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- Convenors:
-
Jen Dickinson
(University of Winchester)
Sarah Peck (Northumbria University)
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- Formats:
- Roundtables
- Stream:
- Rethinking development
- Sessions:
- Friday 2 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
We invite 10 minute viewpoints from diaspora members, creative/policy practitioners and researchers examining the intersections between diasporic communities, civil society and global development. Interventions can take any form as part of a roundtable discussion.
Long Abstract:
Diasporic communities are significant development actors, harnessed by states and the global development community, and mobilised through (transnational) civil society. This roundtable discussion will examine the intersections between diasporic communities, civil society and global development. We therefore invite perspectives from diaspora members, policy makers, civil society groups, creative practitioners and academics to speak to the question 'In what ways can diasporic engagement in civil society and civic space unsettle D/development?'.
We welcome both empirical and theoretical viewpoints, in different styles (e.g. speech, video, images or creative writing), focussing on questions such as:
- how changing civic space is (re)shaping diasporic engagement with global development through volunteering, entrepreneurship and creativity;
- the role or place of institutions and civil society organisations;
- how diasporic-led development, sometimes critiqued for being exclusionary and neoliberalised, can offer opportunities for resisting and unsettling dominant discourses of D/development;
-the potential for diaspora engagement to produce and organise around alternative narratives of D/development.
- how increasingly hostile immigration regimes and the racialised inequalities made (more) visible and exacerbated by Covid19 are shaping diaspora engagement
These questions aim to provide a foundation for further group discussion around practitioners and researcher experiences. If you would like to be part of the roundtable, please send a summary of your proposed response to the question posed and briefly outline how you will present your perspectives by 8th February 2021 (max 250 words). We are aiming to produce a co-written paper based on our discussions, potentially a viewpoint for Development in Practice.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 2 July, 2021, -Tigist Grieve (University of Bristol)
Paper short abstract:
This presentation will will argue, ‘small is significant’ and expand on the notion of partnerships, the role of grassroot organisation and the place of the diaspora community. Drawing on specific examples it highlights the untapped potential for building on existing local efforts to effect impact.
Paper long abstract:
Drawing on the Ethiopian diaspora recent engagement following the Covid-19 pandemic I argue for an increased engagement with diaspora community and to unleash their potentials. Recognising the resource constraints in our home country health systems and the shared concerns about Ethiopia’s capacity to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, there has been considerable efforts by her diaspora offering help. I draw the Ethiopian diaspora based in the UK, USA and China and the collective swift response to the pandemic by taking a range of roles to source and ship the much needed ventilators to the ministry of health in Ethiopia in record time as an example. I will argue a diaspora community can capitalise on its unique positionality in the Western society as academics, medical professionals, development practitioners and diplomatic staff to successfully enlist the support of other citizens to help on logistics to implement a timely and targeted intervention. While these are small in monitory terms compared to large development interventions, this example and the ongoing involvement of diaspora based initiatives to meet global challenges strengthens existing evidence on the role of diaspora as a force for change in African continent. It also opens a space to theorise the notion of relatedness, ‘ubuntu’ as well as the effectiveness and impact of common values. As a pracademic that uses my research to inform practice on the ground, I will argue for expanded spaces to recognise and connect the work of diaspora, small NGOs and CSOs for sustainable and appropriate development.
Olaiwola Ogunpaimo (University of Galway) Abiola Olajide
Paper short abstract:
The authors of this paper being researchers and members of the Nigerians in diaspora intend to give an in-depth assessment of the various issues that are responsible for the recent herder-farmers conflicts and intervention of the Nigerians in diaspora towards resurrecting a peaceful co-existence.
Paper long abstract:
According to verifiable sources, there are more than 20 million Nigerians in the diaspora. This form a huge human capital which contributes meaningfully to the socio-economic development of their host countries but without breaking the strong ties with relatives at the home front. The communal way of life inherent in the sociocultural architecture of Nigeria people always give an impetus that stimulate the urge to cross-fertilize ideas and transfer outstanding innovations from abroad towards the development of the home country.
In recent years, there has been increasing cases of conflicts and civil unrest in the country. This came in different dimensions ranging from religion conflicts, farmer-herder clashes, inter-tribal war and natural resource control which frequently lead to loss of lives and properties, prominent among the rampaging issues is the herder-farmers frequent clashes. Many livestock researchers have attributed cause of these clashes to the failure of the government to legislate and approve the use of ranching as the best method for cattle grazing. However, the diaspora community designed various roadmaps to tackle the situation headlong and measures adopted include dialogue, provision of relief packages, donations, award of scholarships, formation of pressure groups, constructive criticisms and the use of ICT to pressurize the government at all levels.
Thus, the authors of this paper being researchers and members of the Nigerians in diaspora intend to give an in-depth assessment of the various issues that are responsible for the recent herder-farmers conflicts and intervention of the Nigerians in diaspora towards resurrecting a peaceful co-existence.
Jen Dickinson (University of Winchester)
Paper short abstract:
This paper argues that the national development narratives presented in civic education spaces offer possibilities for second-generation diaspora youth to rework their liminalities and illuminate new possibilities for unbound futures
Paper long abstract:
Civic education spaces feature prominently in analyses of the mobilization of the second-generation. Often considered to be an identity-building pre-requisite for mobilization, such spaces are primarily used to transmit a 'decisive past' (Graf 2018). While the literature on civic education spaces of the second-generation justifiably continues to pay attention to how such narratives reproduce state ideologies, further research is needed to understand the importance of the second-generation’s socio-spatial positioning within diasporic civil society, as context for the reception and use of such narratives. The research presented in this paper is drawn from a participatory educational research project between 2019 and 2021. It finds that state-sanctioned versions of Rwandan history, ethnicity, and the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi although aimed at legitimating RPF rule also creates a liberatory pedagogy that speaks to conditions of young second generation Rwandans in diaspora, and to the intricacies of their relationships to the historical and political conditions they inherited from their parents and inhabit in their daily lives. It argues that in their encounters with civic society’s’ tools and methods of diaspora mobilisation, new possibilities for unbound futures liberated from such positionings can be opened.