Suchergebnisse

The Chagos islanders were forcibly uprooted from the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean between 1965 and 1973. This is the first book to compare the experiences of displaced Chagos islanders in Mauritius with the experiences of those Chagossians who have moved to the U.K. since 2002. It thus provides a unique ethnographic comparative study of forced displacement and onward migration within the living memory of one community. Based on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork in Mauritius and Crawley (West Sussex), the six chapters explore Chagossians' challenging lives in Mauritius, the mobilisation of the community, reformulations of the homeland, the politics of culture in exile, onward migration to Crawley, and attempts to make a home in successive locations. Jeffery illuminates how displaced people romanticise their homeland through an exploration of changing representations of the Chagos Archipelago in song lyrics. Offering further ethnographic insights into the politics of culture, she shows how Chagossians in exile engage with contrasting conceptions of culture ranging from expectations of continuity and authenticity to enactments of change, loss and revival. The book will appeal particularly to social scientists specialising in the fields of migration studies, the anthropology of displacement, political and legal anthropology, African studies, Indian Ocean studies and the anthropology of Britain, as well as to readers interested in the Chagossian case study

This article applies Ingold's conceptualization of environmental outlooks ranging from the 'globe' to the 'sphere' to explore human‐environment relations and debates about the future of the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Chagossians and conservationists broadly represent the two extremes of the engaged lifeworld of the sphere and the detached worldview of the globe, respectively, but I argue that this does not necessarily determine their environmental outlooks for the future. It is not simply the case either that Chagossians uniformly advocate resettlement of Chagos or that conservationists uniformly oppose resettlement. Within each group two distinct environmental outlooks are identified: engagement versus withdrawal amongst Chagossians, and exclusion versus participation amongst conservationists. The article demonstrates, then, that environmental outlooks are influenced not only by understandings of human‐environment relations but also by pragmatic and ideological considerations.

This article explores how representations of a homeland are transformed through experiences of displacement and resettlement, and asks how such transformed representations help or hinder political and legal struggles in exile. It compares songs composed by islanders while living on the colonial Chagos Archipelago with those composed by displaced Chagossians now living in Mauritius and Seychelles, which form part of an emergent collective historical imagination motivated by political and legal struggles for compensation and the right to return. The article demonstrates that a romanticized and standardized collective historical narrative has successfully elicited support for the Chagossian cause from diverse sources, but has unexpectedly posed major problems for the legal struggle.RésuméL'article explore la manière dont la représentation de la terre natale est transformée par l'expérience du déplacement et de la réinstallation, et interroge la manière dont ces représentations transformées favorisent ou gênent les luttes politiques et judiciaires en exil. L'auteur compare les chants des insulaires vivant dans l'archipel colonial de Chagos avec ceux composés par les Chagossiens déplacés et vivant désormais dans l'île Maurice et aux Seychelles. Ces derniers font émerger un imaginaire historique collectif motivé par les luttes politique et judiciaire pour l'obtention d'un dédommagement et du droit au retour. L'article démontre qu'une narration historique collective romancée et standardisée a provoqué l'adhésion à la cause chagossienne de la part de différents acteurs, mais a, de manière inattendue, posé des problèmes considérables dans le combat judiciaire.

AbstractThis article engages critically with concepts of 'skill', 'expertise', and 'capacity' as they operate as markers of distinction and domination and shape migratory labour relations among road construction workers from across South Asia in the Maldives archipelago. The article examines roadwork at three levels: the professional biographies leading to 'flexible specialization' rather than technical expertise amongst Maldivian managers; the technical expertise and social incorporation of 'skilled' Sri Lankan supervisors; and the key material expertise of 'non‐skilled' Bangladeshi labourers in precarious employment. Whilst discussions of South Asian labour migration have been dominated by caste and class, this article argues that it is important to consider how the cultural production and understanding of concepts such as 'expertise', 'capacity', and 'exposure' at worksites can (also) become distinguishing factors in (hierarchical) migratory labour relations.

This article examines the contentious topic of participation through the lens of a collaborative arts-based project on migration in Morocco. We call for the ethnographic exploration of photographic encounters: that is, participant observation of the processes of shooting, selecting, editing, preparing and exhibiting of photographs and films. First, we explore the need to identify barriers to participation and reflect on the role of researchers. Second, we stress how participatory arts-based workshops can confront Othering stereotypes amongst participants from diverse backgrounds. Third, we challenge social scientists' tendency to prioritize process over product by considering public encounters as integral to participatory processes.

This article contributes to debates on international collaborations by examining contradictions between the decolonial turn and the UK's Global Challenges Research Fund which imposed Global North leadership on Global South partners. Through the lenses of compromise and complicity, the article explores how collaborators strive to work together equitably within the constraints of a UK government Official Development Assistance funding scheme. Drawing on focus group discussions with members of a research team, the article traces, first, their engagement with political and institutional constraints and, second, their articulation of collaborative compromise and productive complicity. The article foregrounds the generative potential of complicity as a productive concept that can help partners to navigate the challenges of interdependence and partnership entailed in North–South, South–South, cross-sector and interdisciplinary collaboration.

This article introduces a special issue on arts-based engagement with migration, comprising articles, reflections, poems and images. The introductory article starts by exploring the ethical, political and empirical reasons for the increased use of arts-based methods in humanities and social sciences research in general, and in migration studies in particular. Next, it evaluates participatory methods, co-production and co-authorship as increasingly well-established practices across academia, the arts, activism and community work. It then considers how the outputs of such processes can be deployed to challenge dominant representations of migration and migrants. The authors reflect critically upon arts-based methodological practices and on the (limits to the) transformative potentials of using arts-based methods to engage creatively with migration. Sounding a cautionary note, they concede that even collaborative artistic expressions have limits in overcoming unequal power dynamics, conveying experiences of migration and effecting long-term change in a context in which discourse on migration is dominated by short-term political decision-making, and punitive policies force migrants into precarious forms of existence. While the prospect of influencing the political sphere might seem remote, they advocate for the role and power of the arts in instigating, shaping and leading change by inspiring people's conscience and civic responsibility.