300653 Global diasporas: an introduction (MA: Soziologie der globalen Welt) (S) (SoSe 2024)

Over the last 70 years, global migration flows have intensified and many new diasporas came into being, while, against many predictions, old diasporas did not cease to exist but rather continued to grow and became more established. The first part of this course will introduce students to some of the most relevant theoretical concepts of modern and ancient diasporas from within Sociology, Anthropology and Political Sciences. Special attention is directed at dislocation, expulsion, exile, making and unmaking of diasporas, homeland-diaspora-host country relations, long-distance nationalism, political subjectivities and (be)longing, roots and routes, identity and culture, social and cultural remittances. The sec-ond part of the course is intended to expand student’s empirical knowledge by examining a number of selected case studies according to their own regional preferences.
Course requirements: All students are required to give an oral presentation in class and produce two essays (3,000 words each) for both parts of the course (a theoretical theme and a case study).

Bibliography

Adamson, Fiona B.: “The Growing Importance of Diaspora Politics”, Current History, Vol. 115, No. 784, A World of Diasporas (November 2016), pp. 291-297.
Rogers Brubaker (2005) “The ‘diaspora’ diaspora”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 28:1, 1-19
Clifford, J., 1994, Diasporas, Cultural Anthropology 9/2, pp. 302-338.
Cohen, Robin: Global Diasporas: an introduction, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997.
Gamlen, Alan: “Diaspora Institutions and Diaspora Governance”, International Migration Review, 48, 2014: 180-217.
Safran, W. 1991. ‘Diasporas in Modern Societies. Myth of Homeland and Return’, Diaspora, 1 (1): 83-99.
Vora, Neha (2013) Impossible Citizens: Dubai’s Indian Diaspora. Durham: Duke University Press, 2013.