Migration takes people from the familiar to the foreign, forcing them to adjust to new environments, cultures and perceptions. This program explores how members of diasporic communities experience and navigate life and identity in their new home countries.
Speakers:
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Elamin Abdelmahmoud, Host and journalist
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Jennifer M. Brinkerhoff, Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs, George Washington University
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Diane Sabenacio Nititham, Associate Professor of Sociology, Murray State University
Moderator: Lok Siu, Professor of Ethnic Studies; Chair of the Asian American Research Center, UC Berkeley
Image: "Faces of Regent Park - Mustafa Ahmed" (2015) / Photo credit: Dan Bergeron / Fauxreel Studios(opens in a new tab)
About the Speakers
Elamin Abdelmahmoud is the host of CBC's Commotion and author of the #1 national bestseller Son of Elsewhere, a New York Times notable book of the year. He is a reporter at large for BuzzFeed News and a contributor to The National's At Issue panel. Elamin was a founding host of Party Lines and Pop Chat for CBC Podcasts. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The Globe and Mail, and others. When he gets a chance, he writes bad tweets.
Jennifer M. Brinkerhoff is Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. She is the author of Institutional Reform and Diaspora Entrepreneurs: The In-Between Advantage and Digital Diasporas: Identity and Transnational Engagement, and is the editor of Diasporas and Development: Exploring the Potential. She won the 2021 Distinguished Scholar Award from the Ethnicity, Nationalism and Migration Studies Section of the International Studies Association for her research on diasporas. She has advised and provided training on diasporas and development to bilateral assistance agencies, NGOs, and foundations.
Dr. Diane Sabenacio Nititham is a cultural sociologist who focuses on the dynamics of diaspora, transnational social practices, and home/belonging. She is interested in how these dynamics manifest for people amongst asymmetrical power relations, social policies, and community building. Her book Making Home in Diasporic Communities: Transnational Belonging Amongst Filipina Migrants highlights the intersections of global labor migration and everyday practices for Filipina communities in Ireland. Teaching interests include popular culture, social inequality, migration, and education, as well as courses in Ireland for Murray State’s Education Abroad programs. Recent publications appear in College Teaching and Celebrity Studies.
Lok Siu is a cultural anthropologist specializing in Asian Diasporas in the Americas, cultural citizenship and belonging, and food studies. Her publications include Memories of a Future Home: Diasporic Citizenship of Chinese in Panama and Asian Diasporas: New Formations, New Conceptions, which were recognized with the Association of Asian American Studies Social Science Book Award in 2007 and 2009. She has also co-edited the volumes Gendered Citizenships: Transnational Perspectives on Knowledge Production, Political Activism, and Culture and Chinese Diaspora: Its Development in Global Perspective. Her book, Worlding Chino Latino: Cultural Intimacies in Food, Art, and Politics, is forthcoming with Duke University Press.
Sponsors
UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies; UCLA Center for the Study of International Migration; UCLA International Institute; UCLA LGBTQ Campus Resource Center; UCLA School of Law Williams Institute
