What is it about?
This research stems from an interest in understanding the intergenerational differences in maintaining transnational migratory networks and the role of these networks in the formation of a Palestinian identity in exile. The main theme for investigation is how transnational activities of first and second generation of Palestinian Diaspora are related to the creation of transnational identities in the deterritorialized context of dispersal. The research attempts to fill significant research gaps identified in the context of diasporic communities. First, limited research has focused on inter-generational differences in terms of maintaining ties across borders through such transnational activism as travelling to the country of origin. Whereas first-generation diapsora have been explicitly addressed, more thorough investigations are needed in order to determine the significance of maintain ties with the country of origin for second-generation migrants, particularly their meaning for notions such as home and identity.
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Why is it important?
The research explores the means of maintaining relationships with the homeland of the first and second generation Palestinian Canadians and demonstrates the inter-generational differences in terms of the ways of maintaining their Palestinian identity and attachment to the homeland. It also examines the means by which first and second generation of Palestinian diapora constructed a transnational migratory networks and the role of these networks in the formation of a Palestinian identity in exile. The study further analyses how the maintenance of Palestinian identity and attachment to the homeland has remained central to the generation that experienced al nakba (al nakba generation), and the generations born into exile. The research also investigates the means of maintaining relationships with the homeland that have shifted for each generation and how this has resulted in contrapuntal notions of identity, home and belonging. Using transnationalism as a conceptual framework, the research tackles the above issues by examining the case study of the Palestinian Diaspora in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). It is very hard to reconcile issues of identity, links to homeland and belonging. For Palestinian in the exile, dispossession of their land meant that they have been living in ghorba, living away from homeland with emotions of homesickness, separation and isolation (Lindholm Schulz, 1999, p. 20). For the second generation, this resulted in “strategic hybridity” (Poynting et al., 2004), where they established strong ties with Canada and yet kept their dynamic links with their homeland by means such as transnational technologies.
Perspectives
The contemporary celebration of travel and mobility of transnational migrants with hybrid identities may be different for those stateless Palestinians who have terrifying experiences whenever they attempt to cross checkpoints in their country or try to enter another country at an airport. Such Palestinian Diaspora s experience significant restrictions on their movements and, thus, limited mobility. Browne (2005, p. 428) employed the notion “bordering” to indicate how particular bodies are made to be “outsiders” in the delineation of the state. He added that “bordering occurs through a variety of symbolic, discursive and material practices, of which classificatory identity/mobility documents such as passports play an important role”. As some scholars (e.g., Schultz & Hammer, 2003) have argued, mobility is not equally distributed among the various members of Diaspora communities and not all immigrants have the same ability to cross borders. Thus, this study confirms the suggestion of Hyndman (1997) that transnationalism is one outcome of the “politics of mobility”. The Palestinian case provided the context for innovative and theoretically valuable research on citizenship, mobility and human rights. This dissertation also highlights the highly politicized aspects of mobility/immobility, national identity and national autonomy in the Palestinian case, and emphasized the continuing role of states in determining mobility and rights.
Dr Esmat A. Zaidan
Hamad Bin Khalifa University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Palestinian Diaspora in Transnational Worlds: Intergenerational Differences in Negotiating Identity, Belonging and Home, SSRN Electronic Journal, January 2012, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.2009267.
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