Diasporic Identities and Spaces Between

As populations become increasingly global and transitory, will diasporas become the new mainstream? Diasporic Identities and Spaces Between explores the various ways the concept of diaspora has evolved, from communities living in exile, to groups defining their experience in the cultural tensions found between host land and homeland. The essays within this volume argue that diasporas are not just a result of migration and an immigrant experience within a larger community, but that they are also the result of a renegotiation of collective memories and collective mythologies. Through empirical evidence and case studies, this volume argues for a re-location of culture, and traces the creation of diasporic neo-identities created in the spaces between communities, cultures, genders, bodies, and ethnicities. More than create an identity from the liminal spaces in society, diasporic groups map out a new space in which they can produce and refine a hybrid identity.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Robert Kenedy, Margaret Greenfields, Jonathan Rollins and Sharmani Patricia Gabriel Nation and Liminal Desire: Relocating Diaspora and Homeland in Postcolonial Malaysia Sharmani Patricia Gabriel Illimitable Liminality or the Return to Structure? Locating Displacement in Bangladesh Victoria Redclift Situational Identity and Liminal Jewish Diaspora from France to Montreal Robert Kenedy Diasporic Mash-Ups: Code-Switching, Liminality and Intercultural Identities in the Work of Wayson Choy and Gautam Malkani Jonathan Rollins Local Spaces, Liminality and Authenticity: The Case of the Irish Diaspora in England Marc Scully On the Liminality of Sedentarism: Gypsies, Travellers and the Trope of Nomadism Margaret Greenfields

About the Author :
Sharmani Patricia Gabriel is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, where she teaches Postcolonial Literature and Cultural Studies Margaret Greenfields is currently a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at Buckinghamshire New University, and has worked with Gypsies and Travellers and other minority ethnic communities for over twenty three years. Robert Kenedy is an Associate Professor of Sociology at York University who studies Diaspora and resettlement in Canada. Jonathan Rollins is an Assistant Professor of English and Cultural Studies at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, and has published on the work of various diasporic writers, including Julia Alvarez, Wayson Choy, Ariel Dorfman, Gautam Malkani, and M. G. Vassanji