[KS] DIASPORIC REALITIES: Modern Europe in the Words of Europe-based Asians

[Tobias Hübinette]

DIASPORIC REALITIES:
Modern Europe in the Words of Europe-based Asians

When does a flood of migrants become a diaspora? What stops a migrant 
from becoming an integral part of his new society? On the one hand, 
there is a pull-factor exerted by the culture of the migrant. His 
earlier identity with which he judges his new world, and which he 
feels eroding away even as he learns new languages and new rituals, 
longs for words and a forum where his displacement can gain artistic 
expression. On the other, there is the push-factor inherent in the 
recipient culture's social ontology. The migrant does not arrive into 
a conceptually and organisatorily neutral space. He is a category, 
through which his displacement gains form and from which he seeks to 
exit. In both cases, we see the distancing function of identity at 
work.

Do Asian migrants in Europe constitute an Asian Diaspora? Is that 
term useful? Or are we dealing with diasporas from East Asia, South 
Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. Or are we 
dealing with migration sufficiently describable existentially as 
nationality migration? All these aspects are worthy of study.

The clash of individual space that is the lot of man becomes a 
powerful clash of cultural space through migration. However, when a 
flow of migrants can be described in geopolitical and historical 
terms, cultural incomprehension, and intercultural coercion and bias 
will configure much of the individual experience.

We are planning to publish an anthology, which will help give voice 
to these modern inter-cultural experiences, and are asking 
individuals of Asian origin with analytical ability, and who have 
lived continuously in Europe, to discuss aspects of their culturally 
confusing situation.

If you are interested, please write an abstract of 100-150 words to 
us before November 30th, 2003. If we consider your project suitable, 
you should be willing to hand in the completed article (not longer 
than 20 A4 pages) by the end of March 2004.


Yours Sincerely,

Dr Ooi Kee Beng (keebengooi at yahoo.se)
Tobias Hübinette, Ph.D Candidate (tobias at orient.su.se)

STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY

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