“No One Leaves Home Unless Home Is the Mouth of a Shark”: Dwelling and the Complexities of Return in Warsan Shire’s Poetry

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (6) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Uchenna Frances Obi ◽  
Raphael Chukwuemeka Onyejizu
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Host Country ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Home Country ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
Transcultural Identity ◽  
Racial Conflicts ◽  
The Us ◽  
Place Of Origin

Africa’s bitter historical experience of slavery and racial discrimination influences diasporic literary writers in their representation of home and its exigencies. This is due to the sordid effect of racial conflicts culminating in disillusionment of writers, who engage in the nostalgic longing for their country of origin, notwithstanding the influences of the host country on African migrants. By exploring Warsan Shire’s poetry, this study, through the lens of modernity and globalization, examines the concept of home while x-raying locations of the African immigrant in diaspora. The research utilised the Postcolonial theory and the qualitative method of analysis to examine how diasporic immigrants, particularly female subalterns struggle to grapple with the intricacies of dwelling in a hostile clime which situates the “Us” and “Them” binary opposition on their lived conditions. It analysed Shire’s poems as a product of the transcultural identity formation of the poet, illustrating her migratory experiences through the notion of “unhomely” (in her home country) and “Homeliness” (in her host country) as dilemmas that bisect her quest for return home because of war. The study, thus, submits that globalization alternates the idea of situating home as a place of origin.

scholarly journals Adaptation and identity shifts after migration and return migration: Turkish qualified returnees from Germany and the US

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
Meltem Yilmaz Sener
Keyword(s):  
Host Country ◽  
Return Migration ◽  
Home Country ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Host Country Nationals ◽  
The Us ◽  
Country Culture ◽  
Identity Shifts

This study looks at the adaptation experiences of Turkish qualified migrants who returned to Turkey after living in Germany and the US, discussing their identity shifts both during the period spent in the host country and after the return. I look at their i- pre-migration familiarity with the language and culture of the host country, ii- social groups in the host country, iii- association memberships in the host country, iv- frequency of their visits to Turkey, v- the extent to which they followed the developments in Turkey, vi- reasons behind the decision to return, vii- re-adaptation to the home country culture after return, and viii- relationships with other returnees and host country nationals after return. By focusing on these aspects of their experiences, I aim to demonstrate the kinds of orientations they have had to the host and home country cultures, and the identity shifts they had both after migration and return. I also discuss whether there are any differences between the returnees from Germany and the US in terms of these dimensions.

Identity Politics and Migration

2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-158
Author(s):  
Vytis Čiubrinskas
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Host Country ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
The Us ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Uk ◽  
A Current ◽  
Respective Host

The Centre of Social Anthropology (CSA) at Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) in Kaunas has coordinated projects on this, including a current project on 'Retention of Lithuanian Identity under Conditions of Europeanisation and Globalisation: Patterns of Lithuanian-ness in Response to Identity Politics in Ireland, Norway, Spain, the UK and the US'. This has been designed as a multidisciplinary project. The actual expressions of identity politics of migrant, 'diasporic' or displaced identity of Lithuanian immigrants in their respective host country are being examined alongside with the national identity politics of those countries.

Too Old to Forget: The Dynamics of Political Trust among Immigrants

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172098089
Author(s):  
Chiara Superti ◽  
Noam Gidron
Keyword(s):  
Host Country ◽  
Home Country ◽  
Country Of Origin ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Specific Time ◽  
Institutional Interaction ◽  
Trust In Institutions ◽  
Age At Migration ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
Point Of Reference

Scholars have argued that immigrants’ trust in institutions is the result of the exposure to host-country institutions but also shaped by past experiences in the country of origin. These experiences create a “home-country point of reference,” a political/institutional memory that becomes the relevant comparison for any political/institutional interaction in the host country. We develop further this concept and unpack its key determinants—the age at migration and the historical conditions of the home country at the specific time of migration. Only those immigrants who were too old to forget the historical and contextual features of the country-of-origin institutions at the time of migration will rely on this comparison when interacting with institutions in the host country. Across time, there is both a continuous positive/negative accumulation of trust for the host-country institutions among those with less/more democratic points of reference. We examine immigrants’ political trust using survey evidence from Israel.

scholarly journals DIASPORA NETWORKS, NON-ECONOMIC REMITTANCES AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT: EVIDENCE FROM SOME ECONOMIES IN LATIN AMERICA

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (01) ◽  
pp. 1550005 ◽  
Author(s):  
NIR KSHETRI ◽  
DIANA ROJAS-TORRES ◽  
MARLENY CARDONA ACEVEDO
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Host Country ◽  
Home Country ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activity ◽  
Entrepreneurship Development ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Diaspora Networks

Diaspora networks' non-economic remittances in the forms of social, political, cultural and technical contributions to their homeland play important roles in entrepreneurship and economic development. In this paper, we examine the effects of such remittances on entrepreneurship development in economies in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). We analyze how factors such as migrants' skills and education and characteristics of the host country are likely to affect non-economic remittances and their contribution to entrepreneurship and economic development. We offer some examples of initiatives taken in the home country and the host country to maximize the potential non-economic remittances and their impacts on entrepreneurship development in the home country. A key lesson and take-away that we can gain from entrepreneurially successful efforts of some economies is that the primary focus of diaspora policies need to be centered on utilizing various forms of non-economic remittances in stimulating the quantity and quality of entrepreneurial activity.

Riding the Waves of (Post)Colonial Migrancy: Are We All Really in the Same Boat?

1998 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-51
Author(s):  
Carule Fabricant
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
News Article ◽  
Container Ship ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Us ◽  
Port Of Los Angeles ◽  
To Come ◽  
Car Accident

I would like to begin by juxtaposing two very different pictures of global travel taken from recent articles in the popular media and considering their implications both for contemporary postcolonial theory and for our readings of “third world” fictional texts. In one article from the summer of 1997 (Newton 6-7), the Los Angeles New Times displayed on its cover a slender man in his thirties staring hopelessly out from behind a barred window. The caption read: “No Way Out: Romanian Gavrila Moldovan Risked His Life to Come to America. The INS Promptly Locked Him Up on Terminal Island. Three and a Half Years Later, He’s Still in Jail.” The accompanying story described Moldovan’s desperate flight out of Romania after being declared a “noncitizen” for writing an anti-government news article, which rendered him vulnerable to immediate arrest, and after his parents died in a suspicious car “accident.” Having slipped aboard a container ship bound for the United States together with some fellow countrymen (three of whom died en route), he was discovered and unceremoniously dumped ashore in Panama, only to stow away shortly thereafter on another container ship headed for the Port of Los Angeles. After finally reaching his destination, a “euphoric” Moldovan explained to the US authorities awaiting him at the port: “I come here to be in freedom.... ’” His “welcome” consisted of being arrested and locked up in the INS Processing Center on Terminal Island, in which, though never charged with any crime, he remained for several years before being transferred to Kern County Jail in Bakersfield, where he is currently languishing amongst a population of men awaiting trial for serious crimes (6-7)—one of thousands of refugees and immigrants who have been, and continue to be, incarcerated in prisons that have contracts with the INS, for lack of proper documents, for minor infringements of the law, or because they are denied political asylum despite compelling evidence of their vulnerability to government reprisal at home.

Dehumanizing to Demonizing: Critical Discourse Analysis of George Bush’s Speeches for Exploring the Influence of Dehumanizing Metaphor in Political Discourse

2021 ◽  
pp. 154-168
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
George Bush ◽  
Sense Of Security ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Sense Of Justice

To legitimize US invasion of Iraq, Bush fabricated fake intelligence reports, and depended solely on propaganda; he manipulated language in a well-calculated manner; most particularly, the metaphors chosen and devised for his speeches were such that convinced the US citizens about the legitimacy of the invasion, elicited financial support of the European allies and moral support of the majority of the world community. This research work used discourse analysis to study the metaphors that were used by George Bush in the speeches he made on 8 different occasions, and the theoretical framework used in it is the combination of critical discourse analysis CDA with postcolonial theory concept of orientalism.It utilized both qualitative and quantitative data collection tools.It found that most of the task was accomplished through the linguistic manipulation in the shape of metaphor used to dehumanize the enemy, which first made the US citizens feel as victims to the jealousy of rogue Muslim states for intending to completely annihilate them; then, it made appeal to their sense of justice, sense of security, and right to self-defense. By grouping the world citizens into Us and Them groups, the innocent, peace-loving and the war-mongers, the angels and the devils, and then by placing themselves and the rest of the world among the first group and placing the powerfulMuslims states among the second group, the US exploited the feelings and thoughts of all. Despite the UN and the rest of the world having come to know the sheer lies of the US now, the US still has managed to flog a dead horse and blind-fold majority of the world through this linguistic manipulation in the form of using dehumanizing metaphors

scholarly journals Deconstructing the Portrayal of Adults’ Superiority towards Children in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s "A Little Princess"

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 24-31
Author(s):  
NUR INAYAH ◽  
Bambang Purwanto
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Reading Strategy ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
Frances Hodgson Burnett ◽  
Descriptive Qualitative

This study discusses how the portrayal of adults’ superiority towards children in the novel A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett is deconstructed by the work itself. The adults’ superiority is portrayed in the novel, in which the adults are depicted as more superior figure than children. However, the perfect descriptions of the children as portrayed by Sara in the novel show that the hierarchy in child-adult relationship is able to be reversed. This study uses descriptive qualitative method supported by Structuralism’s binary opposition and Derrida’s Deconstruction reading strategy. The aim of this study is to destabilize the novel, A Little Princess, by applying Deconstruction reading strategy. This study shows that the novel deconstructs its portrayal of adults’ superiority towards children. So, by destabilizing the binary opposition in the novel, that is an adult opposes a child, the child-adult hierarchy is reversed. Keywords: adults, children, deconstruction, superiority

scholarly journals “Boundary-Maintenance” or “Boundary-Crossing”? Name-Giving Practices among Immigrants in Germany

Names ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 28-40
Author(s):  
Jurgen Gerhards ◽  
Julia Tuppat
Keyword(s):  
Host Country ◽  
Home Country ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
Boundary Crossing ◽  
Social And Emotional ◽  
Cultural Proximity ◽  
Boundary Maintenance ◽  
Origin Group ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Symbolic Boundary

This study investigates why some immigrants choose names for their children that are common in their home country whereas others opt for names used by natives in the host country. Drawing on the sociological literature on symbolic boundaries, the first strategy can be described as boundary-maintenance whereas the second can be classified as boundary-crossing. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study and applying bivariate and multivariate methods, two broader explanations for name-giving practices are tested: (1) cultural proximity and the permeability of the symbolic boundary between home and host country; and (2) immigrants’ levels of linguistic, structural, social, and emotional integration in the host country. Overall, the theoretical model explains the differences very satisfactorily. Whilst both sets of factors proved relevant to immigrants’ name-giving practices, the immigrants’ level of integration in the host country was less important than the cultural proximity between the origin group and host country.

scholarly journals Politics Representation and Symbolic Violence through the Discourse of Seram as Nusa Ina

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 265
Author(s):  
Flavius Floris Andries
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
The Other ◽  
Symbolic Violence ◽  
False Consciousness ◽  
Interesting Phenomenon ◽  
Know How ◽  
Depth Interview

Political representation and symbolic violence through discourse Seram as Nusa Ina (Mother Island) are interesting phenomenon to be studied. This research was conducted with a qualitative method by in-depth interview and participation observation which aims to know how does this discourse view. The cultural study was applied in order to comprehend the manners of creating, producing, and disseminating the meanings from the perspective of non-Seram society and what their views on the discourse in understanding Moluccas universal identity. The process of data analysis by using the cultural studies approach generated the findings i.e the Nunusaku myth that legitimizes and strengthens Seram as Nusa Ina in society, and that there was a significant influence of myth and discourse in Moluccas identity formation universally in the form of folk songs or reliefs that always shade of Seram in represents the Moluccans. The discourse of Seram as Nusa Ina for the community of non-Seram, especially for Southeast people, is not substantial because they do not have emotional connection or relationship with the genealogy and cultural discourse. They have the other myth and the other own discourse about the myth itself such as Vernusang Island which was sinking in the formation of people’s live in the Southeast. Therefore, the discourse of Seram as Nusa Ina which is forced to become a part of the discourse of Southeast People is a form of a false consciousness as well as form of political representation and symbolic violence.

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