songs are no longer private and gain common nature. However, the most interesting fact is that music by Armenian and Russian show-business are almost equally present, unlike European. This suggests, though, that we are not just dealing with show-business, which is universal casual culture. In this case, this universality is partial. 3. One Space, One Culture The Soviet ideology developed one common space not only in the legal sense. That space was identified as common culture. Consciousness of private, individual (subjective) culture was banned and considered anti-ideological. Under such circumstances, the emerging of citizen is quite difficult, if not impossible. The

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__________________________________________________________________ sudden split happened in the 1990s, when individuals started to identify themselves separate from the ideology. This act of separation was the first step to subjectivity. The common space was destructed and the culture started to migrate from the centre to suburbs. It is interesting to note that at the beginning of the 1990s we dealt with total absence of recognition of the centre, which in its turn resulted in the absence of culture, as within the system culture was created and identified only as a result of tension with the centre. The precondition for independence in its depth was this general migration to personal spaces, to homelands. This chronologically coincided with the either forced or voluntary transfer of people from different republics to their homeland: such phenomena took place in almost all the republics. In those years, Armenians living in Azerbaijan and some regions of Georgia were forced to return; Armenians living in other Soviet countries, as well as in Europe and the USA also returned to the motherland. Most of those who returned with freewill shared the approach of we have returned to build our independent motherland. This should probably be viewed as migration for the sake of identity. In professional spheres such phenomena are not being considered as ‘migration,’ but rather as ‘return,’ as initially there was ‘homeland’ and ‘image of the homeland’ and emotions of being forced to leave away from there. In any case, I would consider this as migration, as we deal with active moving from one place to another, from one culture to another. One should also take into consideration that this kind of migration is the first step to subjectivity, as it goes from generality to individuality, if we may regard building the motherland as such. One should also not forget that building the motherland is of significant importance for the Armenian reality for a simple reason of having been deprived of statehood for many centuries. Thus, the migration from the centre to suburbs is nothing but an urge to build one’s own centre. Nevertheless, the re-migration, which started during the economic crisis in the 1990s, somehow questions it. The fact that hundred thousands of people are leaving the country is not the only reason. This goes without saying. The problem is that the carving of the motherland, which in this case I would call carving of national identity, is being questioned by re-migration due to the fact that the recreation of broken/distorted identity has been one of the post-Soviet complexities. During those years, thousands of linked to the heroic events of the beginning of the century and pride of Armenian historical past were published and many historical novels and theatre plays were written. In its depth all this was directed to reestablishment and re-creation of the lost identity. Thus, the subjectified migration from the centre to suburbs got interrupted. Until now any aspect of the re-migration from the centre to the edges and back has not been studied in the post-Soviet republics. The main argument, according to which the economic conditions are being regarded as the main impulse for the remigration have not been examined. Of course, this very important precondition

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__________________________________________________________________ cannot be denied when studying modern migrations, but according to my deep belief, here we deal with a much more complicated reality. What I call subjectified migration is characteristic of post-imperial reality, where the carving of the national identity requires two aspects - reviewing of interpretation of the national identity according to modern geopolitical developments and continuing its liberation from the imperial charm. 3 Naturally, the liberation process brings a requirement of being recognised by the world, with the help of which the national identity should start formulating as an inseparable participant of current processes and in this way it can overcome the imperial charm. Nevertheless, the logics of these two actions not always coincide. In the 1990s, for instance, the president of Republic of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan claimed that ‘national ideology was a fake category,’ 4 taking into consideration that creation of national states was not timely in the modern world, with which it was suggested to review the nationalistic approach according to which liberation desires were confused with the re-establishment and centralisation of the symbols of national past. Opposite to this, the growing nationalistic wave considered that craving of statehood was nothing different from raising of heroic past with the same pathos of heroism, in the result of which liberation became unimportant, since we dealt with re-establishment of well-known symbols. I think that it is the result of this action that interrupts the subjectified migration. The first wave of re-migration, as I mentioned above, was for earning the piece of bread and the migrants were mainly leaving for seasonal work and returning shortly after. In the end of the 1990s, when Armenia partly got through blockade and the war ended, the majority of emigrants returned with the aim to leave for the country to which they migrated together with their families. Shortly, within 2-3 years’ time, the emigrants not only moved, but also established living in the foreign country, trying to get not only temporary residence and work permission, but also citizenship, which would mean that they were not going to return to homeland. 4. Return of the Empire as Re-Establishment of the Symbol of ‘Acquaintance’ In the early period, those who re-migrated to Russia did not demonstrate any hurry in getting citizenship. Apart from this, the emigrants would distinguish between Russia and Europe as our and foreign/other countries. In any case, Russia was being interpreted as our country, which meant that the emigration to this territory was not regarded as such. It was interpreted as re-migration to homeland. In the 1990s Russia also undertook the process of creating the national statehood. Almost similar processes as in the other republics took place there as well, only with one significant difference that the liberation questions of Russia were of institutional character - related to changing of Soviet institutions. Russia did not put the question of liberation of the national identity. That was why the

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__________________________________________________________________ nationalistic wave did not start the re-establishment of the symbols of past, but instead the known symbols, which were related to the empire. There was no need to bring into circulation the glorious pages of the past, as the present could also be created with such glory. In its depth, Russia was continuing creating its history as the true successor of the Russian statehoods of the past. Thus, the institutional improvements in the republics started by Mikhail Gorbachov provoked independence wave, which resulted in collapse of the empire, while the centre got a chance to continue. Thus, during the following years the re-migration from the suburbs to the centre is nothing else, but an urge to return to an old acquaintance. It is important to mention here another small exception. The newly independent nations, Armenians in particular, did not have their direct national past. This is a characteristic feature of colonised identity, which is deprived of having its immediate past. So when it turns to the past, in order to be able to build the present, it meets a huge gap, which, perhaps, might be easy to fill in with empty symbols. On the other hand, that direct past is the imperialist past to which it might return maybe because of the fear for the gap. Here is the question why the re-migrant is back becomes significant. The question can be understood if one pays attention to the daily life of emigrants. They continue to live for the piece of bread, and they can not express their subjectivity by establishment a peculiar local culture inside the community. The routine is solved into the total and can not be separated in any way. It does not witness as reality either. I mean that, for example, at the gatherings people do not sing songs, which tell about culture of emigrants, or any song, which would refer to their daily life. In its depth, those people who migrated did not go through the specific transformation, which would make them into emigrants. They continue to belong to their traditional culture, which means that this kind of culture can help the return to the empire.

Notes 1

There are no official data on the number have emigrated, but some media spread information, that about 30 percent of the population in Armenia has a desire for immigration, e.g. http://armenianow.com/node/27386, http://lragir.am/armsrc/print.country51579. 2 Any research or publication about this could not be identified, so it had to be based on recorded materials from the archives of the families who have emigrated. Thus, the basic materials are not publicly available. 3 Armenian critic Hrach Bayadyan studies about post-Soviet Armenia as a postcolonial space: see Hrach Bayadyan, Hierarchy and Hrach Bayadyan, Becoming Post-Soviet:

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__________________________________________________________________ http://monumenttotransformation.org/atlas-oftransformation/html/h/hierarchy/hierarchy-hrach-bayadyan.html; http://www.hatjecantz.de/controller.php?cmd=detail&titzif=00003088, 4 Levon Ter-Petrosian, ‘National Ideology’, Hayastani Hanrapetutyun Daily 16 April, 1996.

Bibliography Bayadyan, Hrach. ‘Hierarchy’. Atlas of Transformation. Transit 2011. Accessed September 16, 2012. http://monumenttotransformation.org/atlas-oftransformation/html/h/hierarchy/hierarchy-hrach-bayadyan.html. Bayadyan, Hrach. ‘Becoming Post-Soviet’. Series: Documenta (13), Notizen: 100 Gedanken No. 059, 2012, 24. Accessed September 16, 2012. http://www.hatjecantz.de/controller.php?cmd=detail&titzif=00002908. Dawisha, Karen, and Bruce Parrott, eds. The End of Empire? The Transformation of the USSR in Comparative Perspectiv. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997. Roeder, Philip G. ‘Soviet Federalism and Ethnic Mobilization’. The Soviet Nationality Reader: The Disintegration in Context, Edited by Rachel Denber. Oxford: Westview Press, 1992. Ter-Petrosian, Levon. ‘National Ideology’. Hayastani Hanrapetutyun Daily, 16 April, 1996. Siranush Dvoyan is a literary critic and a Comparative Literature lecturer at Yerevan State University. Her research interests include the culture of Armenian communities in post-Soviet realms, new diasporic experiences and the revolutionary articulations in literature that lead to new formations.

Topological and Content Analysis of the Cyberspace of the Indian Diaspora Eric Leclerc Abstract One of the critical issues about diasporas is their ability to maintain relationships and links despite the distance. Since the mid-1980s researchers put forward their propensity to use various and often the latest media to do so. The advent of the web has accelerated this trend. The web carries pictures and sounds, not just the voice, at a lower and lower cost. Speed links and enhanced communications with the dissemination of ICT are transforming uprooted migrants to connected migrants. Whether to maintain a cultural identity or to find a space for expression outside the traditional media that is difficult for them to access because of their minority status, we find that cyberspace has been heavily occupied by diasporas. Coming back to the aim of A. Brah’s Cartographies of Diaspora 1 but in a literal sense, the E-atlas diaspora project ‘Exploration and mapping of diasporas on digital networks’ directed by Dana Diminescu’s objective is to sketch a map of cyberspace of digital diasporas. The Indian diaspora, which serves as an example in our case, is one of the main actors of the cyberspace of diasporas as shown in many sites built in India as well as in other countries. After a short presentation of the state of research in this area, this chapter provides a first exploration of cyberspace of the Indian diaspora through the analysis of more than 1000 websites all over the world. Three issues have been selected: the contours of the cyberspace of the Indian diaspora, the initial centres of the construction of this cyberspace and finally the internal organisation of this set. The study is based on the topological analysis of the network of websites and qualitative approaches of their content. Key Words: Indian diaspora, cyberspace, network, identity, virtual, nation, communities. ***** Migrants constitute a privileged field for analysing the role of communications media in the management of distance by men. The focus on the use of ICT by migrants is the result of a representation, i.e., they are particularly affected by their absence and the distance from their relatives. This ‘compulsion of proximity,’ writes Diminescu, finds effective remedies through ICT to the point perhaps to erase the feeling of absence. Several factors are transforming uprooted migrants into ‘connected migrants:’ 2 firstly, speed connections; secondly, the enrichment of exchanges and the voice added to image; thirdly, the wider diffusion of ICT through cost reduction.

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__________________________________________________________________ The Indian diaspora is particularly representative of these developments as its presence in cyberspace is massive. So far, the analysis of the cyberspace of the cyberspace of the Indian diaspora was mainly qualitative. The first articles of Mitra or Rai 3 use the techniques of textual analysis of new material and an ‘electronic bulletin board.’ From the late 1990s, researchers have been interested with the content of websites, mainly as collections of documents. The methodology of these researchers (Lal, 4 Bahri, 5 and Brosius 6 ) is qualitative. Their samples are quite small, five for Chakravartty 7 and four for Mallapragada. 8 In no way they claim to be exhaustive. The corpus gathered for this paper seeks to identify the entire Indian diaspora. The results of this experiment are presented here. Before introducing these results, I will indicate my main focus and the method used. 1. Definition of the Corpus and Research Issues For this corpus of the Indian diaspora, I use a common definition of the eDiaspora Atlas project, namely: ‘a heterogeneous entity whose existence depends on the development of a common sense, sense not defined once and for all, but constantly renegotiated during the evolution of the collective.’ 9 This is not an essentialist identity but an identity which is redefined according to the outlines of the group considered. Thus, the limits of the Indian diaspora is my first issue. What are the forms of the limit of this group? Limits folded towards an identity directed to the country of origin as suggested by some authors? 10 Or the boundary type identity 11 where two opposite trends compete? In the research process followed here, the definition of the Indian diaspora is open, depending on the website visited. While some groups were expected (professional associations of doctors or IT specialist), others have been a discovery (seafarers or sports clubs). The territorial reference to delineate the corpus is India. Thus the Sindhi community websites that refer only to Pakistan were excluded. It was the same for websites linked exclusively to other countries in South Asia. For the websites claiming South Asian identity, while including members from India (as far as it was possible to verify this), I have incorporated them. The final corpus has 1089 sites. Once the final list was halted, an automatic robot explored all the 4604 hyperlinks inside the corpus. The selected corpus covers the English and/or French speaking Indian diaspora. For lack of language skills, I have not been able to analyse the websites in Indian languages (Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, etc.) exclusively. This is a point that must be addressed in future analyses. The use of non-Roman characters allows the development of websites in all languages. However, the choice of the language of communication is an important element in defining the target audience. The choice of an Indian language in a foreign country is a community marker that restricts access to information. It may also indicate the geographical origin of the website. This question is my second issue, i.e., is the construction of the cyberspace of the Indian diaspora internal or external to the national territory (India)? This query

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__________________________________________________________________ runs through the whole field of research about the Indian diaspora because the Indian government has recently developed a policy of engagement towards it. During the collection process, the corpus can be classified. I chose three classifications: (1) the scale of the target audience, (2) the aim of the website and (3) the type of collective behind the website (see Image 1). The third category is used to identify whether the website has been created by a political institution, private companies, associations, or individuals. The corpus consists of 85% of associations that are quite active in the cyberspace of the Indian diaspora. I voluntarily removed individual blogs from the collection. The categories for the second classification, the purpose and objectives of the website, were developed progressively during the exploration. To avoid a proliferation of categories, often one category has to be chosen, even though many websites have several goals. The weight of each of them is often difficult to assess because the websites of the diaspora tend to multiply activities. A website is a platform of communication. It has a performative purpose and it is unclear if the activity is real at its sole reading. Thus the category ‘Cultural’ is very broad (26%) because the websites offer many activities: language lessons, fundraising in favour of their community, the organisation of major religious festivals, community meetings or inviting artists. 12 Finally, in the first category in my classification, the scale is based on the explicit audience of the website. It corresponds to a spatial level with six hierarchical categories: caste, region, India, South Asia, Asia, and world. Here we find partially Adams levels with his ethnic and sub-ethnic group distinctions, but without any essentialist connotations. Adams opposed categories oriented towards an entire group in the Diaspora (Ethnic Group Online Nodes) to those exclusively focused on a local group in a peculiar country or city (Local/Regional Sub-Ethnic Group Online). I chose not to decide this issue from the mere reading of the website. This would have led to premature responses to my second issue. It is through the topology of hyperlinks between the websites that I will try to decide. I have encountered a few websites built by caste (3%). This is the finest level of my target audience categories. Caste websites are far from being fully identified. In contrast, many websites claimed a South Asian designation as reported by Mallapragada (10%). 13 The category Asian is even smaller because these are frontier websites for the corpus. The two most important classes are respectively regional (sub-national - 26%) and Indian (60%).

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Image 1: Classification of the Corpus During the construction process of the corpus, I intended to take into account the time variable although it was difficult to record it and variable in nature. The websites of association systematically include an introductory page (About us), which specifies the date of foundation and sometimes refers to the statute of the association. The history of the collective is more or less complete, ranging from a few lines to a true foundation narrative and a chronicle of major events. 14 For religious or commercial websites, this information is much less accurate. The former because they have a complex history as any computer company with numerous acquisitions and premature death, while for the latter, they place themselves in an endless time. If no date of creation was claimed, by default I considered the date of appearance of the website or the oldest event mentioned. So the temporal nature of information varies according to each website category. The date of the first appearance in the cyberspace of the Indian diaspora would have been the most interesting, but it is very rarely indicated. The lack of stability is one of the major challenges of the analysis of the Internet. The websites have multiple forms and varied contents, history of which is not maintained. This is one of the objectives of the e-Diaspora Atlas project: to build a database of the websites for the National Audiovisual Institute that will periodically save a Migr’archive. As stated by Diminescu in the presentation of the programme: Realism does not allow a comprehensive conservation reflecting both the diversity and evolution of websites on migration. The

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__________________________________________________________________ primary objective is to archive information in a meaningful way leaving the possibility for future users (researchers involved in migration) to tap into the archive based on their particular research perspective. 15 For my part, adding the time variable will raise a third issue in the analysis of my corpus, namely the links between the production of websites and historical events that affect the Indian diaspora.

Image 2: Original Graph of the Indian Diaspora

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__________________________________________________________________ 2. An Analysis of the Corpus of the Indian Diaspora Once the corpus and the relationships between all elements have been identified, this may be the subject of a ‘mapping’ by resorting to the graph theory. As part of the e-Diaspora Atlas, the treatment tool is Gephi, which offers varied spatialisation of the information. This is the gateway to the workshop of the cartographer, to borrow the title of an article by Ghitalla. 16 The map of cyberspace is designed to extract oneself from the navigation process, to step back. To produce a visualisation of the cyberspace serves to understand its organisation and how it functions. The visualisation is based on two principles: firstly, a graphic semiology which incorporates the standard techniques of mapping and, secondly, mathematical and statistical treatments that build a meaningful topology of the corpus. The result is a very dense graph that consists of nodes, websites, arcs, and hyperlinks between sites (see Image 2). This image contains none of the conventional benchmarks of mapping (cardinal directions, scale). The up-and-down direction is arbitrarily set by the way of writing the names of the websites. By default the browser (navicrawler) collects all addresses (URLs). For the sake of clarity, I preferred the name of the collective, which administered the websites. This adds to the work of constitution of the corpus because the browser cannot do so automatically, they must be manually entered. The interpretation of this graph is based on the principles of visual analysis supported by statistical measures. As an astronomical vision of the universe, the eye catches the darker m areas with a high density of websites and links, as opposed to empty areas. The graph has a core-periphery structure. In this figure, I identified clusters of websites by circles of decreasing thickness, numbered from 1 to 16. The density of the names of the websites form compact masses that are hierarchical. The size of the font used to write the words is proportional to the number of incoming links to a website. It is the principle of authority described by Kleinberg. The Force-Atlas algorithm used in this graph is based on the strength of ties: it is a spatialisation by gravity, which combines attraction and repulsion, favouring the authority scores (incoming links) rather than the scores of hub (outgoing links). 17 That is why the hubs are pushed in the periphery (cluster 7 or 13), while the most referenced websites within the corpus are located in the centre (cluster 1). This figure resembles the synoptic map, giving a sense of intellectual mastery of at least this universe (see below). The clusters identified on the graph correspond to what information scientists call aggregates. In social graphs, there are networks of kinship, the small worlds of sociologists. 18 But the comparison ends there because our clusters of websites are not social groups, much less than communities, only the indices of a collective. To interpret them, we can rely primarily on the attributes identified during the exploration (our classes) and secondly on the topological structure of these subsets (density and, degree of hierarchy).

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Image 3: Aim Graph of the Indian Diaspora

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__________________________________________________________________ To the graph of the Indian diaspora, we can add some visual variables of the third dimension (Z): the colour and value, the size for both nodes for links (if they are valued). The last element of interpretation corresponds to the direction of the link (incoming or outgoing). Since hyperlinks are not necessarily bi-directional, the direction of the link is identified by the colour. A link is of the same colour as its source node. On the second visualisation of the graph, the nodes and links have been coloured according to the aim of the website (see Image 3), the size of the node corresponds to the authority of the website (inbound links). From the colour code in this legend, one can identify clusters of the category Religion (7, 13), Regional, the most numerous (3, 4, 5, 9, 10) or Government (2). The following list presents the interpretation of clusters of the graph: 1: It is the centre of the universe of the Indian diaspora as it contains the highest authorities with websites with many inbound links. First of all, there are general portals as Rediff, 19 or Sulekha 20 Indolink. 21 The centre of the universe is revealed by the density of links and size nodes, and not by a single colour as the incoming links dominate. 2: Cluster of Indian government websites with the Ministry of External Affairs and the recent Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (2004). Both ministries are connected to embassies around the world. The Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs has more inbound links, which is a sign of its recognition as a government portal. 3/4/5: There are three clusters roughly equivalent in size and density to regional. Each of them represents a sub-national entity in India: with 3-Andhra Pradesh, the Telugu websites, 4-West Bengal with the Bengali websites, and 5-Maharashtra with the Marathi websites. 6: This is a much more diverse cluster with several categories dominated by websites dedicated to women (mainly against domestic violence) and websites claiming a South Asian identity (South Asian Journalists Association, South Asian Americans Leading Together). 7: The last major cluster is in the Religion category with many websites that are not well connected to each other. Those websites are mainly American Christians churches organised around three hubs with, in descending order: IndiaChristian.com,

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__________________________________________________________________ United Evangelical Christian Fellowship and South Asian Connection. 22 8/9/10: With the previous cluster we enter the group of secondary clusters because they have fewer websites (8) or they are less dense (9, 10). For all this three cases, these are regional classes with Tamil Nadu (9, Tamil websites) and Karnataka (10, Kannada websites). Cluster 8 is original because it is a caste of Tamil Nadu, the Nattukottaï Chettiars, whose history has been traced by Rudner. 23 It should be noted that among the subnational groups identified in the graph, four correspond to large contingents of IT professionals in the United States. In her study, Chakravartty identifies their geographic origin with, in descending order, 26% for Telugu, Marathi 19%, Tamils 12% and 10% Kannadas (for 121 respondents). By comparison, D. Kapur with a larger base (1844 responses for the State of origin) for the whole of the Indian diaspora is composed as follows: Maharashtra tops (18%) followed by Gujarat (16%), Punjab (8%), Tamil Nadu and Delhi (7%), Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh (5%).Hence, in the cyberspace of the Indian diaspora in the United States and the weight of IT professionals from certain Indian states. Conversely, many Gujarati who managed a lot of hotels in the United States, are almost invisible on the Web. Finally, the general structure of the network is fractal. Firstly, the cyberspace of the Indian diaspora is an aggregate in the whole web and is itself composed of finer aggregates - clusters - that I have just described. Secondly, the algorithm Force Atlas built clusters on the same model as the spatialisation of the whole corpus. The most important scores of authority are for general interest portals, which are identified in the middle of the graph. This analysis of cyberspace is a first attempt to identify the Indian diaspora with other tools than the official statistics published by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs. This is something that fits into a larger programme, as the Indian section of the e-Diaspora Atlas project includes several contributions that provide complementary views of this Diaspora. This corpus is not exhaustive since it is an impossible task as cyberspace is renewed constantly. The corpus, limited to a thousand websites, however, offers a representative sample of the complete cyberspace of the Indian diaspora. My ambition was to collect enough of it to be able to draw a first quantitative image.

Notes 1

Avtar Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora : Contesting Identities (London and New York: Routledge, 1996).

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Dana Diminescu, ‘Le Migrant Connecté: Pour Un Manifeste Épistémologique’, Migrations/Société 17 (2007), accessed October 26, 2009, http://www.ticm.mshparis.fr/spip.php?article32. 3 Ananda Mitra, ‘Virtual Commonality: Looking for India on the Internet’, in Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication in Cybersociety, ed. Steve Jones (London and Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1997); Amit S. Rai, ‘India onLine: Electronic Bulletin Boards and the Construction of a Diasporic Hindu Identity’, Diaspora 4, No. 1 (1995): 31-57. 4 Vinay Lal, ‘The Politics of History on the Internet: Cyber-Diasporic Hinduism and the North American Hindu Diaspora’, Diaspora 8, No. 2 (1999): 135-172. 5 Deepika Bahri, ‘The Digital Diaspora: South Asians in the New Pax Electronica’, in In Diaspora: Theories, Histories, Texts, ed. Makarand R. Paranjape (New Delhi: Indialog Publications, 2001), 222-234. 6 Christiane Brosius, ‘Of Nasty Pictures and “Nice Guys”. The Surreality of Online Hindutva’, in Sarai Reader 2004: Crisis/Media, Sarai Media Lab (2004), 138-151. 7 Paula Chakravartty, ‘Flexible Citizens and the Internet: The Global Politics of Local High-Tech Development in India’, Emergences: Journal for the Study of Media and Composite Cultures 11, No. 1 (2001): 69-88. 8 Madhavi Mallapragada, ‘Home, Homeland, Homepage: Belonging and the Indian-American Web’, New Media and Society 8, No. 2 (2006): 207-227. 9 Dana Diminescu, ‘E-Diasporas Atlas: Guide D’analyse et de Rédaction’, in Programme TIC-Migrations, ed. Dana Diminescu (Paris: Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 2011), 3. 10 Mitra, ‘Virtual Commonality: Looking for India on the Internet’, or Paul C. Adams and Rina Ghose, ‘India.Com: The Construction of a Space Between’, Progress in Human Geography 27, No. 4 (2003): 414-437. 11 Paula Chakravartty, ‘White-Collar Nationalisms’, Social Semiotics 16, No. 1 (2006): 40-55. 12 Cf. the main page of the Bengali Association of Dallas/Ft Worth (BA-DFW), accessed October 15, 2009, http://www.badfw.org/index.php/about-us. 13 Mallapragada, ‘Home, Homeland, Homepage’, 207-27. 14 Cf. two opposite examples, see the website of POSUN, accessed October 2, 2009, http://posun.com/, with very few information, and for a complete historical account the Capital District Malayalee Association, accessed October 17, 2009, http://cdmany.org/history.html. 15 Dana Diminescu, ‘E-Diasporas Atlas: Exploration et Cartographie des Diasporas sur les Réseaux Numériques’, in Programme TIC-Migrations, ed. Dana Diminescu (Paris: Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 2008), 10.

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Franck Ghitalla, ‘L’atelier de Cartographie: Pratique et Enjeux des Cartographies Thématiques de Documents Web’, WebAtlas, accessed October 29, 2009, http://www.webatlas.fr/. 17 Jon Kleinberg, ‘Authoritative Sources in a Hyperlinked Environment’, Journal of the ACL 46, No. 5 (1999): 604-632. 18 Alain Degenne and Michel Forsé, Les Réseaux Sociaux, Collection U Sociologie, 2e éd. ed. (Paris: A. Colin, 2004). 19 Accessed October 18, 2009, http://www.Rediff.com, a website founded in 1996, registered in Mumbai and Nasdaq. It is for overseas Indians providing them an array of services that has grown over the years and technological developments (email, chat, IP telephony). They also publish a weekly newspaper, India Abroad, for U.S. Residents. 20 Accessed October 14, 2009, http://www.sulekha.com a website founded in 1998 as a Bulletin Board System by S. Prabhakar, an IT professionnal who has work for TCS, Philips, Honeywell et AT&T. Headquartered in Chennai and Austin, the company is moving towards e-commerce and is aimed more specifically at SMEs. 21 Accessed October 5, 2009, http://www.indolink.com a website founded in 1995, based in California, is a news aggregator and an e- commerce platform. 22 Accessed October 22, 2009, http://www.southasianconnection.com is a portal dedicated to Christian people from South Asia, established in 2004. 23 David West Rudner, Caste and Capitalism in Colonial India: The Nattukottai Chettiars (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1995).

Bibliography Adams, Paul C., and Rina Ghose. ‘India.Com: The Construction of a Space Between’. Progress in Human Geography 27, No. 4 (2003): 414–437. Bahri, Deepika. ‘The Digital Diaspora: South Asians in the New Pax Electronica’. In In Diaspora: Theories, Histories, Texts, edited by Makarand R. Paranjape, 222– 234. New Delhi: Indialog Publications, 2001. Brah, Avtar. Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. London and New York: Routledge, 1996. Brosius, Christiane. ‘Of Nasty Pictures and “Nice Guys”. The Surreality of Online Hindutva’. Sarai Reader 2004: Crisis/Media, Sarai Media Lab (2004): 138–151.

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__________________________________________________________________ Chakravartty, Paula. ‘Flexible Citizens and the Internet: The Global Politics of Local High-Tech Development in India’. Emergences: Journal for the Study of Media and Composite Cultures 11, No. 1 (2001): 69–88. —––. ‘White-Collar Nationalisms’. Social Semiotics 16, No. 1 (April 2006): 40– 55. —––. ‘Symbolic Analysts or Indentured Servants? Indian High-Tech Migrants in America’s Information Economy’. Knowledge, Technology & Policy 19, No. 3 (2006): 27–43. Degenne, Alain, and Michel Forsé. Les Réseaux Sociaux, Collection U Sociologie, 2e éd. ed. Paris: A. Colin, 2004. Diminescu, Dana. ‘Le Migrant Connecté: Pour Un Manifeste Épistémologique’. Migrations/Société, No. 102 (2007): 275–292. —––. ‘E-Diasporas Atlas: Exploration et Cartographie des Diasporas sur les Réseaux Numériques’, edited by Programme TIC-Migrations. Paris: Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 2008. —––. ‘E-Diasporas Atlas: Guide D’analyse et de Rédaction’. edited by Programme TIC-Migrations. Paris: Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 2011. Ghitalla, Franck. ‘La Géographie des Agrégats de Documents sur le Web’. WebAtlas. Accessed October 29, 2009. http://www.webatlas.fr/download/docs/geographieDesAgregatsWeb.pdf. —––. ‘L’atelier de Cartographie: Pratique et Enjeux des Cartographies Thématiques de Documents Web’. WebAtlas. Accessed October 29, 2009. http://www.webatlas.fr/. Kleinberg, Jon. ‘Authoritative Sources in a Hyperlinked Environment’. Journal of the ACL 46, No. 5 (1999): 604–632. Lal, Vinay. ‘The Politics of History on the Internet: Cyber-Diasporic Hinduism and the North American Hindu Diaspora’. Diaspora 8, No. 2 (1999): 135–172. Mallapragada, Madhavi. ‘Home, Homeland, Homepage: Belonging and the IndianAmerican Web’. New Media and Society 8, No. 2 (2006): 207–227.

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__________________________________________________________________ Mitra, Ananda. ‘Virtual Commonality: Looking for India on the Internet’. In Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication in Cybersociety, edited by Steve Jones, 55–79. London and Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1997. Rai, Amit S. ‘India on-Line: Electronic Bulletin Boards and the Construction of a Diasporic Hindu Identity’. Diaspora 4, No. 1 (1995): 31–57. Rudner, David West. Caste and Capitalism in Colonial India: The Nattukottai Chettiars. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1995. Berkeley, CA., 1994. Sayad, Abdelmalek. ‘Du Message Oral au Message sur Cassette. La Communication Avec L’absent’. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 59 (1985): 61–72. Eric Leclerc, is Associate professor in geography at Rouen University (France) and a member of BRIAC EA 4307 (Interdisciplinary Research Team on Cultural Areas). His current research focuses on changes of mobility and relationships to space induced by ICT from the case sttudy of Indian software professionals.

Un/settling Im/migrants: Towards Decolonising ImmigrantIndigenous Relationships Nishant Upadhyay Abstract Immigrants with varying histories and diasporic journeys become complicit, knowingly or unknowingly, in the ongoing processes of colonisation on/of indigenous peoples, communities and lands in Turtle Island (i.e., North America). Immigrants have different histories, experiences and relationships with/on settled lands, depending on their gender, caste, class, race, religion, sexuality, labour, national, citizenship/status, and colonial/ised identities, but their place on indigenous lands is complicated and facilitated by colonialism, capitalism and racial and gendered hierarchies. Indigenous peoples colonised and displaced from their lands, often become diasporic within urban spaces of settler states. Thus urban becomes an interesting site to look at the relationships between indigenous and immigrant community/s for the following three reasons. Firstly, urban is the primary site of encounter for both community/s within the racialised ‘multicultural’ colonial state; secondly, both community/s are rendered diasporic in the urban; and lastly, due to the socio-political geographies of urban lands, the questions about indigenous land get blurred. Hence I will situate the chapter within the geographies of urban lands and relationships. Further building on the works of Lawrence and Dua, 1 in particular their analysis of settler-of-colour relationships on indigenous lands and call for decolonising of anti-racism works, the chapter will focus on how immigrants-of-colour negotiate the colonial processes of Canada. The chapter will explore how immigrants from erstwhile colonies articulate, express, negotiate, and live on colonised indigenous lands and how these relationships are negotiated in the urban. Through these questions, the chapter seeks to decolonise postcolonial theory, as the realities of indigenous struggles are predominantly excluded from postcolonial enquiry. Postcolonial theory’s persistent preoccupation with the postcolonial context often fails to provide a critical perspective on the colonial processes in the contexts of Western settlers. Key Words: Settler colonialism, postcolonial theory, decolonisation, indigenous peoples, immigrants, settlers-of-colour, urban, diaspora, Canada. ***** 1. Introduction For the last five years I have been settled in Toronto as an immigrant. 2 To the Huron-Wendat peoples, this place is toronton (in Huron it means: the place of meetings). Historically, that land has been of shared significance to the Huron-

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__________________________________________________________________ Wendat alliance, various nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Iroquoian Tionontati and Atiwendaron peoples, and Anishinaabe communities, as it continues to be so today, while for the majority of its present inhabitants it is known only as Toronto, the capital city of the province of Ontario, within the colonial-geopolitical boundaries of Canada. 3 As an Indian-immigrant on the stolen lands of Turtle Island, i.e., Canada, coming from an erstwhile colonised society to another colonised society poses difficult and critical questions. 4 The presence of indigenous peoples in Canada demonstrates how processes of colonialism, decolonialisation, and postcolonialism simultaneously are still incomplete and unattained. Following a Maori Feminist Linda Smith’s call for ‘site by site’ 5 review to transform our colonised views of our own (colonised) history(ies), by looking at racialised and colonised immigrant histories and experiences in Canada, I am interested in interrogating the following questions: How immigrants from erstwhile racialised and colonised backgrounds articulate, express, and live on occupied indigenous lands? How are these relationships negotiated in the urban? Through exploring these questions and spaces for indigenous-immigrant relationships, I seek to provide a decolonising and indigenous critique of postcolonial theory, as the realities of indigenous struggles are predominantly excluded from postcolonial enquiry. I argue that postcolonial theory’s persistent preoccupation with the ‘post-colonial’ context often fails to provide a critical perspective on the colonial processes in ‘western’ settler contexts. I will first map out the urban terrain and its significance. Then I will proceed to discuss the term settler-of-colour and use the concept to critique postcolonial theory’s shortcomings. 2. Contextualising the Urban More than 50% of indigenous people in Canada live in urban centres; 6 and majority of racialised immigrants live in these urban centres. Thus the urban is the primary site of encounter between indigenous and racialised immigrant communities. This makes the urban a fascinating site to look at the relationships between these two very heterogeneous communities. Urban is further significant because of the following reasons. First, both communities are rendered racialised and often become competing minority groups seeking recognition and rights within the Canadian multicultural framework. Writing from the Australian perspective, Patrick Wolfe points out that the reduction of Indigenous peoples to the status of the one amongst other ethnic groups is an ideological effect of multiculturalism and bypasses the central issue of their land rights and sovereignty. 7 He further argues that colour and related attributes like language, religion, ethnicity, etc., ‘constitute second-order differentiators which are categorically subordinate to the primary historical relationship of invasion that distinguishes Indigenous and settlers.’ 8 We know through the works of Bannerji, Thobani and others, how liberal multiculturalism constructs and maintains differences, and at the same time

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__________________________________________________________________ is ready to suppress difference and otherness when it is too politically disruptive. 9 In fact, it does not recognise power inequalities. Instead, under the discourse of diversity and pluralism it seeks to mask and invisibilise power imbalances. This precludes spaces for critical alliances and relationships between the two communities. Secondly, both communities are rendered diasporic in the urban. 10 Indigenous peoples colonised and displaced from their lands become diasporic within urban spaces. Clifford points out that there are areas of overlap between indigenous and diasporic circumstances, as colonial histories of dispossession and contemporary assaults on indigenous lands and economies result in ‘diasporic practises of longterm dwelling away from home.’ 11 Lastly, due to the socio-political geographies of urban lands, the questions about indigenous lands get blurred, making indigenous realities and struggles invisible. Amadahy and Lawrence assert that ongoing colonialism in the present, especially as it relates to indigenous communities, becomes ‘taken-for-granted as normative, inevitable, and, indeed, invisible.’ 12 Since the 1970s, indigenous rural to urban migration, the flow back and forth between cities and reserves, and the development of urban indigenous communities represent some of the most significant shifts in the histories and cultures of indigenous people in Canada. Ignorance of the ongoing processes of colonisation, about indigenous peoples, history, and current life is magnified in urban contexts through misconceptions about where indigenous peoples can and should live, and the relative invisibility of indigenous peoples to the gaze of non-indigenous urban dwellers. Proulx notes that there is a popular misconception that there is only one homogenous indigenous culture in Canada, ‘as a result, the large numbers and wide diversity of Aboriginal peoples and cultures existing in cities today are largely invisible.’ 13 It is indeed impossible to discuss indigenous life in cities without referring to the controlling processes involved in the historic, multi-sited, multipurposed, and continuing colonial projects in what is now called Canada. Ideas such as the primitiveness of indigenous peoples versus the civilised nature of non-indigenous peoples, that indigenous peoples live only in rural spaces close to the natural world and not in cities, the inability of indigenous peoples to effectively cope with industrialised urban life, and that indigenous peoples must be managed by paternalistic non-indigenous actors continue to have negative symbolic and material effects on indigenous peoples living in cities. While on the surface, cities have not retained the qualities of the land that sustain indigenous cultural practices and therefore are not suitable places of, or resources for, indigenous identification; however, as Proulx points out, ‘the discussion of alienation from the land as a factor in the special circumstances affecting Aboriginal peoples in cities is perhaps entrenched in dichotomies that oppose Aboriginal and urban.’ 14 Dirlik has argued that an indigenous connection to the land represents a strategic initiative, drawing on an indigenous history to challenge the spatial arrangements of the colonial legacy. 15 Furthermore, for Wilson and

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__________________________________________________________________ Peters, the urban indigenous communities, in fact, challenge the confinement of cultures and identities within the reserve boundaries and imagine a reterritorialised indigenous space that asserts their belonging in all of Turtle Island. 16 The stretched-out social relations between cities and reserves disrupt the boundaries of the dichotomous spaces of difference that structure the identity of the Canadian nation-state, in ways akin to how immigrants destabilise power-relations in Canada as well as challenge the idea of Canadian nation. 3. Situating Immigrants-of-Colour on Colonised Lands Immigrants in Canada with varying histories and diasporic journeys become complicit, knowingly or unknowingly, in the ongoing processes of colonisation of indigenous peoples, communities and lands. Immigrants have different histories, experiences and relationships with/on occupied lands, depending on their gender, class, race, religion, sexuality, labour, nationality, citizenship/status, and colonial identities, but their place on occupied indigenous lands is complicated and facilitated by colonialism, capitalism and racial and gendered hierarchies. But is there a difference between white European immigrant settlers and those coming from racialised and colonised backgrounds? The sanctioned binaries of coloniser colonised, native - non-native, self - other, white - non-white, and colonial postcolonial gloss over the contradictory and unanticipated effects of colonial power. It is indeed by unsettling these divides, many scholars have argued that the colonial conquest produced a range of in-between subjects who complicated and sometimes even subverted racial and cultural distinctions. Immigrants of colour are often placed in this inbetweenness within white settler states. Historically in Canada, Mawani has shown how European efforts to deterritorialise and civilise indigenous peoples and trans-Pacific flows of Chinese migration were not different processes but overlapping temporalities that produced uneven and contradictory colonial geographies of racial power. 17 In Dua’s work, we can see how in challenging the early 20th-century discourse of whiteness and nation, South Asian male migrants constructed a parallel discourse in which they referred to themselves as colonists and defined their project in Canada as one of constructing an Indian colony. 18 Oikawa has argued how the racial violence waged against Japanese Canadians during the internment is connected and dependent upon the violence to which Indigenous peoples have been subjected through the processes of colonisation. 19 Lawrence and Dua, in their call for decolonising antiracism, have shown intricacies between policies of immigration and colonial governance of indigenous peoples. 20 They have argued that indeed people of colour, despite varying histories of migration, are settlers as they live on lands which are appropriated and contested. 21 Thobani forcefully argues that despite the magnitude of their dehumanisation and exploitation, the fact remains that immigrants and refugees also participants in and beneficiaries of Canada’s colonial project, especially when they work towards achieving equality with Canadian

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__________________________________________________________________ settler subjects, thereby placing their political status above that of indigenous people in Canada’s racial hierarchy. 22 Further Sehdev has argued that nonindigenous people of colour are not sovereign in Canada, and they have not entered into treaty with the Canadian state. Rather they have submitted to the state’s authority (even when they contest it). 23 Hence it is important to remember the complicities and contradictions involved, as Memmi reminds us: To different degrees every colonizer is privileged, at least comparatively so, ultimately to the detriment of the colonized. If the privileges of the masters of colonization are striking, the lesser privileges of the small colonizer, even the smallest, are much numerous. Every act of his daily life places him in a relationship with the colonized, and with each act his fundamental advantage is demonstrated. 24 While the questions of settler-hood are very complex, multi-layered, and highly political, I am interested in an anti-colonial and decolonial understandings of the term settler-of-colour which would theorise the varying complicities of nonindigenous people of colour in Canada’s ongoing colonial project, at the same time also be in solidarity with the decolonisation projects of indigenous peoples. The concept of settler-of-colour has been much critiqued specifically from postcolonial and poststructuralist perspectives. By rendering the immigrant as racialised and colonised, and imagining a universal colonised-subject, these critiques deny the complicities involved. The concept has been called nationalist, romantic, neoracist, xenophobic, among many other critiques. The critiques of the concept are not surprising, as Razack has previously argued ‘We still cannot speak out loud about the complexities of racial identities without risking that the oppressive contours of racism will be denied.’ 25 Indeed, to talk about settler-of-colours, to use Razack’s words, is a politically risky task. We know how effects of colonialism, racism and white supremacy are not even. Instead, Andrea Smith argues, ‘white supremacy is constituted by separate and distinct, but still interrelated, logics.’ 26 These three logics are: slavery/capitalism; genocide/colonialism; and Orientalism/war. Slavery/capitalism logic makes Black people inherently slaveable, genocide/colonialism logic suggests that Indigenous peoples are dying/disappeared, and the logics of Orientalism/war renders some (racialised) peoples forever foreign and threat to the nation. 27 According to Smith, while all people of colour maybe victimised through one logic of white supremacy or other, they always become complicit in other logics. This notion of simultaneous victimisation and complicity is a useful tool to think about the different overlapping structures of power and privileges. Morgensen further elaborates on the power relations and relationalities. He argues that ‘the logic of elimination define a normative relationality of “Native” to

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__________________________________________________________________ “settler” precisely by positioning non-Native people of color outside a power relation that all defined as Native are made to inhabit.’ 28 Indigenous peoples thus are marked within the power relation that works to eliminate them, simultaneously non-Indigenous people of colour become absent from the very power relation that renders them as racialised populations in a white settler society on empty lands. Thus instead of asking who is a settler, Morgensen proposes to ask, ‘who, under what conditions, inherits the power to represent or enact settler colonialism?’ 29 Processes of racialisation and colonisation under white supremacy grant nonIndigenous peoples distinct, often mutually exclusive, abilities to be complicit, to represent or enact settler colonial power. Furthermore, following Wolfe’s theorisation of settler colonialism as a structure and not an event; questions around power, privileges, and complicities can be engaged more critically. Rejection of the concept of settler-of-colour by postcolonial and critical race theory scholars within North American academy is symptomatic with postcolonial engagements in the academy. Drawing on my experiences within the Canadian academy, I want to focus rest of the paper on the extents to which postcolonial studies typically fails to engage with colonialism on Turtle Island and follows terranullism, i.e., absence of ‘the fundamental questions about land and sovereignty in the Americas.’ 30 While postcolonial theory seeks to break ‘myths’ that found and make possible colonialism, in the process of breaking myths it too creates its own set of myths which are complicit in the ongoing projects of colonisation. Postcolonial theory’s persistent preoccupation with ‘postcolonial’ context often, fails to provide a critical perspective for analysing the ongoing colonial processes in ‘western’ settler contexts. 31 And hence, because of this absence, the realities and experiences of indigenous communities like those in Canada are predominantly excluded from academic enquiry. This invisibilisation is similar to the answer, no, that Spivak gives to her question: can the subaltern speak? 32 It is not that the subaltern is not speaking, it is that no one is listening. Analogically ongoing colonial processes are not invisible, it is that no one is listening. Subaltern cannot be heard by the privileged of either global North or global South. And if she succeeds in getting heard, she ceases to be a subaltern. Spivak recognises the limitless margins of subalternity, thus making the subaltern unspeakable, nonunderstandable, and invisible. While reorienting the academy towards knowledge and stories from outside of the west, postcolonial, however has come to be predominantly used as a signifier to replace the old label of ‘third world’ or a descriptor to designate the end of formal colonial administrations around the globe. Postcolonial theory has failed to talk about colonialism and indigeneity across spatial and temporal realities. In the academy’s relation with the indigenous communities, colonisation within the academy is constantly normalised. In so critiquing the academy, Bonita Lawrence observes that

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__________________________________________________________________ “Native [H]istory” becomes accounts of specific intervals of “contact,” accounts which neutralize processes of genocide, which never mention racism, and which do not take as past of their purview the devastating and ongoing implications o the policies and processes that are so neutrally described. 33 Furthermore, as Moreton-Robinson notes, within the context of dominant(ing) white settler populations: ... the colonials did not go home and “postcolonial” remains based on whiteness ... Indigenous and non-indigenous peoples situated in relation to (post)colonialism in radically different ways - ways that cannot be made into sameness. 34 Moreton-Robinson further argues that indigenous people’s position within the nation-state is where the power relations established (and enforced) are at the very heart of white nationhood and belonging. 35 Similarly, for Alfred, the (anti)colonial war is still on (in white settler colonies). 36 Imperial arrogance, Alfred remarks, plays a key role in the colonising processes. Furthermore, he raises an important question to settlers speaking about their own countries and experiences, ‘...decolonisation is not admitted as a necessity, at least not in terms of true decolonisation as has been mandated morally and politically in Africa and Asia.’ 37 Indigenous theorising thus brings into the forefront questions as to what decolonisation, in the context of ongoing colonisation, actually entails. 4. Towards Decolonising the Academy Processes of knowledge production and role of the intellectual in the academy are key in the aforementioned processes of invisibilisation. Spivak highlights the limitations of representation and re-presentation in the academy. Her critique of the western academy is targeted both at the ‘western’ (i.e., white) academics and the diasporic (racialised and ‘postcolonial’) intellectuals (simultaneously critiquing the elite academics in global South), by analysing the ideologies and politics behind representations. She asserts: in ‘representing them, the intellectual represents themselves as transparent.’ 38 Invocation of the Other as complex and heterogeneous is not enough. Spivak suggests that in order to study the varying material and epistemic different structures, one has ‘to learn to acknowledge the impossibility of a fully revealed and therefore as fully graspable episteme to alterity.’ 39 This acknowledgement is a decolonising moment and opens space for political subjectivities. Spivak asks the reader to consider the historical constitution of geography - as how the world (geo) was written (graphy). This would enable the reader to not rule out the desire to cross differences but reveal the difficulty of the task of crossing. Further Spivak warns that if academics do not work within and

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__________________________________________________________________ beyond the limits and margins, then the ‘sanctioned knowledge’ is either insulated from geopolitics or becomes hegemonic. 40 Such acknowledgement, as a decolonising moment, leads to unlearning one’s privilege as a loss. Spivak argues that privileges prevent one from gaining certain kinds of Other knowledge(s): not knowledge that one has not received but knowledge that one is not equipped to understand by the reason of one’s social positions. By learning to speak to the historically ‘silent’ subject of the subaltern (woman), the postcolonial intellectual systematically unlearns (female) privileges. Thus part of the unlearning process is ‘to articulate the ideological formation - by measuring silences, if necessary - into the object of investigation.’ 41 This does not define identity as essential and privilege experiences associated with that identity. I argue that if postcolonial studies can undo its limits and borders ‘by rewriting postcolonialism into globality through critical regionalism,’ 42 it can be a space for decolonising the academy. In the context of transnational feminisms, Chandra Mohanty and Jacqui Alexander argue: To talk about feminist praxis in global contexts would involve shifting the unit of analysis from local, regional and national culture to relations and processes across cultures. Grounding analyses in particular local, feminist praxis is necessary, but we also need to understand the local in relation to larger, crossnational processes. 43 I, similarly, argue that critical area studies and postcolonial studies can also perform this function ethically: decolonisation is the ‘ethics in the experiences of the impossible.’ 44 It can be a space where analyses, stories and experiences, of the students, teachers and the other/elsewhere, are grounded in particular local contexts, of the self and/or the other, at the same time reflexive of the relations involved and set within larger socio-political contexts, and across-borders. In this context, I ask: Can the experiences of indigenous communities help us reflect upon the Canadian colonial-settler-relations that students, teachers and the academy are complicit in? Can the other be a pedagogical tool for decolonisation of the academy, and the self?

Notes 1

Bonita Lawrence and Enakshi Dua, ‘Decolonizing Antiracism’, Social Justice 32, No. 4 (2005). 2 This chapter is part of my ongoing doctoral project. The work is in-progress and hence has many gaps and shortcomings. I take full responsibility for them. I will appreciate any feedback from the readers. I wish to thank Kamala Kempadoo and Bonita Lawrence for their support and guidance throughout this project. I would

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__________________________________________________________________ also like to thank everyone who attended and gave me feedback at the ‘Settler Diasporas’ panel at Diasporas: Exploring Critical Issues in Oxford, UK (July 2012). I benefitted from the comments of participants at Demystifying the Urban: Borderlands of Canada and India in Kolkata, India (February 2012) where parts of the paper were presented. My very special shukriyas to Deepa Rajkumar, Anindo Hazra, Omme Rahemtullah, Meghana Rao, Ankush Gupta, Shaista Patel and Michael Connors Jackman for all their valuable feedback and support for my project. 3 By acknowledging the lands that I currently live on, I stand in solidarity with indigenous peoples and their struggles on these colonised lands. This is not just a symbolic gesture but an act of self-reflexivity that guides and informs my politics and intellectual work. 4 Turtle Island is a term used by many indigenous communities for the continent of North America. I invoke this term to challenge Canadian-American centric colonial-geopolitical bordering and naming of North America and highlight other (indigenous and decolonial) epistemological ways of seeing, knowing, experiencing and living. 5 Linda Smith, Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (Dunedi: University of Otago Press, 2006), 34. 6 Throughout the chapter I use indigenous as an identifier for indigenous peoples of North America (exceptions are when I directly quote other authors). I use ‘indigenous’ as compared to other identifiers like Native American, Indian, First Nation, Aboriginal etc. as ‘indigenous’ signifies an anti-colonial identity and politics. 7 Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism: Writing Past Imperialism (London: Cassell, 1998), 168. 8 Ibid., 206. 9 Himani Bannerji, The Dark Side of the Nation (Toronto: Canadian Scholar's Press Inc., 2000) and Sunera Thobani, Exalted Subjects: Studies in the Making of Race and Nation in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007). 10 I use diasporic in a much broader sense of the term to highlight questions of displacement and dispossession, along with questions of belonging and identity. I do not wish to undo or underestimate the fact that all lands in Canada indeed belong to indigenous peoples and that they are not foreigners on these lands. I thank Gillian Creese for her critical comments on my theorisation of diaspora at Diasporas. 11 James Clifford, ‘Diasporas’, Cultural Anthropology 9 (1994): 310. 12 Zainab Amadahy and Bonita Lawrence, ‘Indigenous Peoples and Black People in Canada: Settlers or Allies?’, in Breaching the Colonial Contract: AntiColonialism in the US and Canada, ed. by Arlo Kempf (Dordrecht: Springer Books, 2009), 124.

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__________________________________________________________________ 13

Craig Proulx, ‘Aboriginal Identification in North American Cities’, The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 26, No. 2 (2006): 419. 14 Ibid., 416. 15 Arif Dirlik, ‘The Past as Legacy and Project: Postcolonial Criticism in the Perspective of Indigenous Historicism’, American Indian Culture and Research Journal 20, No. 2 (1996): 1-31. 16 Kathi Wilson and Evelyn J. Peters, ‘“You Can Make a Place for It”: Remapping Urban First Nations Spaces of Identity’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 23 (2005): 95-413. 17 Renisa Mawani, Colonial Proximities: Crossracial Encounters and Juridical Truths in British Columbia, 1871-1921 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010). 18 Enakshi Dua, ‘Exclusion through Inclusion: Female Asian Migration in the Making of Canada as a White Settler Nation’, Gender Place and Culture 14, No. 4 (2007): 445-466. 19 Mona Oikawa, ‘Connecting the Internment of Japanese Canadians to the Colonization of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada’, in Aboriginal Connections to Race, Environment and Traditions, eds. Rick Riewe and Jill Oakes (Winnipeg: Aboriginal Issues Press, 2006), 17-25. 20 Lawrence and Dua, ‘Decolonizing Antiracism’. 21 Ibid. 22 Thobani, Exalted Subjects. 23 Robinder Sehdev, ‘People of Colour in Treaty’, in Cultivating Canada: Reconciliation through the Lens of Cultural Diversity, eds. Ashok Mathur, Jonathan Dewar and Mike DeGagne (Ottawa: Aboriginal Healing Foundation Research Series, 2011), 263-274. 24 Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized (Boston: Beacon Press, 1965), 10. 25 Sherene Razack, Looking White People in the Eye: Gender, Race, and Culture in Courtrooms and Classrooms (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 167. 26 Andrea Smith, ‘Heteropatriarchy and Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking Woman of Color Organizing’, in Color of Violence: The Incite! Anthology, ed. Incite! Women of Color Against Violence (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2006), 67. 27 Ibid. 28 Scott Morgensen, Spaces Between Us: Queer Settler Colonialism and Indigenous Decolonization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011), 21. 29 Ibid., 20. 30 Lorraine LeCamp in Bonita Lawrence, ‘Real’ Indians and Others: Mixed-Blood Urban Native Peoples and Indigenous Nationhood (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004), 2.

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__________________________________________________________________ 31

I am using postcolonial theory to critique and push limits of postcolonial theory. I would like to thank Siranush Dvoyan for her comments and feedback on this at Diasporas. 32 Gayatri C. Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, eds. C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 70. 33 Bonita Lawrence, ‘Rewriting Histories of the Land: Colonization and Indigenous Resistance in Eastern Canada’, in Race, Space, and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society, ed. Sherence Razack (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2002), 24. 34 Aileen Moreton-Robinson, ‘I Still Call Australia Home: Indigenous Belonging and Place in a White Postcolonializing Society’, in Uprootings/Regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration, eds. Sara Ahmed, Claudia Castaneda, AnneMarie Fortiers, and Mimi Sheller (New York: Berg Publishers, 2003), 30. 35 Ibid., 37. 36 Taiaike Alfred, Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 38. 37 Ibid., 106 (emphasis added). 38 Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak’, 70. 39 Sangeeta Ray, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: In Other Words (New York: WileyBlackwell, 2009), 22. 40 Gayatri C. Spivak, Other Asias (New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008), 97. 41 Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak’, 92. 42 Spivak, Other Asias, 131. 43 Jacqui M. Alexander and Chandra T. Mohanty, ‘Introduction: Genealogies, Legacies, Movements’, in Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures, eds. M. Jacqui Alexander and Chandra T. Mohanty (New York: Routledge, 1997), xix. 44 Gayatri C. Spivak, ‘Translator’s Preface’, in Imaginary Maps by Mahashweta Devi, trans. Gayatri C. Spivak (Calcutta: Thema, 2001), xviii.

Bibliography Alexander, Jacqui M., and Chandra T. Mohanty. ‘Introduction: Genealogies, Legacies, Movements’. In Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures, edited by M. Jacqui Alexander, and Chandra T. Mohanty, xii–xiii. New York: Routledge, 1997. Alfred, Taiaike. Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.

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__________________________________________________________________ Amadahy, Zainab, and Bonita Lawrence. ‘Indigenous Peoples and Black People in Canada: Settlers or Allies?’ In Breaching the Colonial Contract: Anti-Colonialism in the US and Canada, edited by Arlo Kempf, 105–136. Dordrecht: Springer Books, 2009. Bannerji, Himani. The Dark Side of the Nation. Toronto: Canadian Scholar’s Press Inc., 2000. Clifford, James. ‘Diasporas’. Cultural Anthropology 9 (1994): 302–338. Dei, George S. ‘Rethinking the Role of Indigenous Knowledge in the Academy’. International Journal of Inclusive Education 42, No. 2 (2000): 111–132. Dirlik, Arif. ‘The Past as Legacy and Project: Postcolonial Criticism in the Perspective of Indigenous Historicism’. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 20, No. 2 (1996): 1–31. Dua, Enakshi. ‘Exclusion through Inclusion: Female Asian Migration in the Making of Canada as a White Settler Nation’. Gender Place and Culture 14, No. 4 (2007): 445–466. Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 2001. King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2003. Lawrence, Bonita. ‘Rewriting Histories of the Land: Colonization and Indigenous Resistance in Eastern Canada’. In Race, Space, and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society, edited by Sherene Razack, 21–46. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2002. —––. ‘Real’ Indians and Others: Mixed-Blood Urban Native Peoples and Indigenous Nationhood. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004. Lawrence, Bonita, and Enakshi Dua. ‘Decolonizing Antiracism’. Social Justice 32, No. 4 (2005): 120–143. —––. ‘The Limitations of Postcolonial Theory for Understanding Indigenous Struggles’. In Voice and Memory: Indigenous Imagination and Expression, edited by G. N. Devy, G. V. Davis, and K. K. Chakravarty. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2011.

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__________________________________________________________________ Mawani, Renisa. Colonial Proximities: Crossracial Encounters and Juridical Truths in British Columbia, 1871-1921. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010. Memmi, Albert. The Colonizer and the Colonized. Boston: Beacon Press, 1965. Mohanram, Radhika. Black Body: Women, Colonialism, and Space. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. ‘I Still Call Australia Home: Indigenous Belonging and Place in a White Postcolonializing Society’. In Uprootings/Regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration, edited by Sara Ahmed, Claudia Castaneda, Anne-Marie Fortiers, and Mimi Sheller, 23–38. New York: Berg Publishers, 2003. Morgensen, Scott. Spaces Between Us: Queer Settler Colonialism and Indigenous Decolonization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011. Oikawa, Mona. ‘Connecting the Internment of Japanese Canadians to the Colonization of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada’. In Aboriginal Connections to Race, Environment and Traditions, edited by Rick Riewe, and Jill Oakes, 17–25. Winnipeg: Aboriginal Issues Press, 2006. Proulx, Craig. ‘Aboriginal Identification in North American Cities’. The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 26, No. 2 (2006): 405–438. Ray, Sangeeta. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: In Other Words. New York: WileyBlackwell, 2009. Razack, Sherene. Looking White People in the Eye: Gender, Race, and Culture in Courtrooms and Classrooms. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998. Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1979. Scott, David. ‘The Re-Enchantment of Humanism: An Interview with Sylvia Wynter’. Small Axe 8 (2000): 119–207. Sehdev, Robinder. ‘People of Colour in Treaty’. In Cultivating Canada: Reconciliation through the Lens of Cultural Diversity, edited by Ashok Mathur, Jonathan Dewar, and Mike DeGagne, 263–274. Ottawa: Aboriginal Healing Foundation Research Series, 2011.

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__________________________________________________________________ Shahjahan, Riyad A. ‘Mapping the Field of Anti-Colonial Discourse to Understand Issues of Indigenous Knowledges: Decolonizing Praxis’. McGill Journal of Education 40, No. 2 (2005): 213–240. Shohat, Ella. ‘Notes on the Post-Colonial’. Social Text 31, No. 32 (1992): 99–113. Smith, Andrea. Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. New York: South End Press, 2005. —––. ‘Heteropatriarchy and Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking Woman of Color Organizing’. In Color of Violence: The Incite! Anthology, edited by Incite! Women of Color Against Violence, 66–73. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2006. Smith, Linda T. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Dunedi: University of Otago Press, 2006. Spivak, Gayatri C. ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by C. Nelson, and L. Grossberg, 66–111. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1988. —––. ‘Woman in Difference: Mahashweta Devi’s “Douloti the Bountiful”’. Cultural Critique 14 (1990): 105–128. —––. ‘Translator’s Preface’. In Imaginary Maps by Mahashweta Devi. Translated by Gayatri C. Spivak, xvii–xxvii. Calcutta: Thema, 2001. —––. Other Asias. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008. Swadener, Beth B., and Kagendo Mutua. ‘Decolonizing Performances: Deconstructing the Global Postcolonial’. In Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies, edited by Norman K. Denzin, Yvonna S. Lincoln, and Linda T. Smith, 31–43. Los Angeles: Sage Publishers, 2008. Thobani, Sunera. Exalted Subjects: Studies in the Making of Race and Nation in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Wilson, Kathi, and Evelyn J. Peters. “‘You Can Make a Place for It”: Remapping Urban First Nations Spaces of Identity’. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 23 (2005): 95–413.

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__________________________________________________________________ Wolfe, Patrick. Settler Colonialism: Writing Past Imperialism. London: Cassell, 1998. Young, Robert. Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Nishant Upadhyay is a PhD candidate in the Department of Social and Political Thought at York University, Toronto, Canada. His research looks at relationships between Indigenous communities and immigrant communities (of colour) within the settler colonial state of Canada.

Part 5 Adaptation and Reproduction in Diaspora

Magazine Contacto: The Construction and (Re)production of the Portuguese Diaspora in the Mediascape Sónia Ferreira Abstract Media are fundamental tools in the construction and reproduction of identity strategies and politics, which are tied to the processes of construction of national, ethnic, and diasporic communities in the migratory contexts. In this chapter I will discuss the context of multi-sited production of a Portuguese TV show (Magazine Contacto), created in 2003, which generates content specifically designed to reach the Portuguese diaspora communities around the world, from Macau to Venezuela. Transmitted by satellite via the Portuguese public TV channel, this show uses material produced by independent producers from fourteen of those Portuguese diaspora communities. The show, which is not broadcast in Portugal, presents itself as a discursive space for the Portuguese diaspora, with content that emphasises Portuguese culture and identity. Key Words: Media, diaspora, culture, ethnicity, Portuguese. ***** 1. Brief Conceptual Framework and Useful Theoretical Tools: The Role of Media and Culture Media are fundamental tools in the construction and reproduction of identity strategies and politics, which are tied to the processes of construction of national, ethnic, and diasporic communities in the migratory contexts. As King and Wood 1 state, migratory processes are usually explained by the labour market, job policies, class formation, and the creation of ethnic minorities. In this sense, the majority of researchers disregarded media institutions as a research subject - whether produced in the country of settlement (mainstream media but also diasporic, ethnic and communitarian media) or in the country of origin. This overlooking of media institutions happens particularly in their relevant social, political and economic roles in the construction and dissemination of contents about migration, within both the host and the migrant communities. Being so, media produced in diasporic contexts 2 are particularly relevant to the understanding and discussion of migratory fluxes. The content produced and spread by these social institutions contributes to the politics of identity of migrant communities and allow a reflection about their strategies of integration, resistance, creation of traditions, and the commodification and objectification of culture. In their multiple configurations, these institutions also allow us to observe the processes of construction and (re)definition of the idea of nation, community and ethnic identity. 3

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__________________________________________________________________ In this context, the idea of culture - seen as a universe of shared beliefs and practices - assumes great significance, frequently becoming the motif for many identity-based and cultural reclaims due to its relevance in the construction of selfrepresentations. Expressions like our culture or the culture of our community are critical, not only in analytical but also in emic terms, since they tie language to the idea of cultural expression and cultural authenticity. In that sense, in the last couple of years, some media producers and consumers have been questioning the centrality that the exclusive use of the ethnic languages assumes in the ethnic or diasporic media, since the younger generations no longer speak their parents’ mother tongue, which understandably excludes them as existing and prospective consumers of such content. Nevertheless, the language continues to be handled as a legitimating feature of genuine identity in such diasporic communities. This strict association between culture and language isolates the ethnic productions, which being locked in their linguistic universes and assumed as a product for internal consumption face difficulties in engaging in the dialogue with other contents and cultural universes. For example, in some multicultural networks, people can only consume their own ethnic language content, even if other media content may refer to their neighbours or close colleagues, because the programmes are not sub-titled. In those lines, one of my interviewees stated his belief that within the Portuguese community in France, the French language could probably do more for the Portuguese culture and the Portuguese community than the Portuguese language itself, because it can widen the audience for the media content produced in the community and for the Portuguese culture in general. 2. The Case-Study From the point of view of an ethnography of production (Aksoy e Robins, 2000; Mandel, 2002; Schein, 2002; Peterson, 2003), 4 I would like to discuss these topics considering the Portuguese communities residing in Canada, Brazil and France and the media that are produced for and by them, with particular attention paid to the TV show Magazine Contacto, which is a multi-sited production of the Portuguese Television (RTP) 5 created in 2003. It generates content specifically designed to reach the Portuguese diaspora communities around the world, from Macau to Venezuela. Broadcast by satellite via the Portuguese public TV channel, this show uses materials produced by independent producers from fourteen of those Portuguese diaspora communities. 6 The show, which is not broadcast in Portugal, presents itself as a discursive space for the Portuguese diaspora, with content that emphasises Portuguese culture and identity. Nevertheless, this material is seldom integrated in the Portuguese media universe and public debate, which usually does not incorporate diasporaproduced contents.

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__________________________________________________________________ It is a one-way content flow as RTPI (RTP International) does not have programmes or even news produced in the diaspora. Magazine Contacto is the only show that is produced within the communities. It focuses on their realities, even though it mainly presents stories of success. Nevertheless, the communities feel empowered by this show: it is their voice, even though it is not heard in Portugal a fact that many of the viewers are not aware of. The producer of the public Portuguese television who administers all the different segments from the diverse countries/communities 7 defines the programme as a ‘common living - room for sharing ideas, life experiences, emotions, day to day life.’ He further adds that ‘the show responds to some of the main objectives of the Portuguese International TV station (RTPI), such as mirroring how the Portuguese live, including the Portuguese living abroad, the Portuguese communities.’ 8 The structure of the show should be as follows: an interview with a Portuguese or luso-descendent, 9 news from the community, and calendar/activities of the community. Being so, Portuguese Television wants to show abroad, within the Portuguese diaspora, how the Portuguese migrants live, but does not broadcast those contents in Portugal. In this way, Portuguese citizens who live in Portugal do not receive media contents about the way the diaspora lives. An analysis of the French (Magazine França Contacto), Brazilian (Magazine Brasil Contacto) and Canadian (Magazine Canadá Contacto) segments of the show and qualitative interviews with its local producers allow for an opportunity to confront their discourses and their representations of the show and its imagined audience, mainly understood as the Portuguese diaspora audience. Furthermore, there is also an opportunity to confront those representations with the processes of cultural commodification, identity (re)construction and the politics of identity disseminated within those communities, as well as their relation with Portugal, the Portuguese culture and the Portuguese identity in the diaspora. The people, the subjects and the places selected to be featured in the segments integrate a flow of content that builds up a global mediatised image of Portugal and the Portuguese diaspora. One of the reporters from the Canadian Contacto defines the program as ‘a joyful show to celebrate and enhance the Portuguese community,’ and mentions the importance of exhibiting ‘successful cases’ within the ‘Portuguese community’ and presenting Portuguese citizens who are well-integrated in the Canadian society and may not be known within the ‘community.’ 10 It should be done in an effort to display these cases to the other Portuguese communities around the world to showcase people who are beyond the traditional stereotype of the construction worker or the cleaning lady. A reporter who works for França Contacto mentions that being a bi-monthly or monthly programme, 11 this show cannot include content that depends on the daily news. So it should emphasise what is less showed in the day-to-day news content,

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__________________________________________________________________ almost as a timeless recollection that illustrates more an archetype of migrants’ lives than the palpable, real, rush of the news agenda. In each episode (the different national segments are divided in half hour episodes), the show offers narratives about Portuguese migrants, focusing on their present lives, but always connecting the present to the past, to the missed homeland. By showing objects, daily routines, special foods, and everything - from material to expressive culture - that ties the present space (home, workplace, neighbourhood) with the place of origin, the show stresses connections, thereby heightening identity ties of Portuguessness. Although there is a general frame, each segment presents somewhat different content in terms of the themes most explored by the producers and the kind of interviewees chosen (different generations, class positions, professional occupations, etc). Sometimes the content does not focus on the people living abroad, but on the people who visit them (people considered important or famous like politicians, artists, etc), or the people who represent them (the Portuguese ambassador, local politicians, etc). When we are dealing with the classic interview format of the ‘migrant lifestory,’ the first-hand speech focuses mainly on the place of birth and in the family left behind. Although the interviewees for the show are allegedly aware that it is not broadcast in Portugal (even if nowadays this is not entirely true, as the Internet webpage of the Portuguese television (RTP) gives access to these contents in almost real-time play), they frequently build a discourse that is directed towards home, constructing a personal life-story, teaching a lesson, narrating the family history and establishing a memory that is shaped in a permanent flux of emotions, opinions, beliefs, concerns and identity transmission shared through this media frame. Another interviewee for this study, who studied RTPI, states: ‘It’s not a rational thing, even if you warn them that the Programme (this one or another) will not be seen in Portugal, even so they always send congratulations to the home land.’ Most people, common people, do not see this audience as transnational. Figures such as businessmen and politicians are the ones who are usually more conscious of this characteristic. The RTP producers maintain that the programme is not broadcast in Portugal because it does not have the desired technical quality. This responds to a widespread idea that the media produced in the diaspora are usually less professional, not only in terms of technical skills, but also with regard to content: less objective in terms of journalistic standards. Being frequently owned by private businesses, they are seen as a way of making money and planting a voice in the community. In terms of people selection, when the producers choose their interviewees, they do it by selecting Portuguese people who can preferably express themselves in Portuguese. However, people who are available frequently do not fit all the

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__________________________________________________________________ necessary criteria to be seen as Portuguese in the way that is needed for the show, which means that the producer/director has to do the work of staging a person that can be recognised and legitimised as such by the Portuguese audience/community, usually highlighting the most Portuguese-like facts of his/her biography and life experience. In this fashion, the producers assume the role of identity authentication, selecting what should be presented as important and as Portuguese in each life story. On the other hand, some interviewees are already well-known to the public and the show works as a platform of visibility for community leaders, businessmen, politicians, etc. Sometimes, on very rare occasions, Portuguese subtitles are used and the interviewees are allowed to speak in their most fluent language (usually English or French). The exception for this is the Brazilian context, since the language is shared between countries, though some Portuguese people cannot understand certain specific vocabulary and cultural expressions from Brazil. Some producers consider using the subtitles as an almost inevitable process for the future and a way to reach a broader audience by integrating the younger generations and possibly other non-Portuguese-speaking people. All this leads to a central discussion about the future of the migrant communities - not the migrants in themselves but the idea of migrant communities - and their relationship with Portugal and the Portuguese cultural, economic and political authorities. This is a common discussion in almost every diaspora community, where the following aspects are questioned: the desirable balance between cultural retention and change, the role and the future of the new generations, reproduction and transformation, something that although not new should be seen and analysed in the complex web of positions, configurations and institutions it comprises - one of which are the media with their contents and social relations of production.

Notes 1

Russell King and Nacy Wood, Media and Migration. Constructions of Mobility and Difference (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 1-22. 2 Daniel Dayan, ‘Media and Diasporas’, in Television And Common Knowledge, ed. Jostein Gripsrud (London and New York: Routledge, 1999); Hamid Naficy, The Making of Exile Cultures: Iranian Television in Los Angeles (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1993); Russell King and Nacy Wood, Media and Migration. Constructions of Mobility and Difference (London and New York: Routledge, 2001). 3 John Postill, Media and Nation Building. How the Iban Became Malaysian (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2006).

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Asu Aksoy and Kevin Robins, ‘Thinking across Spaces: Transnational Television from Turkey’, European Journal of Cultural Studies 3 (2000): 343-365; Ruth Mandel, ‘A Marshall Plan of the Mind: The Political Economy of a Kazakh Soap Opera’, in Media Worlds, eds. Faye Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod and Brian Larkin (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2002), 211228; Louise Schein, ‘Mapping Hmong Media in Diasporic Space’, in Media Worlds, eds. Faye Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod and Brian Larkin. (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2002), 229-244; Mark Peterson, Anthropology & Mass Communication. Myth Making in the New Millennium (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2003). 5 The show is produced by RTP and broadcasted by RTPI (the Internacional channel of RTP that can only be reached by satellite or outside Portugal in paid cable channels). 6 Due to economic restraints last year (2011) some segments have been cancelled or pass from bi to monthly periodicity. 7 I am using this double expression as some countries have more than one segment, concerning different communities, like in the USA (‘Magazine Contacto Califórnia,’ ‘Magazine Contacto Nova Jersey,’ ‘Magazine Contacto Newark’). 8 Interview with the author (2010). 9 Expression used to characterise the sons of Portuguese migrants who were already born in the country of settlement. 10 The emic idea of community is another critical issue in the way it comprises people, places, activities, emotions and identity strategies and performances. 11 Some segments are now monthly.

Bibliography Aksoy, Asu, and Kevin Robins. ‘Thinking across Spaces: Transnational Television from Turkey’, European Journal of Cultural Studies 3 (2000): 343–365. Dayan, Daniel. ‘Media and Diasporas’. In Television And Common Knowledge, edited by Jostein Gripsrud, 18–33. London and New York: Routledge, 1999. Ginsburg, Faye, Lila Abu-Lughod, and Brian Larki, eds. Media Worlds. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2002. King, Russell, and Nancy Wood, eds. Media and Migratio: Constructions of Mobility and Difference. London and New York: Routledge, 2001.

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__________________________________________________________________ Mandel, Ruth. ‘A Marshall Plan of the Mind: The Political Economy of a Kazakh Soap Opera’. In Media Worlds, edited by Faye Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod, and Brian Larkin, 211–228. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2002. Naficy, Hamid. The Making of Exile Cultures: Iranian Television in Los Angeles. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. Peterson, Mark. Anthropology & Mass Communication: Myth Making in the New Millennium. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2003. Postill, John. Media and Nation Building: How the Iban Became Malaysian. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2006. Schein, Louise. ‘Mapping Hmong Media in Diasporic Space’. In Media Worlds, edited by Faye Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod, and Brian Larkin, 229–244. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2002. Sónia Ferreira holds a PhD in Anthropology and is a post-doc researcher in CRIA (Centre for Research in Anthropology) at ISCTE-IUL (University Institute of Lisbon - Portugal) and URMIS - Paris (Unité de Recherches ‘Migrations et Société’) and teaches in the department of Anthropology of FCSH-UNL (Faculty of Social Sciences of Lisbon - Portugal). Her main interests are in the area of Anthropology of Media and Migration, Social Movements, Gender and Documentary.

Cultural Adaptation and Translation as Motivation for Researching the Polish Diaspora in the United Kingdom Renata Seredyńska-Abou Eid Abstract The enlargement of the European Union (EU) in 2004 allowed a massive migration movement of Polish citizens to the United Kingdom (UK), where the labour market was fully accessible for new member states (A8 countries). Thousands of Polish migrants settled in the UK; however, due to noticeable inefficiency of migration measurement tools, neither British nor Polish authorities have been able to specify migrant numbers. Borderless structures and free flow of people in the EU contribute to an array of socio-cultural elements of migration; therefore, researching diaspora only in terms of numbers does not encompass the wealth of research opportunities in the field of migrant communities. Migrants and diasporic groups are often perceived as receivers in the host country; however, their values and culture that contribute to cultural shaping and evolution of host communities are often neglected by the policy makers. There is room in migration research for surveying the processes of cultural adaptation and translation that inevitably occur in the settlement experience of diasporic communities. A detailed analysis of migrants’ needs, approach, and attitudes towards the newly experienced culture and environment would be of great benefit to local authorities in terms of revising their policy regarding social diversity. This chapter reflects upon the motives of researching the Polish diaspora and Polish migrant communities in a broader sense, beyond migration statistics. The idea of utilising the opportunity of researching a community that has European roots, like the host society, but at the same time has a different approach and understanding of many issues underlies the research project. Key Words: Culture, cultural adaptation, cultural translation, migration, diaspora, Polish migrants. ***** Introduction The enlargement of the European Union in 2004 resulted in a massive migration of Polish citizens to the United Kingdom (UK), where the labour market was fully accessible for new member states (A8 countries); however, due to inefficiency of migration measurement tools, neither British nor Polish authorities are able to specify migrant numbers. Borderless structures of the EU enable free flow of people; therefore, researching diaspora only in terms of numbers does not encompass the wealth of research opportunities in the field of migrant communities.

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__________________________________________________________________ In search for a better life or for a number of other reasons, Polish migrants settled in the UK. Although in employment migrants and diasporic communities are often perceived as receivers in the host country, regardless of the fact that they bring certain values and their cultural background into their new home, which contributes to and shapes the local community in various terms, it is often forgotten how much effort migrants put into establishing their life in a new country. Therefore, it is believed that there is room in migration research for investigating the processes of cultural adaptation and translation that inevitably occur in the settlement experience of migrant and diasporic communities. This chapter reflects upon the motives of researching diaspora and migrant communities in a broader sense, beyond migration statistics. The Polish community has been chosen not only for personal reasons, but also to utilise the opportunity of researching a community that has European roots, like the host society, but at the same time can be characterised by different approaches to many issues. Maintaining and recreating identity together with the impact of both cultures and languages on Polish migrants in the UK seem to be the topics of a great research potential. 1. Diaspora? Traditionally, the term diaspora referred to a displaced ethnic group. Although historically it was used in relation to a few other ethnic groups, apart from Jews; it was the Jewish diaspora that added negativity to the meaning of the term through connotations of catastrophic origins, suffering, homesickness and search for the opportunity to return to the given land. Nonetheless, originally the term was used by Greeks in ancient times to describe displacement due to poor economic conditions or a war; however, as Cohen 1 emphasises, the meaning had positive connotations. Until recently, diaspora was used to describe those suffering ethnic groups who had to flee their homes; hence it was inevitably connected with feelings of displacement, homesickness, and uprooting. That changed in the 1990s when migration movements increased, especially in Europe due to the creation of the area of free movement of people, capital, and services and was further enhanced in 2004 when ten new member states joined the European Union (hereafter EU). Poland became a full member of the EU on 1st May 2004 and gained open access to the British market in terms of residence and employment. The condition of registering prior to undertaking any employment was not seen as any kind of obstacle and was automatically lifted after seven years (in 2011). Such a change in Europe altered the meaning of the term diaspora. One could argue here that maybe European migrants should not be considered as diasporic communities at all as in borderless Europe they are at home as moving to another state could be considered only in terms of a greater distance when compared to moving to another city; however, migration projects involve many more variables than just the distance.

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__________________________________________________________________ In terms of Polish migrants in the United Kingdom (UK), the traditional meaning of ‘diaspora’ can be well applied to previous (pre-2004) waves of migration due to strong exile connotations. In the past, those people, who left the country, emigrated for good and had very little chance to return to their previous life in Poland. Such a situation brought consequences of at least two kinds, i.e., (1) out migration was not really measured and (2) there was an enhanced guilt and victimhood among emigrating Poles. The latter was strongly related to martyrdom that has permeated the Polish culture and mentality since the end of the 18th century, at least, and is still present in the attitudes of older generations. Therefore, the traditional understanding of diaspora as a victim community that suffered and had to abandon their country fitted well with Polish migrant communities before 2004. It is arguable, though, whether it applies to current migrants as well. After Poland joined the European Union, the situation changed in terms of freedom of decision and movement. Migrants gained the right to move freely while limitations were restricted only to migrants’ personal life and individual decisions. Unlike in the year 1990 or before when Polish citizens required destination and transit visas, post-accession migrants were given full rights of free movement. Therefore, in terms of mobility and decision making, Polish migrants have moved from the victim stage to the challenge and opportunity point. Since perception of the movement is very subjective in its character, those stages should be rather described as a diasporic continuum, which is much more applicable to modern migrant communities. A single-minded individual could still say that a migrant who has an economic motivation is a victim as they have to abandon their family to earn the living far away from home; however, an open-minded approach presents migrants with a myriad of opportunities and benefits that stem out from borderless Europe and the freedom of movement. Since modern diasporas are much more focused on the creation of home away from home, migration projects can be classified as diaspora. Tsagarousianou 2 supports this view by saying that ‘[d]iasporic identity can often draw much more on the experience of migrancy and settlement, of “making” one’s home than on a fixation to a “homeland.”’ Avtar Brah explains that ‘“home” is a mythic place of desire in the diasporic imagination,’ however, it is also ‘a lived experience of a locality.’ 3 In this sense, Polish migrants can be seen as a diasporic community. On the other hand, Tsagarousianou emphasises that not all dispersed populations can automatically and uncritically be identified as diasporas because they share a common ethnic ancestry and identity. It is their readiness and willingness to engage themselves with the building of a transnational imagination and connections that constitutes the “threshold” from ethnic to diasporic identification. 4

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__________________________________________________________________ Modern migrants have almost endless opportunities to deal with homesickness. Frequent visits to Poland, Polish actual and online communities, and the use of technology like voice communicatoors or cheap telephone calls can significantly contribute to the alleviation of the feeling of detachment or displacement. Therefore, it may be a scope for future research to establish whether post-2004 Polish migrants in the UK constitute a diaspora or maybe they should be seen rather as expatriates or sojourners, regardless of the fact that they fit within many categories of diasporic descriptors. 2. Culture and Media Another aspect that manifests its presence when researching a migrant group or a diaspora is culture or cultural identity, in particular. From an outsider’s point of view, a non-English speaking non-European or a non-European of non-European origin, European cultures are alike, at least at first glance. It is the insider’s perception that can give insights into cultural subtleties and differences within the European context. Historical background of nations is of relatively high importance in that matter. According to Boski’s 5 (1992) Hum-Mat Scale, the Polish culture can be characterised by a high level of humanism while western cultures are dominated by materialism. In addition, two other elements that are strongly present in the Polish mentality are Sarmatism and afore-mentioned martyrdom. Although Sarmatism dominated the lifestyle, culture and mentality of the Polish nobility from the times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (16th century) until the 19th century, the remnants of Sarmatian thinking are still noticeable in highly valued family ties and social relations and in the petty approach to problem-solving. On the other hand, martyrdom that was built on long lasting struggle for independence and freedom of speech seems to disappear within the younger generation who have been brought up in a free country and in united Europe and who know the bitter taste of only an economic crisis, not wars and conflicts that were previously common in central Europe. Nonetheless, resilience seems to be a prevalent feature of the modern Polish society. The above-mentioned qualities of the Polish culture differentiate it from British culture quite significantly. Underlying principles of liberty and a practical approach to problem-solving seem to be the most noticeable differences. Therefore, the perception of authority and power, compliance with rules, resilience in action, perseverance in achieving goals, and a moderately collective approach might pose certain difficulties to Polish migrants in terms of adaptation to life in Britain. Lewandowska emphasises after Boski that the concept of cultural identity ‘refers to the content of values as guiding principles, meaning of symbols, and lifestyle that individuals share with others.’ 6 Consequently, in the research of Polish migrants and Polish diaspora, there is plenty of room for the study of cultural adaptation, the inevitable clash of the two cultures, and obscured cultural

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__________________________________________________________________ similarities. Moreover, the influence of migrants on the local culture is rarely studied. Bearing in mind that the post-2004 wave of Polish migration is one of the largest in British history, it would be beneficial to identify changes within the British society that were triggered by Polish migrants. Although some comprehensive studies on Polish migrants have already been conducted (see Eade, 7 Rabikowska and Burrell, 8 White 9 ), there is still space in terms of academic research into cultural adaptation of Polish migrants into British society. According to White, 10 Polish migrants are most likely to fall into two categories of John Berry’s Acculturation theory, namely integration and separation. Since modern migrants are relatively flexible and use self-development strategies to feel at home in Britain, the media do not contribute to their adaptation. On the contrary, it seems that the British media portray Polish migrants in a negative way. This is not to say that a Polish plumber is taken as an offence. That rather shows certain appreciation of good quality vocational training that is still available in Poland; however, the profession can be attributed to lower classes in both societies, hence, the metaphor reflects a certain level of social belittlement. In presenting the negative image of migrants, the media thrive on current unfavourable political climate and populist anti-migration slogans. Among numerous examples, BBC Newsnight, Immigrants on Benefits, 11 epitomises the lack of will to accurately present the current state. When demonstrating the breakdown of foreign-born benefit claimers by place of origin, it was mentioned that only 8% of A8 migrants (mostly from Poland and Lithuania) claim social benefits in the UK. A moment later, the reporter said that the largest group of benefit claimers came from Asia and the Middle East (34%) and Africa (27%), which is a direct consequence of historically non-selective immigration policy towards the states of the former British Empire. While those figures were presented orally and visually, in the background the viewers could see a Polish shop (Polish delicatessen) in London. Consequently, a combination of the picture of a Polish shop and the two significant figures (34% and 27%) presented over it may actually convince the viewer in a disguised manner to believe that Polish migrants are part of the so called benefit tourism. Although the speaker mentioned earlier that benefit claimers of Eastern European origin constitute about 5% of all UK claimers, the misleading visual combination of numbers and background pictures may contribute to the creation of a false picture of Polish migrants and can potentially trigger unwelcoming or even hostile attitudes towards migrants. The negative image obviously shapes the view of the audience; however, it is not clear to what extent it contributes to altered images of local communities. Therefore, it will be a great challenge for researchers to investigate the reasons behind the negative portrayal of Polish migrants in the British media (see also Wilk 12 ).

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__________________________________________________________________ 3. Cultural Translation The last of my observations and my future orientation regards cultural translation that inevitably takes place in migrant lives. Translation studies are very much connected with linguistics while cultural translation research derives from linguistic translation and cultural studies. Although the language is an important part of cultural expression, translation and interpretation take place at all levels of social and cultural interaction. There is a great potential for research into the understanding of the processes of migrant comprehension of the host culture and strategies migrants apply to interpret new behavioural patterns and to restructure their system of values to fit in the new society. Language proficiency might be an initial aim for a new migrant; however, there is much more into host culture than just understanding and performing plain conversations. The higher the language level, the more complex the knowledge needed to recognise and understand culturally significant subtleties of the language and people’s behaviour. To give just a few examples, it would be interesting to find out how Polish migrants perceive housing in Britain as in Poland having a house is a certain level of luxury while British families live predominantly in town houses. Also, in terms of linguistic competence, the issue of false friends, e.g. sympathetic, which does not mean nice or pleasant, and strategies to deal with them would be of interest to linguists. Finally, the issue of reverse adaptation, i.e., applying acquired behaviours back in the native country, is still relatively underrepresented in research. Therefore, in terms of cultural translation, there is still much space that should be filled in by detailed studies of cultural interpretation and interdependence of migrant cultures. Conclusion This chapter has reflected upon potential research aspects of the Polish diaspora and Polish migrant communities in Britain. Beyond statistics, which is almost entirely unreliable in modern Europe due to irrelevant tools, there is much more to be researched, surveyed, and investigated. Since the geopolitical situation in Europe has changed significantly within the past twenty years, migration researchers could take the attempt to classify modern Polish migration as diasporic or state to what extent the Polish migrant community is a diasporic one. Moreover, in terms of culture and media, there is still plenty of room for researching mutual relations of migrants’ host and native cultures. Therefore, it seems that maintaining and recreating identity together with the impact of both cultures and languages on Polish migrants in the UK are the topics of a great research potential and a high social interest. A detailed analysis of migrants’ needs, approach, and attitudes towards the newly experienced culture and environment would be of great benefit to local authorities in terms of revising their policy regarding social diversity. In addition, apart from cultural relations, the topic of cultural translation is highly relevant to aid the understanding of cultural and social adaptation processes among

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__________________________________________________________________ migrants who come from another European culture that carries certain resemblance to British culture and therefore makes Polish migrants more invisible than other ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom.

Notes 1

Robin Cohen, ‘Diasporas and the Nation-State: From Victims to Challengers’, International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) 72, No. 3 (July 1996), Ethnicity and International Relations, 507-508, accessed May 11, 2012, http://www.arts.yorku.ca/politics/ncanefe/docs/sept0607/Diasporas%20and%20the %20Nation-State.pdf . 2 Roza Tsagarousianou, ‘Rethinking the Concept of Diaspora: Mobility, Connectivity and Communication in a Globalised World’, Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 1, No. 1 (2004): 58, accessed: May 10, 2012, https://www.westminster.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/20219/005WPCCVol1-No1-Roza_Tsagarousianou.pdf. 3 Avtar Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities (London: Routledge, 1996), 192. 4 Tsagarousianou, ‘Rethinking the Concept of Diaspora’, 59. 5 Paweł Boski, ‘O Byciu Polakiem w Ojczyźnie i o Zmianach Tożsamości Kulturowo-Narodowej’ [About Being Polish in Homeland and about Changes to National-Cultural Identity Abroad], in Tożsamość a Odmienność Kulturowa [Identity and Cultural Differences], eds. Pawel Boski, M. Jarymowicz and H. Malewska-Peyre (Warsaw, Poland: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Psychologii PAN, 1992), 98. 6 Emilia Lewandowska, ‘More Polish or More British? Identity of the Second Generation of Poles Born in Great Britain’, (2009), e-book, accessed September 2, 2011, http://ebooks.iaccp.org/xian/PDFs/4_5Lewandowska.pdf, 211. 7 John Eade, Stephen Drinkwater and Michał Garapich, ‘Class and Ethnicity: Polish Migrant Workers in London: Full Research Report’, ESRC End of Award Report, RES-000-22-1294, Swindon: CRONEM, 2006. 8 Marta Rabikowska and Kathy Burrell, ‘The Material Worlds of Recent Polish Migrants: Transnationalism, Food, Shops, and Home’, in Polish Migration to the UK in the New European Union, edited by Kathy Burrell (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 211-232. 9 Anne White, Polish Families and Migration since EU Accession (Bristol: Policy Press, 2011). 10 Ibid., 9-10. 11 Newsnight, BBC One, January 20, 2012. 12 Przemysław Wilk, ‘Images of Poles and Poland in The Guardian, 2003-2005’, in Facing the East in the West: Images of Eastern Europe in British Literature, Film

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__________________________________________________________________ and Culture, eds. Barbara Korte, Eva U. Pirker and Sissy Helff (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010), 335-348.

Bibliography Berry, John W., Ype H. Poortinga, M. H.Segall, and P. R. Dasen. Cross-Cultural Psychology. 2nd Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Brah, Avtar. Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. London: Routledge, 1996. Boski, Paweł. ‘O Byciu Polakiem w Ojczyźnie i o Zmianach Tożsamości Kulturowo-Narodowej’ [About Being Polish in Homeland and about Changes to National-Cultural Identity Abroad], in Tożsamość a Odmienność Kulturowa [Identity and Cultural Differences], edited by Pawel Boski, M. Jarymowicz and H. Malewska-Peyre, 71–196. Warsaw, Poland: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Psychologii PAN, 1992. Cohen, Robin. ‘Diasporas and the Nation-State: From Victims to Challengers’, International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) 72, No. 3 (July 1996): 507–520. Ethnicity and International Relations. Accessed May 11, 2012. http://www.arts.yorku.ca/politics/ncanefe/docs/sept0607/Diasporas%20and%20the %20Nation-State.pdf. Eade, John, Stephen Drinkwater, and Michał Garapich. ‘Class and Ethnicity: Polish Migrant Workers in London: Full Research Report’. ESRC End of Award Report, RES-000-22-1294. Swindon: CRONEM, 2006. Lewandowska, Emilia. ‘More Polish or More British? Identity of the Second Generation of Poles Born in Great Britain’. 2009. Accessed September 2, 2011. http://ebooks.iaccp.org/xian/PDFs/4_5Lewandowska.pdf. Newsnight. ‘Immigrants on Benefits’. BBC One. January 20, 2012. Rabikowska, Marta, and Kathy Burrell. ‘The Material Worlds of Recent Polish Migrants: Transnationalism, Food, Shops, and Home’. In Polish Migration to the UK in the New European Union, edited by Kathy Burrell. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009.

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__________________________________________________________________ Tsagarousianou, Roza. ‘Rethinking the Concept of Diaspora: Mobility, Connectivity and Communication in a Globalised World’. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 1, No. 1 (2004): 52–65. Accessed May 10, 2012. https://www.westminster.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/20219/005WPCCVol1-No1-Roza_Tsagarousianou.pdf. White, Anne. Polish Families and Migration since EU Accession. Bristol: Policy Press, 2011. Wilk, Przemysław. ‘Images of Poles and Poland in The Guardian, 2003-2005’. In Facing the East in the West: Images of Eastern Europe in British Literature, Film and Culture, edited by Barbara Korte, Eva U. Pirker, and Sissy Helff. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010. Renata Seredyńska-Abou Eid is a PhD candidate at the University of Nottingham, UK. Her interests encompass cultural translation and cultural issues in migration and diaspora. Currently her project is aimed at researching cultural translation among Polish migrants in the East Midlands, UK.

Wandering Dwellings: Diasporic Architectures Sarah B. Gelbard Abstract Historically, the self and home of the Wandering Jew are seen as Other. Rather than a representation of the intrinsic existential condition of the Diaspora, the tragic homelessness and dehumanisation experienced by the Jewish Diaspora is, I argue, a hegemonic construct of Euro-Christian ideology. According to Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin’s theory of Diasporic Consciousness, the Jewish people do not suffer from homelessness. They identify with a multiplicity of places simultaneously, carrying a sense of the familiar into the foreign. Following the Babylonian exile, the foundations of the place of group identity were translated from the site to cite - to an architecture that precedes architecture, i.e., the texts of the Torah and the lineage of its People. Permanence and continuity were therefore relocated and maintained in the portability and flexibility of this architext. The symbolic relocation of identity into text does not, however, condemn exilic architecture to an immaterial, indeterminate, or aspatial construct. Architecture does not become a purely metaphysical or metaphorical experience, nor does it preclude connectivity to particular place(s). Rather, it is conceived of as a mediator in a nuanced existence between the perceived and constructed dualities of life, and negotiates between seemingly contradictory states (interior/exterior, permanent/transient, local/foreign). It is a facilitator of transition - a journey rather than a rooted existence. Emmanuel Lévinas suggests this meeting between permanence and impermanence and a complex spatio-temporal relationship between the transient self and the stationary architecture. Both the function and form of diasporic architecture are understood as a (1) mnemonic device to evoke recollection and (2) facilitator of relationship with the other through its transitional spaces. Diasporic architecture recollects the lineage of cultural memories of placeimages carried by the Diaspora as an expression of its continuity and identity. Key Words: Architecture, dwelling, place-making, diaspora, Wandering Jew, diasporic consciousness, sukkah, mezuzah, eruv. ***** 1. Place and Displacement of Diasporic Consciousness In their analysis of the Jewish identity and Diaspora, Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin put forth the concept of a diasporic consciousness. They argue that ‘[g]roup identity has been constructed traditionally in two ways. It has been figured on the one hand as the product of a common genealogical origin and, on the other, as produced by a common geographical origin.’ 1 Both are dependent upon establishing a claim of continuity and the rules of membership. The Jewish

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__________________________________________________________________ diaspora is a condition that intersects these two generators of group identity. It is defined both ethnically through genealogical lineage, and culturally through a geographical identity of displacement. It highlights the complexity of the relationship between people and place. The autochthonous conception of cultural or national identity derives authority and meaning through direct geographical lineage and continuous occupation and sovereignty over a place of origin. Within this autochthonous context, cultural attachment to place is therefore traditionally defined through the lack of movement i.e., change in place, over time. The identity and memory of place and people are therefore dependent upon continuity and permanence in its occupation of its place of origin - the homeland. Conversely, the dis-placement of Diaspora etymologically implies a destruction or reversal of place and a movement towards an anti-place, a non-place, or placelessness. The people and the place are separated and continuity is broken. The displacement of the Jewish People extends beyond the physical and geographic exile from Babylon. Arguably, the more poignant displacement is the Euro-Christian hegemonic narrative which imagines and reinforces the image of Jews as Other and outsiders. ‘The place of difference increasingly becomes the Jewish place, and thus the Jew becomes the very sign of discord and disorder in the Christian polity.’ 2 The authority and dominating power which the Boyarins refer to as the ‘danger of the myth of autochthony,’ 3 relies on the assertion of a bounded and defined domain - the inclusion of interiority and the exclusion of exteriority. One might infer that Jewish diasporic identity is therefore not self-determined but rather that it has been imposed by the authority of the Christian majority seeking to assert the boundaries of their own domain. In this light, one could argue that Jewish diasporic identity is not positively constructed. On the contrary, it is constructed through negation: dis-placement, dis-cord, dis-order. However, the Boyarins counter that ‘[the experience of the Diaspora] has constrained Jews to create forms of community that do not rely on one of the most potent and dangerous myths - the myth of autochthony.’ 4 Jewish diasporic identity is constructed through its acknowledgment of the dominant narrative and its negotiation of self-identity in relationship with rather than in opposition to the normative other. It resists assimilation and domination. The Boyarins propose that diasporic consciousness is ‘a consciousness of a Jewish collective as one sharing space with others, devoid of exclusivist and dominating power.’ 5 In lieu of sovereignty or occupation of a geographic place, diasporic consciousness prioritises maintaining connection through memory of the place of origin. In so doing, it posits an alternative relationship between people and place. William Safran includes this point in his seven criteria of diasporic communities: ‘They retain a collective memory, vision, or myth about their original homeland.’ 6 Group identity and memory are established by indirectly re-connecting to origins through traditions and practices rather than direct physical occupation. The

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__________________________________________________________________ authority of bounded and defined cultural generators of a strictly geographically generated is in turn displaced, while flexibility, resilience, and adaptivity become means for establishing continuity and belonging - making place for the Jewish Diaspora. 2. Interiority and the Sojourn of Dwelling The artificial dualities and boundaries that define identity and belonging in the Euro-Christian tradition are projections both onto the self and the world - people and places. It is where man has established control of and domination over the homeland through the authority of autochthony that he uses a diametrically formulated ideology of place to compare himself against the other. Place is established and defined in its opposition and exclusion of the Other. It is selfreferential and inward-looking. Place is defined through the exclusion of the outside and becomes hyper-interiorised. In this context place is cut off from the rest of space and essentially rendered closed and impermeable. Lacking in openings or thresholds, it denies the possibility of passage or interaction between inside and outside. The Other remains mysteriously, and often forcibly, concealed behind the impenetrable line separating interior and exterior, good and evil, and familiar and strange. 7 Conversely, Emmanuel Lévinas describes interiority as the ‘gathering or appearance of place in space.’ 8 This notion of gathering implies a coming from somewhere else. What is now defined as inside was once outside before being welcomed in. Framed as an opening in space, like the windows and doors of the home, place is defined equally by its separation as by its potential openness to the exterior - it presupposes both the separation of self and interface with the other. Thus the question of dwelling or place-making becomes an ethical and relational, rather than an ontological and divisional, event. I argue that Lévinas’ definition is consistent with, if not directly derived from, the continuity of space and the complex interrelation of centre and periphery implied by Talmudic tradition and diasporic consciousness. The life and place of the Jewish people are perceived as a series of both temporal and spatial thresholds. The threshold becomes the symbolic expression and representation of the potential for infinite outward extension and continuity that simultaneously affords the privacy and security of interiority. Similarly deeply rooted in Jewish tradition, Lévinas’ definition 9 of being as the ‘sojourn in a dwelling’ suggests a meeting between permanence and impermanence and a complex spatio-temporal relationship between the transient (meuble) and the stationary (immeuble). The home becomes the intersection of the transient self and the stationary architecture where the self is free to recollect in its interiority and simultaneously position itself in relationship with the exterior elements. Being, as it is defined by Lévinas, is not a static state. It requires the motion and action of the sojourn. In this context permanence is not necessarily rooted solely to site or location. It suggests a relationship to place that is not dependent on passively

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__________________________________________________________________ appropriating the permanence, stability and continuity from a particular immovable site. Place derives its meaning actively and perpetually by way of the sojourn through many spaces and the gathering which makes it appear in a particular space. 3. Translation from Site to Cite With the destruction of the Holy Temple, the assumed permanence and stability of the Jewish people, once substantiated by stone and grounded in site, were fundamentally challenged. In order to adapt to the new diasporic condition, the rabbis relocated the foundation of the community in the portability and flexibility of text. The authority once derived from the monumentality of the Temple and its site was translated into the polysemy and multiplicity of the Talmud and its citations. In ‘The Architecture of Talmud,’ Mitchell Schwarter argues that the Talmud becomes a substitute for the Temple insofar as it continues to perform three fundamental architectural functions: a threshold between the profane and the sacred, a space for the gathering of the community, and a site to accommodate the holiness of the Lord. 10 However, the symbolic relocation of dwelling, culture, and identity in text does not condemn place to an immaterial, indeterminate, or aspatial construct. The place(s) of the Diaspora does not become a purely metaphysical or metaphorical experience. Nor does it preclude connectivity to physical and geographical space. Though exiled from the place of their originary roots, a sense or memory of that place is perpetually carried into another and a relationship to the host land is established. In this way the Jewish people identify with a multiplicity of places simultaneously, carrying a sense of the familiar into the foreign. The laws codified in text superimpose structure on new lands and relate it to places past. Through practicing law, the link to lineage and origin is re-established and the old is evoked and translated into the new. The tension and sojourn between these two places is where the Diaspora finds its place. Rather than placelessness, I argue that the Jewish Diaspora experience a multiplacedness. 4. Diasporic Architectures Diasporic architecture is, I argue, intrinsically tied to a re-collection of the fragmented cultural and tectonic memories of place-images carried by the Diaspora. Both the function and form of diasporic architecture are therefore to be understood as mnemonics and symbolic devices which evoke recollection and as facilitators of the physical relationship with the other through its openings and transitional spaces. As examples of diasporic architectures, the sukkah, the mezuzah, and the eruv reflect and reveal this inherent negotiation between the spatial, the symbolic, and the literal in the place-making of the Diaspora. A. The Eternal Temporary Dwelling

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__________________________________________________________________ The sukkah is an interesting mnemonic structure that intersects the nomadic and the agrarian, i.e., the wandering and the rooted histories of the Diaspora. During the week of the harvest festival of Sukkot, the children of Israel are commanded to build and dwell in temporary huts. 11 The sukkah serves both as a shelter among the crops, often decorated with various fruits and stalks, and as a reminder of the period of wandering following the Exodus. 12 As a model of the archetypal dwelling, 13 the sukkah questions what it means to dwell. The temporary and seemingly conflicting symbolic nature of the structure informs and nuances the debate. Maimonides writes: ‘One should regard his house as a temporary home and the sukkah as his permanent home.’ 14 The implied stability of the permanent dwelling is juxtaposed with the temporary structure of the sukkah. As a harvest festival, Sukkot is often described as a thanksgiving for the bountiful crop but also for the bountifulness of one’s regular and settled life. The rabbis, however, suggest that this period of separation is one of purification and recalling the forty years during which the Israelites wandered the desert before settling in Canaan. Removed from the vices and corruption, the Prophets associated with urban civilisation, the reproduction of nomadic life during Sukkot is believed to destabilise the norm and provide a frame of mind by which one’s regular life may be viewed critically. 15 Spatial separation facilitates the temporal displacement of remembrance and critical distance from the self. The sukkah is not only a recollection, but also a celebration of the precarious, the uprooted, and the destabilised. The temporality of a dwelling in the eternal process of being built is a reminder of the transience embedded in the sojourn that is central to the meaning of diasporic architecture. B. The Symbolic and Literal Threshold The mezuzah serves several purposes and contains multiple meanings. The marking of one’s doorpost, identifying it as a Jewish home, is comparable to the marking of the posts and lintel with ram's blood in Egypt so that the tenth plague would pass-over the house. 16 The mezuzah is therefore often interpreted as a protector. The choice of text inscribed within and its positioning in the home, however, elicit other interpretations. The mezuzah consists of a small piece of parchment that contains the first paragraphs of the Shema. 17 The scroll is then enclosed in a small tube or box and affixed to each of the right-hand door-posts in the home. The passages contained in the mezuzah are a promise to conduct oneself ethically, both inside and outside the home. ‘The rite of the mezuzah is an invitation to perpetual motion.’ 18 Its placement on the doorpost is intended as a reminder of the continuity of the commandments, in both space and time. The mezuzah acts as both a symbolic and a literal threshold. Architecturally, the mezuzah serves the function of creating place at the transition between spaces. It is an interruption and therefore recognition of the artificial division of wall. By

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__________________________________________________________________ creating and activating this transitional place, the natural continuity of the ground plane is restored and a framework for the dialogue between separate but continuous spaces is enacted. The leaving of one’s home, marked by the passage of both the act and the text of the mezuzah, affirms the perpetual journey and transition inherent of diasporic architecture, the continuity and the overlap of departures and arrivals and of interior and exterior. C. Mixed Places between Public and Private Domains Perhaps one of the most challenging observances of the Sabbath is the restriction on ‘removing an object from one domain to another.’ 19 In order to remove undue burden while maintaining adherence to the command, the rabbis applied specific definitions to what they determined as the four types of related spatial conditions: the public domain, the private domain, the unfrequented place, and the free place - the latter two being of neutral ownership and constituting space outside or between domains. 20 The transfer of objects from one spatial context into the next is therefore permitted by means of spatial integration and the dissolution of boundaries between spaces through the re-definition of place as eruv chatzeirot, i.e., a domain of mixed ownership. Traditionally, eruvim were limited in scale to families in adjoining homes or sharing a courtyard. Though defined in spatial terms, these eruvim were constructed symbolically by the sharing of a loaf of bread and reciting: ‘my domain is given to you, my domain is relinquished to you.’ 21 The domestic space of the individual home extends into the conceptually domesticated in-between space of the courtyard, in effect effacing the distinction between one home and the next. Contemporary eruvim have further extended the definition of domain to refer to a shared enclosed area. Here the perimeter is perceived as the principal material manifestation of domain. Entire neighbourhoods are defined as eruvim by establishing a continuous perimeter, primarily by surveying, integrating and reinforcing pre-existing structures such as telephone lines, fences, and walls. 22 ‘The eruv emerges as a theory of community, of collectivity, of neighbourhood as a unified community with collective intent.’ 23 The eruv chatzeirot extends beyond the practicality of facilitating conveyance of objects on Shabbat. It conveys a specific connotation of place and activates the thresholds between the purely private and public realms. When the individual waives possession or dominion over his space, he collaboratively creates and negotiates a place between neighbours. 5. Architectural Implications of Re-Siting Place Architecture is an imprinting of culture and identity in space. It is the cultural practice of spatial constructs and place-making, operating on multiple scales, both temporal and spatial. I argue that architecture can therefore be contemplated as not exclusively restricted to building, built-form, and built-environment, but as a

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__________________________________________________________________ comprehensive spectrum of architectural production and practices which serve a spatial function and define place and its relation to space. This broadens the definition of architecture to include drawings, models, writings, installations, concepts, theories, events, etc. Because of the tentativeness of the location, the material and formal nature of architecture hold less importance in defining place for the Diaspora than is traditionally true of other national architectures. There is necessarily an additional consciousness made in the effort of the making of place when it is temporarily connected to the space it occupies and more permanently connected symbolically to a remembered place of origin. The re-collection of the fragmented cultural and tectonic memories of place-images/texts carried by the Diaspora locate a foundation of Jewish architectural tradition rooted in text, rather than a particular spatial or territorial condition. The distinction between the literal and the symbolic and between the geographical and the cultural quickly become ambiguous and inseparable in this translation from text into architecture. This ambiguity fosters the potential to bestow a complexity and richness to the intricately considered and crafted object, transforming the material into the sacred and translating the sacred into the material. The Diasporic consciousness conditions one’s experience of dwelling as an overlay of the current environment with a remembered one. Throughout their displacement, the Jewish Diaspora carry with them the memory, objects, and traditions of home, facilitating the re-placement and re-collection of home in multiple alternative spaces. Continuity is achieved through the connection between temporary houses with a lineage of objects and traditions of home, intersecting the familiar with the strange. Place and meaning are constructed through a complex interweaving and implementation of the symbolic and literal value of transcendent text and practices in the current condition. The sukkah, the mezuzah, and the eruv demonstrate this kind of complex spatio-temporal architectural practice. ‘We not only do these things because we are this thing, but we are this thing because we do these things.’ 24

Notes 1

Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin, ‘Diaspora: Generation and the Ground of Jewish Identity’, Critical Inquiry 19, No. 4 (1993): 693. 2 Ibid., 697. 3 Ibid., 699. 4 Ibid., 699. 5 Ibid., 713. 6 William Safran, ‘The Jewish Diaspora in a Comparative and Theoretical Perspective’, Israel Studies 10, No. 1 (2005): 37.

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Heidegger defines dwelling as a ‘measure-taking’ and the demarcation of space which separates the fundamental dualities of existence; inside/outside, self/other. See Martin Heidegger, ‘Building, Dwelling, Thinking’, in Rethinking Architecture, ed. Neil Leach (London: Routledge, 1997), 100-124. See also Benedict Anderson, ‘Imagined Communities’, in Nationalism, eds. Huchinson and Smith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 89-96 for a discussion of the protection of foundational myths of nationhood through reinforcement of sameness and exclusion of the other. 8 Emmanuel Lévinas, Difficult Freedoms: Essays on Judaism (London: Athlon, 1990), 33. 9 Emmanuel Lévinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1998), 157. 10 Mitchell Schwarzer, ‘The Architecture of Talmud’, JSAH 60, No. 4 (December 2001), 474. 11 Leviticus 23:42-43. 12 Isaac Klein, A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992), 156-158. 13 The ‘primitive hut’ is often referred to in architectural treatise as the archetype of all architecture. See Marc Antoine Laugier, Essay on Architecture (1755). 14 Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Mishnah Sukkot 6:5-6. 15 Klein, Guide to Jewish Practice, 158. 16 Exodus 12:7. 17 The passage inscribed on the mezuzah scroll are Deut 6:4-9 and 11:13-21. 18 Marc-Alain Ouaknin, Symbols of Judaism (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2000), 28. 19 Klein, Guide to Jewish Practice, 81. 20 Charlotte E. Fonrobert, ‘The Political Symbolism of the Eruv’, Jewish Social Studies 11, No. 3 (2005): 18. 21 Eruvim 5:18 as quoted in Fonrobert, ‘The Political Symbolism’, 18. 22 Jennifer Cousineau, ‘Rabbinic Urbanism in London: Rituals and the Material Culture of the Sabbath’, Jewish Social Studies 11, No. 3 (2005): 39. 23 Fonrobert, ‘The Political Symbolism’, 16. 24 Boyarin, ‘Diaspora: Generation’, 705.

Bibliography Anderson, Benedict. ‘Imagined Communities’. In Nationalism, edited by Hutchinson, and Smith, 89–96. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

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__________________________________________________________________ Bambach, Charles. ‘Bordercrossings: Levinas, Heidegger, and the Ethics of the’ Other’. Modern Intellectual History 4, No. 1 (2007): 205–217. Boyarin, Daniel, and Jonathan Boyarin. ‘Diaspora: Generation and the Ground of Jewish Identity’. Critical Inquiry 19, No. 4 (1993): 693–725. Cousineau, Jennifer. ‘Rabbinic Urbanism in London: Rituals and the Material Culture of the Sabbath’. Jewish Social Studies 11, No. 3 (Spring/Summer 2005): 36–57. Dubow, Jessica. ‘Outside of Place and Other than Optical: Walter Benjamin and the Geography of Critical Thought’. Journal of Visual Culture 3, No. 3 (2004): 259– 274. —––. ‘The Mobility of Thought: Reflections on Blanchot and Benjamin’. Interventions 6, No. 2 (2004): 216–228. Fonrobert, Charlotte E. ‘The Political Symbolism of the Eruv’. Jewish Social Studies 11, No. 3 (Spring/Summer 2005): 9–35. Heidegger, Martin. ‘Building, Dwelling, Thinking’ 1951. In Rethinking Architecture, edited by Neil Leach, 100–124. London: Routledge, 1997. Klein, Isaac. A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992. Lévinas, Emmanuel. Difficult Freedoms: Essays on Judaism. Translated by Sean Hand. London: Athlon, 1990. —––. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1998. Neusner, Jacob. The Halakhah, Volume 1 Part 4: Inside the Walls of the Israelite Household. Part A. at the Meeting of Time and Space. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2000. Ouaknin, Marc-Alain. Symbols of Judaism. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2000. Safran, William. ‘The Jewish Diaspora in a Comparative and Theoretical Perspective’. Israel Studies 10, No. 1 (2005): 36–60.

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__________________________________________________________________ Said, Edward. ‘The Mind of Winter: Reflections on Life in Exile’. Harper’s Magazine 269 (September 1984): 49–55. Schwarzer, Mitchell. ‘The Architecture of Talmud’. JSAH 60, No. 4 (December 2001): 474–487. Stern, David. ‘Midrash and Indeterminacy’. Critical Inquiry 15 (Autumn 1988): 132–161. Wyschogrod, Edith. ‘Autochthony and Welcome: Discourses of Exile in Lévinas and Derrida’. Journal of Philosophy and Scripture 1, No. 1 (2003): 36–41. Sarah B. Gelbard is an independent scholar of architecture based in Ottawa, Ontario. Her primary research interests include representational theory; the bridging of theory and practice; and place-making in Jewish Diasporic philosophy, traditions, and history.