Elizabeth Mavroudi

Nationalism, the Nation and Migration: Searching for Purity and Diversity

This paper adds to debates on the double-edged and contested nature of nationalism and its relationships with migration and diaspora. It does this by focusing on the notion of purity and highlights the ways in which national identities can be based on homogenising constructions of the nation. In an age where the nation-state system and migration are both important and in which there are recurring politicised uses of nationalism in potentially extreme ways, the paper discusses how nationalism can be problematic. It calls for contextualised and grounded research on the everyday meanings of nationalism in order to emphasise the messy and often ambivalent nature of national identities. In this way, it argues that there is potential for ‘rescuing nationalism’ as a more inclusive, diverse notion.

Timespace and International Migration

Furthering understanding of the temporalities and spatialities of how people move across international boundaries, this book analyses how timespace intersects with migrant journeys as an integral aspect of the rhythms of daily lives. Individual chapters engage with these concepts by analysing a broad spectrum of migrations and mobilities, from youth mobility, to refugee migration, to gentrification, to food and to the political geography of the border.

Contesting Identities, Differences, and a Unified Palestinian Community

This paper is located within attempts to debate the contested notion of community and its relevance to diasporic/migrant communities. In particular, this paper furthers such debates by exploring how those in diaspora negotiate the politics of identity, belonging, and unity within their daily lives. It stresses the importance of considering diasporic communities as fluid, positioned, and symbolic, in which negotiations of identity are actively carried out. In the process, it considers not only the importance of community as a unifying space, but also its potential for tensions and constructions of difference. It does this using an in-depth qualitative case study of diasporic Palestinians living in Athens, Greece.

Deconstructing diasporic mobilisation at a time of crisis: perspectives from the Palestinian and Greek diasporas

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the difficulties that diasporas face in relation to mobilising around helping the homeland at a time of crisis, using qualitative research on the Greek and Palestinian diasporas. Rather than assume that long-distance nationalism, emotional attachment to the homeland and diasporic obligation will galvanise diasporic populations into assisting, and mobilising around, the homeland, the paper argues that those in diasporas do not necessarily help their homelands in times of crisis, even if they have strong socio-cultural connections to it. At times of crisis these feelings are heightened but not do not always translate into direct action; this may especially be the case at times of prolonged crisis when past efforts to help do not seem to have worked. This paper argues that it is often hard for those in diaspora to find meaningful ways to help at a time of crisis and many question the effectiveness of their actions if they do not see positive outcomes over time. The paper demonstrates that trying to help the homeland can therefore be a frustrating process and can make those in diaspora feel distanced and isolated from the homeland due to their inability to find concrete ways to help.

Building inclusive nations in the age of migration

ABSTRACT Nation and diversity are often cast in oppositional terms. The present joint intervention explores the limits and possibilities of what we call ‘inclusive nation’, i.e. a nation which embraces rather than expunging diversity. To reflect on this idea, the Loughborough University Nationalism Network (LUNN) organized a symposium, bringing together both academics and relevant stakeholders, to explore both theoretically and practically the feasibility of the inclusive nation. For reason of space, here we present only the theoretical views of academics. While Billig and Yuval-Davis highlight the inherent exclusive thrust of nationalism, Kaufmann and Hearn suggest two distinct ways to move away the traditional understanding of nationalism as a site of singularity, oppression and exclusion. A final rejoinder by Nyhagen pushes the debate further interrogating the boundaries of national belonging. Video abstract Read the transcript Watch the video on Vimeo

Introduction: from time to timespace and forward to time again in migration studies

When thinking about time and migration there is a rich vein of aphorisms to mine. How about this line from Tennessee Williams’ 1945 play The Glass Menagerie? ‘I didn’t go to the moon, I went much further – for time is the longest distance between two places.’ It seems an apt quotation given the goal of this book is to critically assess the value of analysing international migration through a framework of time, space and timespace. But Williams’ words are helpful not only because of the elegant, provoking way they muddle up the temporal and the spatial, but also because some of the themes of the play are so relevant to the field of migration studies: the power of memory, the difficulty of disconnecting from existing social worlds, the robustness of fragile dreams. Tom, the character who says the line, is reflecting in his old age on his mother’s attempts to use emotional ties to prevent him from leaving home when he was young. But he did leave and he never went back. Several of the chapters in this book tell stories of the mobility of youth, of relations across generations, of return migration, of the life course; but in each case it is axiomatic that you can never really ‘go back’ – you can only ‘go on’. There is too much change in the world to ever return to the same place: you have changed, the other people in your life have changed, your social relations have changed, the places you left have changed. Sometimes those places are changed precisely by people who move away. Memory may provide something to hold on to, but the giddying flow of time reveals that the fixity suggested by precise