Tamil diaspora activism in the post-liberal international order: navigating politics and norms

Abstract

Diasporas play a key role in universal norm transfer processes, mainly through transnational political activism. For decades, Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora activists have been drawing attention to injustices in the home country by and applying liberal, cosmopolitan normative frameworks. The use of these frameworks helps these actors to advance their transnational political goals and to cultivate transnational political networks that aid in advancing their struggles to influence positive change in Sri Lanka. In the current post-liberal phase of international politics, the main architects of the liberal, cosmopolitan international norms, who previously supported their implementation, have started to abandon them. This turnaround has tragically coincided with an increasingly hostile reception to these norms in Sri Lanka, home of the Tamil diaspora. This article examines how the recent retraction of and reaction to international norms in international and national politics is reshaping Tamil diasporic transnational political activism and transnational-national political relationships.

(Re)imagining the idea of India: Contestations about Hindutva among the Indian American diaspora

“…When engaging with the ‘original’ homeland, diasporas have played a variety of roles, while creating, shaping, and reproducing transnational political identities (Adamson, 2012; Brinkerhoff, 2006; Shain & Barth, 2003; Sheffer, 2006). This process necessarily involves contestations and negotiations, where diaspora positions and identities are continually constructed, negotiated and reframed (Brinkerhoff, 2016; Jayasundara‐Smits, 2020; Koinova, 2021).…”