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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores theoretical and empirical implications of connecting African diaspora and mobilities perspectives. It argues that a focus on mobility regimes is relevant for diaspora research while attention to temporal reasoning and belonging may offer inspiration to mobilities studies.

Paper long abstract:

Mobilities and African diaspora studies share a concern with migration and (im)mobility, yet there is surprisingly little connection between the two. In this paper I reflect on potential analytical overlaps and research agendas, arguing that there may be fruitful inspiration in applying key insights from one literature to the other.

First, I suggest that a regimes of mobility perspective (Schiller and Salazar 2013) offers important insights to diaspora analysis, directing the attention to how different mobilities are governed, facilitated, enforced, blocked or delayed, celebrated or stigmatized. The enforcing and regulating power over mobility and immobility - whether 'voluntary' or enforced - constitutes a pertinent aspect in African diaspora studies. This concerns the 'old' African diaspora emerging out of the transatlantic slave trade as well as the contemporary mobilities of 'new' African diaspora groups where European politics of externalization, restrictive visa legislation and border control filters and constrains African mobilities.

Second, I propose that the attention paid to temporality and belonging in diaspora studies may be inspirational for mobilities studies. Analyzing these dimensions sheds light on how mobile subjects make sense of the past, present and future through their narratives, claims and perceptions of routes and journeys, their relationships and possible homecoming to an erstwhile, ancient or imagined 'homeland' or elsewhere, and the role of mobility in memories and in hopes for the future. It hence emphasizes belonging to particular people, places and experience over time and space, and its implications.