Subjects, citizens and refugees: the making and re-making of Britain’s East African Asians

Nasar, Saima (2016). Subjects, citizens and refugees: the making and re-making of Britain’s East African Asians. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

Considerable historical attention has been paid to the end of Empire in Britain’s East African colonies and the consequences of this for postcolonial states. The forced migration of minority South Asian populations from the new nation-states of East Africa has received considerably less attention. South Asians remain at the margins of African and British national histories, constructed variously as either fringe opponents of anti-colonial nationalist movements or marginalised minorities. Yet re-assessing the history of these ‘refugee’ communities has the potential to enhance scholarly understanding of both colonial and postcolonial power relations and migrant-refugee identity formulation and re-formulation.
Moreover, studies of migrant communities in Britain have tended to treat South Asians as a homogenous group, paying relatively little attention to the specific identity trajectories of those who were expelled from the new nation-states of East Africa. In contrast, this research takes as its starting point the transnational experiences of East African Asians as multiple migrants, exploring the reformulation of political and cultural identities during the course of their expulsion, migration and resettlement in and between postcolonial states.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):