African diasporas as agents of change

During the last decade, African diaspora groups have emerged as agents of change in international development thinking. Diasporas are being courted by donors, sending states, and NGOs for their contributions to development in their countries of origin, praised for their remittances, investments and knowledge transfer. The African Union, African diaspora ministries, units and agencies as well as other policy initiatives aim to mobilize ‘the diaspora’ for development as well as countless organizations, projects and conferences organized by or for the diaspora.

In a new special issue of the journal African Studies, these processes are scrutinized. The introduction and five articles examine official discourse and interventions made in the name of diaspora, analysing issues of governance and categorization. In the introduction, Simon Turner and Nauja Kleist explore the theoretical and political implications of the diaspora hype in relation to questions of state responses, neoliberalism, (de)politicization, hybridity and mistrust. These questions are further examined in the articles through case studies from Ghana, Rwanda, and the Horn of Africa, written by Selenia Marabello, Cindy Horst, Victoria Bernal, Simon Turner and Nauja Kleist, respectively. The articles demonstrate how diaspora groups and their activities are highly politicized; sometimes showcased by states, sometimes silenced. Likewise they show how some non-resident populations remain ‘non-diasporas’, and finally they examine how both states and diaspora groups are crisscrossed by mistrust in each other.

The special issue is edited by Nauja Kleist, DIIS, and Simon Turner, Aalborg University.