Paper short abstract:

Informed by theoretical approaches in diaspora studies, anthropology and sociology and drawing on ethnographic data and interviews, the paper seeks to illuminate the situated and processual nature of nightlife among the Zimbabwean diaspora in Britain.

Paper long abstract:

Informed by theoretical approaches in diaspora studies, anthropology and sociology and drawing on ethnographic data and interviews, the paper seeks to illuminate the situated and processual nature of nightlife among the Zimbabwean diaspora in Britain. Although there has been a remarkable intellectual, political, economic, cultural and social interest in diasporas and transnational networks and their impact on both hostlands and homelands, the investigation of the nocturnal and the nightscape as an important feature of diasporas has been neglected. Within most Western cities, nightlife has become 'normalised' as an integral part of urban life and economy. However, although branded as inclusive, open and cosmopolitan, these night-time consumer spaces are characterised by racial, ethnic, gendered and class-based exclusion. Significant interest in nightscapes tends to focus towards the hidden, illegal or even criminal activities, in this paper I want to draw attention to the nightscape as spaces in which members of African diasporas actively create, re-invent or choose because it permits them to express their identities through music, religion, rituals and work. I see the nocturnal and the nightscape not only as a space of vulnerability and victimhood but also of agency. How this agency is enacted, performed and consumed by whom and why is equally important as well as the material and social conditions which give rise to it.