Existing literature on diaspora often contends that small diaspora groups may not be politically influential if they lack access to power or resources (Smith & Stares, 2007; Collier & Hoeffler, 2001). More specifically, Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler (2001) argue that resources are associated with the size and location of the diaspora. This is partly because early discussions of diaspora were primarily concerned with “paradigmatic” cases, such as that of the Jewish diaspora, “or small number of core cases,” such as the Armenian and the Greek diaspora (Brubaker, 2005, p. 2). These assumptions form the basis of this mémoire, and while true to some extent, the authors fail to recognize the extent to which small diaspora groups may exercise political influence on domestic or international policies that affect their members, through transnational advocacy networks (TANs). This study explores the thesis that small diaspora groups, such as the Assyrian diaspora, may exert political influence either through existing TANs or by creating Assyrian TANs. This research tests the hypothesis using Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink's (1998) four tactics and strategies of TANs: information politics, symbolic politics, leverage politics and accountability politics. Moreover, this study attempts to analyze the extent to which the Assyrian diaspora elicits political influence on domestic and international policies that affect their groups in Sweden and the United States after the liberation of Iraq in 2003. Scholarly literatures on TANs are well established; however, the literature pertaining to the relationship between diaspora and TANs is lacking. This study aims to address the lacuna in the literatures in order to highlight that the Assyrian diaspora groups could potentially yield success through development of TANs. The goal is to provide essential qualities to successful TANs, with the aim to cohesively assemble the information on TAN strategies and tactics and bring them parallel to the Assyrian diaspora experience. This paper should be treated as a conceptual framework for small diaspora groups, and also to contribute to the Assyrian diaspora literature which remains underdeveloped. The study looks at specific circumstances where the Assyrians in diaspora were involved in influencing domestic and international policy, how they operated, and what lessons can be learned from their efforts. Results presented in this study support the hypothesis that diaspora groups, such as the one undertaken in this study, are important political actors who can influence both host land and homeland policies that concerns them.

This paper focuses on the environmental dimensions of a subgenre of Moroccan literature and photography that has emerged in the past twenty years and that takes as its principal subject clandestine crossings of the Mediterranean Sea undertaken by undocumented migrants who attempt to breach the heavily policed borders of the European Union in hopes of remaking their lives within Europe’s internally borderless spaces. This subgenre is at once narrowly local in its referential range and world-historically global in its thematic and geo-political thrust. It is intensely local insofar as it typically represents the day-to-day lives of characters who are located on the margins of their respective social formations and who spend much of their time stuck in or moving through various marginal spaces within those formations. Conversely, the subgenre is global in its thematic and geo-political thrust insofar as the texts that comprise it implicitly or explicitly engage such questions of world-historical import as the nature of national identity, of sovereignty, and of borders, among others. With an eye to elucidating how the subgenre represents environmental realities, I examine the ways in which both large-scale geographies (e.g., cities, border zones, nation-states) and small-scale sites (e.g., remote villages, seedy cafes, deserted beaches) are imbricated with two of this subgenre’s principal themes: alienation from the Moroccan body politic and the concomitant urge to seek a new life in Europe, whose southernmost edges can be espied from all along the country’s northwestern-most shores. I will explain how in the texts that comprise this corpus inherited environments are experienced as a curse while the close yet far-off geography of Spain/Europe is represented as the site of an individually construed and illusory emancipation. Furthermore, I will argue that insofar as they render visible and central the circumstances, life-histories, and aspirations of people who are typically confined to the marginalized peripheries of the contemporary world system and who when referred to in establishment discourse are frequently figured as threatening specters or as expendable ciphers such texts as Youssef Elalamy’s novel Les clandestins (translated as Sea-drinkers) and Yto Barrada’s photo essay The Straits Project: A Life Full of Holes contain a positive dimension that partly belies their bleakness of tone and their profound political pessimism.

For almost 16 centuries, Istanbul was the imperial capital of both the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, located in a geography in which people exhibited a great capacity to coexist and cooperate across religious and ethnic divides. With the rising nationalist trend spreading across the globe towards the end of the 19th century and the eventual collapse of the Ottoman Empire, this peaceful co-existence came to a rather abrupt and violent end, leading to significant population shifts. As such Istanbul bears the deep traces of both a successful recognition of differences and equally so of their brutal rejection. Today however, after two decades of neo-liberal economic growth, Istanbul boasts on having reclaimed its cosmopolitan spirit by becoming a leading global and multicultural city. Yet these claims remain debatable given the ongoing anxious presence of not only the lingering non-Muslim population, but equally so of Istanbul’s more recent residents, such as the internally displaced Kurds. Over the past decade, the city has also been witnessing a steady increase in the arrival of undocumented migrants and refugees, while the question of how this migration and the ensuing ethno-cultural diversity are impacting the social landscape of Istanbul remains unanswered, both in Turkish urban and migration studies. Based on preliminary ethnographic research in Kumkapi, a historic Armenian quarter of Istanbul that is home today to a “super-diverse” (Vertovec, 2005) mix of Istanbul’s minority and migrant populations, this paper aims primarily to explore how this “new” diversity is being experienced and engaged with at the everyday level in the city. The choice of Kumkapi is purposeful as it embodies at once the uncertain predicament of different populations in Turkey, including Armenians, Kurds, Roma, as well as undocumented migrants and refugees from a great variety of countries, ranging from Georgia to Somalia. In this sense, the spatial concentration of migration and displacement histories/stories in Kumkapi, spanning across borders, ethnicities and religions, is immense. Given this historic and present particularity of Kumkapi, my paper also aims to capture the layered meanings and practices of living together in diversity in Istanbul, and more specifically within the cities’ socio-economically marginalized urban spaces, which are being increasingly impacted by global migration flows.

Decades of continuing emigration, mostly to Western Europe, have resulted in large expatriate Moroccan communities. The Moroccan authorities seek to maintain strong ties with their overseas citizens, particularly in the economic and cultural spheres. They have thus introduced a broad set of measures to safeguard the connection, ideally for generations. The aim of this paper is to analyze Moroccan policy towards its emigrants, and its underlying motivations, during the reign of King Mohammed VI, from 1999 until present-day. The Moroccan community in the Netherlands serves as a case study for the analysis. By examining the policies of King Mohammed VI towards Moroccan citizens in the Netherlands, it will become possible to define the Moroccan state's ongoing interest in its expatriate community. The paper focuses on clarifying the Moroccan ‘agenda’: the motivations and explanations underpinning its migrant policy. It does so by looking at the various programs that government institutions initiated in the economic, political, and cultural-religious realms, demonstrating how Moroccan involvement in Dutch-Moroccan affairs contributes to the accomplishment of Moroccan government objectives. In evaluating its effectiveness, it will also examine the responses of the migrants themselves to Moroccan state policies. As opposed to other scholarly works on Moroccan migrant policy, the time frame of this paper is confined to the rule of King Mohammed VI. A review of the literature (e.g., Laurie Brand, Hein de Haas, Said Bouddouft) shows that authors have focused on the period of King Hassan II’s rule, when migrant policy was repressive and intimidating. However, also Mohammed VI, during his thirteen years on the throne, has introduced numerous measures and established institutions related to the migrant community, indicating that a migrant policy is still firmly in place - although in a significantly altered shape. Moreover, previous examinations of Moroccan migrant policy tend to prioritize Morocco’s economic interest in its migrants over other interests. My paper will give equal time to the cultural and religious aspects of Moroccan policy. Methodologically, my study will combine a textual approach of selected secondary sources with primary data collection, using a contextual quantitative method. As primary material, I will employ Moroccan policy directives, speeches, statements and newspapers from the last thirteen years. A study of the Dutch media's documentation of Morocco's migrant policy, as well as survey and anecdotal evidence of the migrants' views and responses, greatly added to my analysis.