Migration and Diaspora Cultural Studies Network (MDCSN)
Aims
- To enhance and enable high quality and distinctive research on the cultural dimensions of migration and diaspora, 'migrant' and 'diasporic' subjectivities, and the migration of desires and ideas. To expand the typology of migration to encompass a spectrum from forced migration, to diasporas without migration, and languages without nations.
- To contribute to a developing body of theory and method, by interrogating through comparative international research terms such as transculturation, cosmopolitanism, hybridity, contact zones, creolisation, minoritarianism, diaspora space and third space.
- To encourage interdisciplinary and cross-institutional exchange in Migration and Diaspora Studies, in collaboration with local, community-based organisations. To open up a space for investigating the representation of diasporic identities and their impact on national cultures through, for example, oral history, popular culture, literature, language contact, film, performance, commerce, ritual.
- To encourage interdisciplinary and cross-institutional exchange in Migration and Diaspora Studies, in collaboration with local, community-based organisations. To open up a space for investigating the representation of diasporic identities and their impact on national cultures through, for example, oral history, popular culture, literature, language contact, film, performance, commerce, ritual.
- To develop international comparative research, based in the UK and beyond, which reflects the interpenetration of Europe with the Latin American, African and Asian continents. This includes case studies such as global peddlars, francophone popular culture, undocumented migrant workers in Europe, forced migration, Bollywood in Manchester, Black British communities, Armenian diaspora, Jewish-and Turkish-German culture, Portuguese African women's writing, queer communities and migration, gender and ethnicity in Germany, Spain and Portugal, border cultures in Latin America and Europe.
Outputs
The Network will disseminate its results by means of
- The website, including an events section, profiles of relevant postgraduate and postdoctoral projects, links to relevant postgraduate courses, and to community and consular partners in the North West
- Three themed Workshops in May and December 2006 and May 2007
- International conference "Creolising Europe" September 2007
- Edited highlights of the conference papers on "Creolising Europe"
- Ten journal articles to be published in peer reviewed journals by 2008
Structure
The Network brings together researchers from Universities in Manchester, Salford, Leeds, and Sheffield, with links to cultural and community organisations in the North West. It consists of a Steering Committee, an Advisory Board, and a series of Thematic Groups.
Thematic Groups (Convenors)
These cross-disciplinary groups work to co-ordinate and develop research into the cultural, linguistic, and historical dimensions of migration and diaspora. They each feed into the Network's overarching themes with culture-specific and internationally comparative analyses. This is achieved by means of a reading group, presentation of work in progress, research seminars, and the incubation of new projects. They are centrally involved in preparation of the Network's three workshops and the conference in September 2008.
- Theory Reading Group: (Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Margaret Littler)
- Transnational Migration/Labour Migration (Patience Schell, Laurence Brown)
- Border Studies and Contact Zones: (Yaron Matras, Stefan Berger)
- Ideas, Sounds, Images: (Nuria Triana Toríbio, Rajinder Dudrah)
- Queer Diasporas: (Chris Perriam, Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez)