Diasporas, agency and enterprise in settlement and homeland contexts: Politicised entrepreneurship in the Kurdish diaspora

A contextual understanding of diaspora entrepreneurship: identity, opportunity and resources in the Sri Lankan Tamil and Kurdish diasporas

“…Significantly, states within their respective homeland areas frequently demonstrated active hostility towards these diaspora communities, which shaped state-diaspora relations in a particular way. The absence of any independent homeland state constrained the development of homeland state engagement and mobilisation activities and ensured a significant transnational role for non-state actors, entrepreneurs and institutions (Ayata, 2011; Keles, 2015; Lyon and Ucarer, 2001; Pande, 2017; Syrett and Keles, 2019; Wahlbeck, 1998; Wayland, 2004).…”

“…For media and communication ventures, location in host countries provided entrepreneurs an opportunity to access rapidly developing media technology and broadcast news from a Kurdish or Tamil perspective in their languages, outside of Turkish/Sri Lankan coercive state power. Simultaneously, it provided entrepreneurs with the chance to contribute to the construction of diaspora political and cultural identities (Keles, 2015; Syrett and Keles, 2019).…”

“…Simultaneously, it provided entrepreneurs with the chance to contribute to the construction of diaspora political and cultural identities (Keles, 2015;Syrett and Keles, 2019).…”

“…Finally, by viewing diaspora (re)creation as an ongoing social, cultural, political and economic process, the core role of agency is identified. This agency is manifested both in addressing members interests, through various organisations and individuals operating through transnational linkages and shared institutions, as well as through diaspora membership empowering communities and individuals to mobilize support and engage politically to shape change in homeland and settlement contexts (Abramson, 2017; Cohen, 2017; Syrett and Keles, 2019). Research into the role of diaspora agency has focused especially upon the political influence of diasporas upon host and homeland policies and politics (Adamson, 2016; Burgess, 2014; Demmers, 2007; Smith, 2007) and state actors mobilising diasporas (Ho, 2011; Delano and Gamlen, 2014).…”

Precarious migrants, migration regimes and digital technologies: the empowerment-control nexus

“…Baujard (2008) discovered that refugees from Burma (based in India and Thailand) have turned virtual platforms and digital activism into their main tools to strengthen their identity as refugees, and to express political claims. More generally, refugee diasporas use ICTs to gather information and resources that allow them to actively mobilise and act as transnational actors within civil society in their country of origin, for instance by inciting the organisation of political protest or by sending remittances (Bernal 2005;Syrett and Yilmaz 2019). These different examples show that migrants in situations of high (social, economic or legal) precariousness are able to make innovative uses of ICTs.…”