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    At once the saviours and the saved: ‘Diaspora Girls’, dangerous places and smart power

    Wilson, Kalpana (2019) At once the saviours and the saved: ‘Diaspora Girls’, dangerous places and smart power. Antipode 51 (5), pp. 1664-1683. ISSN 0066-4812.

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    Abstract

    This article explores how racially marked young women and girls are sought to be discursively and materially incorporated into markets and imperial economic and geopolitical strategies in spatially differentiated ways, through an examination of a series of media productions which portray the engagement of young racialised British citizens with their countries of heritage. I propose the term ‘diaspora girls’ to refer to the protagonists of these media productions, who are understood as embodying ‘British’ post-feminist gender values and heroically carrying them to ‘dangerous’ spaces of gender oppression and violence. In the context of current constructions of diasporas as agents of development, alongside the framing of migration as a ‘security threat’ to the global North, these British citizens are viewed as ideally positioned to further the contemporary imperialist project. Their perceived empowerment is understood to be fragile and contingent however, because of their affective connection with these spaces. Further, for those who are Muslim in particular, their perceived Britishness is understood as requiring continual reaffirmation and proof, thus reinforcing racialised structures of citizenship, and legitimising a border regime which reinscribes permanent North-South inequality.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the article, which has been published in final form at the link above. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): Diasporas, Development, Girls, Gender Violence, Racism, Migration
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
    Depositing User: Kalpana Wilson
    Date Deposited: 23 Jul 2019 13:13
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:52
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/28232

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