Professor: Nergis Canefe
Office Location: Ross S654
E-mail: ncanefe@yorku.ca
Office Hours: T 9.30-11.30 or by appointment
Telephone: 416 736 2100 ext. 88843

YORK UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
GS POLS 6525 3.0
Diasporas: Transnational Communities and Limits of Citizenship 

(Fall 2007-2008)
Professor Nergis Canefe

Course Description:  

This course provides a comparative inquiry about the nature of transnational communal, religious, and political identities at the age of late capitalism. It puts emphasis on critical approaches to diasporas, their variant constructions of homeland and home, and their marked effects on the politics of the post-Westphalian state, global and local market-society relations as well as international politics. Topics of analysis include trends of international migration vis-à-vis the reformulation of the modern capitalist polity, involvement of diasporas across borders leading to the emergence of new forms of political action and alliances, the effects of settled migrant populations in terms of changing the rhetoric of identity and belonging, and justice at home and abroad and debates on diasporic agency, dynamics of transnationalism and its various embodiments such as transnational religious and political movements, and, reformulations of the citizenship contract in liberal states as a result of the troubled interaction between the society at large and diasporas who, more often than not, constitute ethno-religious and linguistic minorities. Course readings give the students a chance to examine the endemic nature of racism, discrimination and xenophobia in capitalist societies and the modern state, as well as providing an opportunity to think about how structural and remedial change may be possible. Students are strongly advised to prepare themselves in advance of the course by attending to readers on Nationalism and Citizenship Studies as these are subjects directly related to the course.  However, they will not be covered in depth per se as the course builds upon this knowledge and literature and specifically focuses on diasporas.

*Pre-requisites/Co-Requisites: familiarity with minority rights, migration and refugee issues, political philosophy and critical debates on globalization; Degree Credit Exclusions (DCE): NA

Course Requirements, evaluation and due dates:

 All registered students are expected to attend to the weekly-held 2 hour classes regularly.

Evaluation: The course evaluation is based on three components:

--Regular participation and seminar-style in-class discussions led by the students (50 percent). In order to facilitate active participation, students will hand in 10 critical reviews pertaining to that week’s readings. The maximum length of these reviews is 500 words each. They will be due in and brought to the class on the day of the discussion. These reviews are not to be a summary of the readings but an expression of questions and concerns about the readings as well as a succinct account of main arguments in play. For each review the student fails to bring in, 5 points will be taken off from the total calculation and a standard late penalty will be used. These reviews will be graded by the end of the term rather than every week.  However, students can receive feedback about their progress during term time.  There will be no detailed written commentary available on these short reviews.  Instead, they will be discussed by the whole class in an active classroom setting.

--Submission of a term essay on a chosen diaspora community, diasporic movement or diaspora related theme by the end of the term (40%).  An outline of this essay, along with a bibliography, will be presented to the course director by the 8th week of the class (10 percent).  The length of this assignment will be 3,000 words for MA students, and 4000 words for Ph.D students. The essay should have at least 5 outside references in addition to the assigned readings. 

Please see the course director in advance to make sure that the topic chosen fits both your larger academic agenda and the course requirements. Essay topics and essays only tangentially related to diaspora studies are not acceptable. Students will be provided a list of suggestive topics and themes in advance.

Note: E-mail submissions will be accepted only as a back-up.

Essays will be handed in class at an assigned date and time, or, during office hours. Late penalty is 1 point grade per day of the total assignment grade will be taken out for the first 5 days. Afterwords, the assignment will only be graded at a 50 percent rate until 2 weeks past its due time. Past that date, the assignment will not be graded.

WEEKLY REQUIRED READINGS

Week of Sept. 7 – First Day of classes
Van Hear, Nicholas (2006) "Refugees in diaspora: from durable solutions to transnational relations." Refuge 23.1: 9-16. 

Nicholas DeMaria Harney and Loretta Baldass (2007) “Tracking Transnationalism: Migrancy and its Futures.”  Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 33 (2): 189 – 198.

Week of Sept. 14 – Classes Cancelled

Week of Sept. 21 –  Introduction to Critical Citizenship Studies
Kivisto (2007) Citizenship: Discourse, Theory, and Transnational Prospects (Key Themes in Sociology).  Oxford: Blackwell.

Week of Sept. 28 –  Introduction to Critical Citizenship Studies (cont.)
Hoffman, John (2004) Citizenship Beyond the State. Sage Publications.

Axel, Brian Keith (2002) “National Interruption: Diaspora Theory and Multiculturalism in the UK.” Cultural Dynamics 14 (3): 235-256.

Week of Oct. 5  Definitional Problems—A taste of classics
Shain, Yossi and Ariel Ahram (2003) “The Frontiers of Loyalty: Do They Really Change?” Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs 47 (4): 661-673.

Werbner, Pnina. (2002) "The place which is diaspora: citizenship, religion and gender in the making of chaordic transnationalism." Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 28 (1): 119-134.

Cohen, Robin (1996) “Diasporas and the Nation-State: From Victims to Challengers.” International Affairs 72 (3) 507-520.

Week of Oct. 12  Religion and identity in the post 9/11 world?
Ebaugh Helen Rose (2002) Religion Across Borders: Transnational Immigrant Networks. AltaMira Press.

Moore, Kathleen M. (2007) “Muslims in the United States: Pluralism under Exceptional Circumstances.” The Annals Of The American Academy Of Political And Social Science, vol. 612, no. 1, pp. 116-132.

Week of Oct. 19  Tolerance and Empire
Brown, Wendy (2006) Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire. Princeton University Press.

Week of Oct. 26 Class Cancelled/Alternative Activity

Week of Nov. 2 Diasporas and Development
Merz, Barbara et al. eds., (2007) Diasporas and Development (Studies in Global Equity) 
Global Equity Initiative, Harvard University.

Davies, Rebecca (2007) “Reconceptualising the migration - development nexus: diasporas, globalisation and the politics of exclusion.”  Third World Quarterly 28 (1): 59 – 76.

Week of Nov. 9  Identity, Difference, Democracy--Liberal Resolutions
Connolly, William E. (2002) Identity\Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox. Expanded Edition. University of Minnesota Press.
Newman, Janet (2007) “Rethinking ‘The Public’ in Troubled Times: Unsettling State, Nation and the Liberal Public Sphere.” Public Policy and Administration 22 (1):  27-47.

Week of Nov. 16  Identity and Violence
Sen, Amartya (2007) Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (Issues of Our Time). W. W. Norton.

Susan Bibler Coutin (2001) ”The Oppressed, the Suspect, and the Citizen: Subjectivity in Competing Accounts of Political Violence.” Law and Social Inquiry 26 (1): 63–94.

Week of November 23  Another Cosmopolitanism, Beyond Cosmopolitanism and other variations of a common theme
Benhabib, Seyla (2006) Another Cosmopolitanism: Hospitality, Sovereignty, and Democratic Iterations (The Berkeley Tanner Lectures). Oxford University Press.
Mahtani, Minelle (2006) “Challenging the Ivory Tower: Proposing Anti-Racist Geographies within the Academy.” Gender, Place and Culture 13 (1): 21-25. 

Week of November 30  North/South Divide and Transnationalism Again
Arrighi, Giovanni (2001) “Global Capitalism and the Persistence of the North-South Divide.” Science and Society 65 (4): 469-475.

Additinal PDF Files:

1. " Cyberpublics and Diaspora Politics Among Transnational Chinese", Interventions, 5:1, 82 - 100

2. "The Languages of the Public Sphere: Religious Pluralism, Institutional Logics, and Civil Society " By Rhys H. Williams

3. Koser, Khalid (2007) 'Refugees, Transnationalism and the State', Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 33:2, 233 - 254

4. "The Transnational Ruling Class Formation Thesis: A Symposium", Science & Society, Vol. 65, No. 4, Winter 2001–2002, 464–469

5. "The translocation of culture:‘community cohesion’ and the force of multiculturalism in history" by Pnina Werbner

Deferrals: If students have extenuating circumstances for not completing final exams or essays, they must speak with their course director about a deferral or receiving an incomplete grade well in advance of the due date for the course
Graduate Calendar
Monday, 3 September* Labour Day
Thursday, 13 September** Rosh Hashanah
Friday, 14 September**  Rosh Hashanah
Saturday, 15 September  Fall term registration deadline
Saturday, 22 September** Yom Kippur
Monday, 8 October* Thanksgiving Day

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