Final Paper Proposal

For my final paper, I want to bring together Jameson and Terranova’s texts to talk about diasporas as subsets of globalization that not only reduce our ability to cognitively map but also create global networks that allow us to enter multiple spaces as we simultaneously perform multiple identities; Diasporas, as being informed by geopolitics and preoccupied with dispersed, cultural solidarity in local and global settings, such that we map global onto local; Diasporas as being the potential to form links between peoples of similar descent; Diasporas as possibly reinforcing normative pathologies. So I’m interested in looking more at how immigrant inflows and cultural hybridity become a form of network participation, arguably a form of assimilation. Looking at themes of homeland vs. hostland or roots vs. routes, I want to see if this is a discussion that can exclude nationality (though it probably can’t, in which case I would bring in Anderson).

I would use Jameson to talk about authentic and true experience as it relates to space and politics, also to see how cognitively mapping breaks down or reinforces visible/invisible boundaries and borders. If to cognitively map is to make sense of our surroundings, becoming a member of diaspora makes it increasingly difficult to understand self. So the irony would be that diaspora is our way of finding a place within the system but it also keeps us from finding that place (hm?). I would use Terranova for how she complicates community and the individual, for how she links globalization and networks, questioning how the network allows us to feel connected without really being connected. Terranova also makes several points about knowledge and information that I want to consider and put into conversation with Jameson. I might also use Thrift to talk about global flows and being at home in a world of flux. I’m not sure if I want to look into how relationships of power tied to diasporic, economic determinism have led to the reassertion of culture as commodity (might be outside of the subject). I will either use diaspora as a conceptual term or focus on the specific diaspora of African descended peoples.