Theory for a Global Age Diaspora as Translation and Decolonisation

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This book proposes a new way of conceptualising diaspora by examining how diasporas do translation and decolonisation. It provides conceptual tools for investigating diasporas and their interventions and considers diaspora as ‘the Global south in the global north’, as well as providing a case study of the Kurdish diaspora in Europe. ‘With a focus on the distinct but related concepts of translation and decolonisation, this book provides a novel approach to the study of diaspora. Theoretically embedded, it offers a rich empirical analysis of the Kurdish diaspora in Europe.’Avtar Brah, Professor Emerita, Birkbeck College, University of London'This book decisively shifts the focus from what diasporas are to what they do. While primarily focusing on the case of the Kurds, the author demonstrates how diasporas create new identities and shape the processes of decolonisation.'Robin Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Development Studies, University of OxfordThis book develops a new understanding of diaspora, revealing the far-reaching transformative potential of the concept. Specifically, it examines how diasporas do translation and decolonisation.Empires have traditionally used translation to sustain systems of governance, exploitation and conversion. But diasporic translations can act to challenge this, as subaltern peoples talk back to the Global North from within it. Conceiving of diasporas as archetypal translators who put new identities, perspectives and ideologies into circulation, Diaspora as translation and decolonisation reveals how they can domesticate, rewrite, erase and foreignise, producing disruptions and destabilisations. The book introduces concepts such as ‘diaspora as rewriting and transformation’, ‘diaspora as erasure and exclusion’ and ‘diaspora as a tension between foreignisation and domestication’. It focuses on examples of diasporas in the Global North, notably the Kurds, and considers the backlash to diasporas of colour. This innovative study engages critically with existing conceptualisations of diaspora, arguing that if diaspora is to have analytical purchase, it should illuminate a specific angle of migration or migrancy. To reveal the much-needed transformative potential of the concept, the book looks specifically at how diasporas undertake translation and decolonisation. It offers various conceptual tools for investigating diaspora, with a specific focus on diasporas in the Global North and a detailed empirical study of the Kurdish diaspora in Europe. The book also considers the backlash diasporas of colour have faced in the Global North.

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Pages: 176, Paperback, Manchester University Press