Decentering the State and Challenging the External/Internal Binary

Diasporas have emerged as powerful, if contentious, actors with a complex impact on global political processes. This includes the provision of governance to their homelands in the form of remittances but also through more direct involvement in the provision of public goods and services. Puzzlingly, governance research, which empirically investigates public goods provision by state and non-state actors alike, has largely steered clear of investigating diasporas. This paper argues that the reason for this blind spot is that diasporas pose an uncomfortable conceptual challenge to governance researchers. By taking a diaspora perspective on governance, we can see that state-centrism still has a firm, if elusive, grip on much governance research, which manifests as an insistence to differentiate between external and internal actors. It is this inbuilt assumption, that external and internal actors have quintessentially different properties, which does not match the often ambivalent quality of diasporas as they engage in governance in their homelands. This article will tease out some of the contradictions inherent in governance research by thinking about governance through diasporas and point out ways in which diaspora research itself has addressed the problem of state-centrism

Decentering the State and Challenging the External/Internal Binary

Diasporas have emerged as powerful, if contentious, actors with a complex impact on global political processes. This includes the provision of governance to their homelands in the form of remittances but also through more direct involvement in the provision of public goods and services. Puzzlingly, governance research, which empirically investigates public goods provision by state and non-state actors alike, has largely steered clear of investigating diasporas. This paper argues that the reason for this blind spot is that diasporas pose an uncomfortable conceptual challenge to governance researchers. By taking a diaspora perspective on governance, we can see that state-centrism still has a firm, if elusive, grip on much governance research, which manifests as an insistence to differentiate between external and internal actors. It is this inbuilt assumption, that external and internal actors have quintessentially different properties, which does not match the often ambivalent quality of diasporas as they engage in governance in their homelands. This article will tease out some of the contradictions inherent in governance research by thinking about governance through diasporas and point out ways in which diaspora research itself has addressed the problem of state-centrism

THE VIEWS OF MERWELENE VANDER MER WE AND HER TEAM ABOUT THE FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY WORKING ENVIRONMENT

ThesisFashion is seen as a glamorous world full of beautiful people and exorbitant amounts of money. I t was decided to get a closer look at this world as seen through the eyes of those who participate. This study consists of two components. A practical component comprising studio and on location photographs and a theoretical component dealing with fashion worlUng environment. As South Africa is becoming a non-sexist society and women are part of the main business stream, it was decided to focus on the highly successful photographic icon of fashion photography, Merwelene van der Merwe. The main aim of the study was to research the interaction between the fashion photographer and the main participants in a fashion photograph, in order to get each individual's interpretation of what makes a successful fashion photograph and fashion photographer. This was achieved through a preliminary intervic'W with Merwelene van der Merwe to see if the aim of the study was feasible. As the f,rst interview was most successful, the decision was made to place more emphasis on Merwelene van der Merwe. Follow-up interviews and a week's stay with Merwelene resulted. Articles, two television interviews and all other available material was researched to get a more comprehensive picture. As Merwelene has a unique way of speaJUng, the author decided to give her interviews verbatim so that the reader can feel the "electricity" generated by Merwelene. The intervi~ws were done in Afrikaans, Merwelene's home language. In this dissertation, all questions are given in English and Afrikaans. All questions are preceded by a Q and all answers by an A. To get a more comprehensive picture, the following people who form part of Merwelene's team were interviewed: (1) Her assistants Doret, (2)her model Simone,(3) her hair and make-up artist Marilyn, (4) an art director of an advertising agency Sandy and (5) a client Mariette. The dissert.ation is devided into four chapters, the first chapter, Merwelene van der Merwe discusses her background and outlook on life. In chapter two, Merwelene discusses fashion photography as a success ful busin ess. Chapter three covers the team she works with and their yiews. The final chapter concentrates on Merwelene's work as a fas hion photographer. Here two divergent photographs are discussed

Where guidance by the government and the EU was missing, grassroots organisations like the 3 million and British in Europe led many people through the Brexit swamp

Following the Brexit referendum, a number of organisations were set up to support the rights of EU citizens in the UK and British citizens in the EU. Catherine Craven, Michaela Benson and Nando Sigona reflect on the work of these organisations and ask what their legacy will be

EU citizenship and transnational political mobilisation after Brexit

Following the Brexit referendum, a number of organisations were set up to support the rights of EU citizens in the UK and British citizens in the EU. Catherine Craven, Michaela Benson and Nando Sigona reflect on the work of these organisations and ask what their legacy will be

Networks Do Not Float Freely: (Dis)entangling the Politics of Tamil Diaspora Inclusion in Development Governance

Scholarship on diaspora engagement strategies has suggested that such strategies are embedded either in binary state‐diaspora relations, or global structures of domination. This paper builds on the idea that diaspora engagement is contextually embedded but complicates the understanding of this context, by moving beyond structuralist or state‐centric models. It draws on a range of relational theories, to suggest that diaspora engagement strategies in the development field are contextually embedded in complex entanglements of power relations. Data from a multi‐method study of the Tamil diaspora in Toronto, from 2009 to 2018, reveals that inclusion in these diaspora engagement strategies is shaped by an entanglement of power relations, which include social networks, and legitimacy claims in overlapping cultural fields, but also spatial relations, whereby geography and material resources are often‐overlooked dimensions of this space

Multi-scalar and diasporic integration: Kurdish populations in Europe between state, diaspora and geopolitics

This article challenges both methodological nationalist and decolonial approaches to ‘integration’ by drawing attention to how transnational factors—including trans-state diaspora networks and geopolitical relations between European states and Kurdish ‘homelands’—have direct impacts on the integration trajectories of newly arrived Kurdish displaced populations in Europe. Based on over 200 interviews with Kurdish immigrants, including refugees and asylum seekers across seventeen sites in rural and urban regions in six European countries, our research suggests the need to move beyond local and national-level understandings of integration to one which is also transnational, diasporic, and multi-scalar, taking account of the enduring effects of homeland politics on integration determinants. Such a model of integration does not throw out the concept, but recognizes both the protective and empowering role that local and national policies can play in enabling refugee and diaspora populations to function autonomously in a broader transnational and global context