This event is n partnership with CAREP

• For the Conference Agenda, click here.
• Organizing committee: Fanny Christou (UI), Isabel Ruck (CAREP), Sarah Anne Rennick (ARI)
• Venue: CAREP Paris, 12 rue Raymond Aron, 75013 Paris

You can register to attend by following this link. You will receive a Zoom confirmation email should your registration be successful. Alternatively, you can watch the event live here on our Facebook page.

Argument

In his article “The ‘diaspora’ diaspora”, Brubaker (2005) discusses the proliferation of the use of the term “diaspora” in the literature and criticizes the widespread tendency to treat it as a fixed entity, arguing that the term, like nation-state, refers to a hybrid and fluid “category of practice, project, claim and stance”. Brubaker cites Gabriel Sheffer’s work to illustrate this problem (Sheffer 2003: 245 in Brubaker 2005: 10), arguing that such a conceptualization of diaspora communities as “bona fide actual entities” often fails to recognize “the heterogeneity of diasporas” (Brubaker 2005: 10). In addition, the term diaspora is used to define various transnational communities (Tölölyan 1991: 4-5), but these communities also refer to the movement of migrants between different geographic places and political spaces, allowing the circulation of capital through ideas and behaviors, building an « identity of its own » (Bruneau 2011). These resources are important in migrants’ places of origin and can become convertible and legitimate in new societal contexts through strategies, initiatives, and practices that they create and develop in the host society. It is in this tension between diasporas, home and host societies that Tölölyan recognizes when suggesting that “where once there were dispersions there now is diaspora.”

Most of the literature still considers diasporas as examples of transnational communities, meaning that they belong to two or more societies at the same time and display multiple forms of identification (Gorman and Kasbarian 2015). Nevertheless, with the outbreak of the Arab uprisings in 2010-2011, diasporas from the Middle East and North Africa region were confronted with new forms of contentious politics and transnational repression across spaces (Dukalskis et al., 2024; Tsourapas, 2021), thus endorsing new challenges and questioning their agency, to the point that some have spoken about a “Diaspora Spring” (Khan, 2012). In addition, significant environmental hazards also forced millions of people to flee the region, with climate change interlinked with the conflicts that arose in the region (Kelley et. Al. 2015; Johnstone & Mazo, 2011). Finally, one cannot ignore that among the post-Arab uprising diasporas formation, millions of people from the region already constituted groups of exiles, often stateless, due to ongoing conflicts (Palestinians, Kurds, Saharaouis, to quote just a few).

Consequently, various forms of diasporic engagement emerge in the aftermath of the Arab uprisings with potential “back home effects” that have been addressed in the literature (Brand, 2016; Colombo & Gozzini, 2021; Féron & Baser, 2022). These groups on the move, facing various barriers, borders and boundaries, sometimes stateless, challenge the meaning of diasporas as conflict entrepreneurs (Brinkerhoff, 2011). According to Moss, “conflict transmission” refers to “the ways in which divisive home-country politics are reproduced in diaspora communities through members’ biographical and identity-based ties” (Moss, 2022). With the proliferation of armed and protracted social conflicts, the permanent forced displacement of significant numbers of people has been framed in the global North as a ‘crisis’ and a ‘problem’. This has contributed to the formulation of various biopolitical solutions to ensure sustainable democracies but also to renewed perceptions of the aporia or passivity of migrants. This essentialization, through an increased demonization and scrutinization of Muslim and migrant populations in Europe (Mohiuddin, 2019; Motilla, 2018; Stokes-Dupass, 2017; Lazaridis & Khursheed, 2015), where securitization of migration policies becomes a priority and focusing on violence at the expense of the everyday, foreground their conflict experiences and ignore other aspects of diasporic narratives of mobilization.

Against this background, research on the role of diasporas post-2011 has generated interesting insights but has suffered from the persistence of disciplinary boundaries and from the lack of intersectional comparative case-studies. There is an urgent need for academics and activists working on migration and political engagement in exile to rethink the notion of diaspora and the transnational dynamics across spaces, thus contributing to developing new theoretical / conceptual perspectives and practical toolkits. This one-day seminar thus intends to contribute to exploring the complex ways in which diasporas engage in various contexts with the conflicts “back home” and their repercussions in the countries of their settlement while exploring new and alternative forms of engagement. The main goals are twofold. First, the seminar seeks to reflect on opportunities to find novel approaches that can help deconstruct the concept of diasporas and their political roles through empirical case-studies from the MENA post-2011. Second, the seminar aims to explore the original practical toolkits that have been designed by the diasporas from the MENA post-2011 to address the challenges of how to make politics in a post-Arab uprising context.

Along with an opening introduction to address the novelty of the post-2011 MENA diasporas, this seminar is structured around four key panels. A first panel, entitled “Rethinking diaspora politics post-2011: new theoretical perspectives”, aims to address the conceptual challenges in dealing with diasporas and transnational dynamics across spaces after the Arab uprisings. It seeks to question the role of post-2011 diasporas in acting as peacemakers or peacebreakers back home. Building upon this first panel, the second and third panels aim to address the new and alternative forms of engagement that have been developed in diaspora after 2011. We will explore the new forms of political engagement as well as alternative processes of mobilization, drawing on specific empirical case studies. Finally, a fourth panel, “Political repercussions of Diaspora mobilizations”, will be an opportunity to reflect on transnational dynamics through the effects of diaspora mobilization across spaces, thus questioning the “back home effect” and engaging with the role of diasporas in host societies.