What it means to stay: reterritorialising the Black Atlantic in Erna Brodber's writing of the local

The emphasis on migratory subjectivities within postcolonial studies has come from many directions—Bhabha, Gilroy, Appadurai, Boyce Davies—and their convergence has created a critical practice in which diaspora studies takes centre stage. More specifically the way in which the Caribbean person is given emblematic status as the metropolitan migrant is made clear in James Clifford's declaration that ‘We are all Caribbeans now…in our urban archipelagos'. This paper examines the serious impact on the critical reception of Caribbean writings that has been made as a result of the fact that metropolitan diasporas are now the privileged places in which to be properly ‘postcolonial’. It is my aim to show how Erna Brodber's culturally specific studies have enormous value in the face of the more general and flattened enunciations of diaspora and creolisation which are being circulated at a theoretical level. I shall look at two fairly recent pieces of writing by Brodber: a pamphlet entitled ‘The people of my Jamaican village (1817 – 1948)’ and an essay entitled ‘Where are all the others?’ in the book Caribbean Creolisation1

People on the move in Roman Britain

Levels of mobility in the Roman Empire have long been assumed to be relatively high, as attested by epigraphy, demography, material culture and, most recently, isotope analysis and the skeletons themselves. Building on recent data from a range of Romano-British sites (Poundbury in Dorset, York, Winchester, Gloucester, Catterick and Scorton), this article explores the significance of the presence of migrants at these sites and the impact they may have had on their host societies. The authors explore the usefulness of diaspora theory, and in particular the concept of imperial and colonial diasporas, to illustrate the complexities of identities in later Roman Britain.

Caribbean Irish connections

There has been an Irish presence within the Caribbean since at least the 1620s and yet the historical and cultural dimensions of this encounter remain relatively under-researched and are often conceived of in reductive terms by crude markers such as redlegs or poor whites. While there are some striking reminders of this hitory throughout the region, this collection explores how the complications and contradictions of Irish Caribbean relations are much richer and deeper than previously recognized. Caribbean Irish Connections makes an important contribution to Irish studies by challenging the dominance of a US diasporic history and a disciplinary focus on cultural continuity and ancestry. Likewise, within Caribbean studies, the Irish presence troubles the orthodox historical models for understanding race and the plantation, race and class structures, as well as questions of ethnic and religious minorities. The contributors emphasize the importance of understanding the transatlantic nexus between Ireland and the Caribbean in terms of the shared historical experiences of dislocation, diaspora and colonization, as well as of direct encounter. This collection pays tribute to the extraordinarily rich tradition of cultural expression that informs both cultures and their imagination of each other.

Negotiating the British landscape

According to many accounts, a key paradigm for understanding art in Post WWII Britain is one of Englishness versus internationalism or abstraction versus realism . These terms have a rich inflection of meanings that have been subject to interrogation over the last few decades. Anwar Shemza came to Britain and practiced his art at a time when these competing claims were at their height. In a postcolonial reading entitled “Black Diaspora Artists in Britain: Three ‘Moments’ in Post-War Britain” Stuart Hall recently used David Scott’s framework of a ‘problem space’, that is discursively defined through questions, tensions and conjunctures, that couched the entry of what he describes as first waive British commonwealth artists into critical visibility in Britain. This can be characterized in part by the reviews of WG Archer and GM Butcher, both supporters of Shemza and prominent critics of the period. Hall includes Shemza in this framework that defines the work and his aspirations as constituted through the tensions of what was perceived to be anti-colonialist aims of modernism through universalism and the ‘nativist’ current in anti-colonial nationalism . This text will focus particularly on the problematic of Landscape as a ‘problem space’ of vernacular and modernism, over here and over there. The aim is not to define Shemza within the tradition of English landscape nor to exclude him but to position him within a discursive field of landscape and modernism in mid twentieth Century art.

Family language policy in the Chinese community in Singapore: a question of balance?

This paper focuses on the language shift phenomenon in Singapore as a consequence of the top-town policies. By looking at bilingual family language policies it examines the characteristics of Singapore’s multilingual nature and cultural diversity. Specifically, it looks at what languages are practiced and how family language policies are enacted in Singaporean English-Chinese bilingual families, and to what extend macro language policies – i.e. national and educational language policies influence and interact with family language policies. Involving 545 families and including parents and grandparents as participants, the study traces the trajectory of the policy history. Data sources include 2 parts: 1) a prescribed linguistic practices survey; and 2) participant observation of actual negotiation of FLP in face-to-face social interaction in bilingual English-Chinese families. The data provides valuable information on how family language policy is enacted and language practices are negotiated, and what linguistic practices have been changed and abandoned against the background of the Speaking Mandarin Campaign and the current bilingual policy implemented in the 1970s. Importantly, the detailed face-to-face interactions and linguistics practices are able to enhance our understanding of the subtleties and processes of language (dis)continuity in relation to policy interventions. The study also discusses the reality of language management measures in contrast to the government’s ‘separate bilingualism’ (Creese & Blackledge, 2011) expectations with regard to ‘striking a balance’ between Asian and Western culture (Curdt-Christiansen & Silver 2013; Shepherd, 2005) and between English and mother tongue languages (Curdt-Christiansen, 2014). Demonstrating how parents and children negotiate their family language policy through translanguaging or heteroglossia practices (Canagarajah, 2013; Garcia & Li Wei, 2014), this paper argues that ‘striking a balance’ as a political ideology places emphasis on discrete and separate notions of cultural and linguistic categorization and thus downplays the significant influences from historical, political and sociolinguistic contexts in which people find themselves. This simplistic view of culture and linguistic code will inevitably constrain individuals’ language expression as it regards code switching and translanguaging as delimited and incompetent language behaviour.

Le poète errant à Port-au-Prince : Une lecture de _Parias_ de Magloire Saint-Aude

Cet article offre une analyse de la figure du flâneur dans Parias: documentaire de l’écrivain haïtien Magloire-Saint-Aude (1912-1971). Étudiant la façon dont il se réapproprie de ce trope surréaliste dans un cadre port-au-princien, le but est de montrer que l’auteur essaie de repenser le sujet haïtien. L’article démontre que Magloire-Saint-Aude se sert d’un chronotope urbain double, d’abord les rues pauvres où les personnages déambulent sans but fixe et ensuite les salons bourgeois où naît le désir. Son flâneur haïtien subit un processus complexe de subjectivation qui s’articule dans la tension de ces deux chronotopes urbains. Même si le héros saint-audien essaye de se libérer par le biais de l’amour pour une Française il est à jamais attaché à l’espace exigu de Port-au-Prince. Cela vient rompre avec une tradition d’affirmation héroïque du sujet (masculin) haïtien. ”Exilé de l’intérieur,” Malgoire-Saint-Aude explore un sujet insaisissable qui garde ouverte sa part à l’altérité.

Flerspråkighet i ett globaliserat samhälle : uppfattningar om minoritetsspråket som framtidsresurs

Multilingualism in a globalized society: The minority language as a future resource In this article the author investigates how the globalization of society is used as a reference in the discussion of future opportunities among minority language speaking youths in Sweden. A spatial typology of four different types of societies are constructed, the national, the multicultural, the diasporic and the transnational society, all giving the expression of different levels of globalization. These are used as layers of reference put upon the empirical data, functioning as a raster on a screen. The result is a pattern of expressions in three societal dimensions, the economic, the social and the cultural dimension. The findings of the investigation show that the minority language as a future resource of opportunities is anchored in all four societal types and in all three dimensions. In the empirical data (the youths interviewed) the ability of anchoring (finding stories, opportunities etc.) is less frequent when it comes to the diasporic and the transnational as a foundation for opportunity and more frequent when it comes to the national and the multicultural.

Exploring 'Samoaness' in the Samoan language film The Orator (O Le Tulafale)

The Pacific nation of the Independent Samoa (formerly Western Samoa)  is not known for having a developed film industry.   In 2011, a Samoan languge film called The Orator (O le Tulafale) placed the spotlight on Samoa, its people, and the Samoan culture when it became the country’s first ever film to be accepted into major international film festivals such as the 68th Venice Film Festival.  Samoans the world over have embraced the film for its richness, compassion, and authenticity. Yet at times, the film portrays the Samoan culture as harsh and cruel.   Samoans are usually quick to criticise negative portrayals of their culture but the thousands of comments on the film’s official Facebook page show otherwise.  From April 2011 to March 2012, there were only 11 comments criticising the film on Facebook, and these criticisms were denounced as ‘un-Samoan’. This raised the question as to why Samoans did not react to the unflattering portrayals of their culture, but instead react against legitimate criticisms of the film.  By using Foucault’s concept of heterotopia and the Samoan narrative structure of fāgogo, a heterotopia space and a utopia space are created in which past memories confirming Samoan cultural identity and bonds to the culture are evoked and are (re)experienced by Samoans while viewing the film.  Thus the film’s ability to encourage this is what Samoans praise rather than the actual film.  

"Ungerska för rötternas skull" : Språkval och identitet bland andragenerationens ungrare i Sverige och Finland

This thesis is a comparative sociolinguistic study which describes and compares language choice among people with Hungarian background in Sweden and Finland and studies their views on the importance of the Hungarian language and Hungarian cultural heritage for identity. The future prospects of language maintenance and language shift and differences between the Swedish-Hungarians and the Finnish-Hungarians are discussed. A survey was completed among 50 Swedish-Hungarian informants and 38 Finnish-Hungarian informants during 2006. The survey was supplemented by in-depth interviews with 15 informants during 2007. The majority language, either Swedish or Finnish, is much more active in the second-generation Hungarians’ lives than Hungarian is. Hungarian is mostly used in the domain of family relations. The language choices made today are dependent on the informant’s situation during childhood, particularly the parents’ usage of the language and the ability to learn and use Hungarian, chiefly gained through contact with the parents’ mother country and other Hungarian speakers. For some informants, having Hungarian roots forms the sole foundation for belonging, while for others it is this heritage combined with the culture, the ability to use the language or specific character traits. The Hungarian background is most often seen as a treasure offering diversity in life. Finnish-Hungarians are generally more positive about their Hungarian background, have better competence in the language and a greater awareness of the culture than Swedish-Hungarians. The Hungarian language plays a central though often symbolic role. The most important conditions for minority language preservation are language competence together with the desire and opportunity to use it; whereof the largest deficit among second-generation Hungarians is knowledge of the Hungarian language. Only one-fourth of the informants have all of the conditions necessary to be able to maintain the language, which means that Hungarian is an endangered minority language in Sweden and Finland.

A participação dos contingentes do Exército Brasileiro na missão de estabilização das Nações Unidas no Haiti (Minustah)

This work aims to study the Brazilian Army as an actor in the process of implementation of public policies. This study evaluates and verifies, in loco, if the actions executed by the Brazilian Army contingent in Haiti (MINUSTAH), especially the Brazilian Battalion, are effectively contributing to satisfactory security conditions for the development and reestablishment of Haiti's institutional normality. The main activities developed by the six Brazilian contingents that had already acted and are still acting in Haiti will be described. This work ratifies the Brazilian Army's contribution to the creation of a favorable environment so that the Haitian State, with the contribution of other countries, international organisms and non-governmental organizations, could work on its reconstruction.

Do encontro das águas ao Atlântico negro: organização, difusão de frames e os limites do ativismo transnacional no movimento negro brasileiro

Meu objetivo nesta tese é compreender o processo de transnacionalização do movimento negro brasileiro e as suas consequências para a luta antirracista no Brasil. Em outras palavras, busco compreender como os negros brasileiros se articulam com os negros do mundo para cumprir seus objetivos. Uma vez que hoje a cultura negra global tem sido compreendida a partir da metáfora do “Atlântico Negro”, que representa um espaço de trocas transnacional que conecta todos os sujeitos da diáspora negra, assumo esta mesma metáfora como ponto de partida para minha reflexão. Entretanto, me interessa refletir sob um dos aspectos do Atlântico Negro, que é a sua dimensão organizacional. Se é pelo Atlântico Negro que hoje circulam um conjunto de conteúdos que são compartilhados pela comunidade negra mundial, tais como idéias e práticas que estão relacionadas a religião, a música, a literatura e as formas de organização, então podemos afirmar que a organização do movimento negro brasileiro se alimenta também destas múltiplas dimensões. Para desenvolver esta linha de argumentação, a tese utiliza o caso do movimento negro brasileiro para analisar o processo de difusão de um frame transnacional racialista que é apropriado pelo movimento negro como base para a elaboração de um diagnóstico, prognóstico e ressonância das ações de combate ao racismo no Brasil e para a definição das estruturas de mobilização e das estratégias de ação do movimento. Contudo, esta apropriação não ocorre sem problemas, pois este frame enfrenta outros frames locais, de caráter não-racialista, o que acarreta severas restrições ao ativismo transnacional na medida em que o próprio movimento negro se vê diante do dilema entre manter o alinhamento com o frame transnacional e aproveita as oportunidades políticas oferecidas pelo racialismo, ou relativiza este frame fazendo algumas concessões em suas propostas e na sua organização, a fim de se adaptar aos frames locais, negociando estas oportunidades a partir das restrições existentes. Para entender esta dinâmica, proponho a metáfora do “Encontro das Águas” amazonense, como um ponto de argumentação complementar ao Atlântico Negro, pois leva em conta os aspectos locais da luta antirracista que se apoiam na mestiçagem como identidade autônoma que não se dilui facilmente na identidade negra. Além de desenvolver estes pontos, a tese contribui para compreender melhor a dialética entre o global e local, bem como as tensões advindas dos frames em disputa.

Da emigração à diáspora galega: positivação de uma identidade

Este trabalho analisa as transformações ocorridas nas últimas décadas em relação à imagem dos emigrantes galegos e seus descendentes. Por razões políticas inerentes à redemocratização espanhola, mas também em decorrência de novas análises conceituais acerca de minorias, identidades e nacionalidades, a imagem estereotipada do galego como emigrante pobre e ignorante foi revista, principalmente por parte do governo espanhol. Houve um reconhecimento positivado da galeguidade. Assim, o grupo desvalorizado, no início do século XX, passou a integrar uma “diáspora”, que representaria a Galícia no mundo global do século XXI. Essa transformação obedece a movimentos nacionais da Espanha, como a implantação da política das autonomias, que reconheceu a Galícia como uma nacionalidade histórica, e a um contexto internacional marcado pela valorização das identidades e pela ampliação e flexibilidade do conceito de diáspora. Essa mudança acontece, também, tendo como base a grande rede de entidades associativas formada pelos galegos nos países para os quais emigraram. O objetivo do trabalho é apreender essa transformação que positiva um grupo antes considerado de segunda grandeza. Para tanto a tese percorre vasta bibliografia sobre a emigração galega e recorre a vários autores que tentam explicar as razões e os resultados dessa emigração. Nosso ponto, contudo, é entender a reversão de expectativas ocorrida recentemente em relação “ao ser galego” buscando explicar de que forma contribuíram para tanto três atores fundamentais: o governo espanhol (e da Galícia), os emigrantes mundo afora em suas rede associativas e as transformações culturais e conceituais recentes acerca de identidades, nacionalismos, diáspora e direitos, entre outros.