African Transnational Diasporas

By: Dominic Pasura

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Synopsis: This book examines the relationships, connections, identities and linkages between diasporas and their original or symbolic homelands. To highlight the transnationality of diasporas, the book proposes a framework for understanding African diasporas as core, epistemic, dormant and silent diasporas. As the book argues, transnational diasporas, just as other social formations, are multifaceted fluid entities which continually mutate over time and space. By way of empirical illustration, the book investigates the formation of the Zimbabwean diaspora by examining how the diaspora was dispersed, how it is constituted in Britain and how it maintains connections with the homeland. Using evidence from multi-sited ethnographic data, the book examines the articulation of plural diasporic identities by migrants in different social, cultural, religious and political settings. Whereas the concept of diaspora typically emphasizes group cohesion and solidarity, the book argues that the Zimbabwean diaspora has to be understood as fractured and fragmented.