This dissertation examines the continued, yet hitherto overlooked, engagement of the Greek community in Egypt from the period after the en masse departure of most of its members (1962), until the... Show moreThis dissertation examines the continued, yet hitherto overlooked, engagement of the Greek community in Egypt from the period after the en masse departure of most of its members (1962), until the implementation of the infitāh policies in 1976 by Anwar Sadat. Beyond Departure: The Greeks in Egypt, 1962-1976 explores the Greeks’ multiple personal, local and institutional histories that make up the Greek presence in history after 1962. It reveales the diversity of Greek experiences based on geographical, socioeconomic and individual context. It analyzes the motivations and strategies they employed to respond to the economic and social changes in Egyptian society, such as the end of the Capitulations, WWI and WWII, the formation of the post-colonial state, and the 1961 Nationalization laws, among others, and the relations these events formed between Egyptian nationals and non nationals and the Egyptian state. It also explores how Greeks negotiated their presence, identity and feelings of belonging, in mind and practice, as a diaspora with a transnational agency. Show less
This thesis investigates the formation of the Japanese nation-state from the angle of children’s literature. On the one hand, it elucidates how premodern warrior legends were canonized and adapted... Show moreThis thesis investigates the formation of the Japanese nation-state from the angle of children’s literature. On the one hand, it elucidates how premodern warrior legends were canonized and adapted in children’s literature and textbooks of the Meiji (1686-1912) and Taishō (1912-1926) period to shape the dispositions of young citizens according to various modern ideals. On the other hand, it analyses the role of children’s literature in Japan’s transition to modernity and the identity-formation of the adults involved. This thesis challenges the idea that ‘books for children’ did not exist before the Meiji period by placing the material within the contemporary context. Focusing on the work of the author Iwaya Sazanami (1870-1933), it consequently re-assesses the development of modern children’s literature in Japan through the lens of Yuri Lotman’s theory on cultural memory. The re-appropriation of warrior legends in a modern literary genre for young citizens contributed to the coherence of culture during Japan’s transition to modernity. The new genre moreover signified Japan’s status as a modern society that separates the sphere of childhood from adulthood, thereby providing the latter with a sense of Selfhood and the right to guide both real and metaphorical children in their development. Show less
In this dissertation I have explored contemporary modes of displacement and citizenship in India. Rather than large-scale spectacular dislocations which are a focus of ‘refugee’ studies or set... Show moreIn this dissertation I have explored contemporary modes of displacement and citizenship in India. Rather than large-scale spectacular dislocations which are a focus of ‘refugee’ studies or set patterns of ‘voluntary’ population movement which come under the rubric of ‘migration’ studies, I am interested in low-key everyday forms of displacements which fall through these categories of understanding, are invisible, and remain undiscussed. I have explored everyday forms of displacement through Oren Yiftachel’s (2020) concept of displaceability. I draw on two case studies of two different displaced groups in Calcutta and North 24 Parganas in West Bengal: i) East Bengali dalit refugees coming from East Bengal (present day Bangladesh) to West Bengal and ii) a group of peripatetic impoverished rural people coming from the villages of Bangladesh and West Bengal to the urban agglomeration around Calcutta. The time frame of the dissertation is from the beginning of the Second World War in 1939 till the present. I have utilised the concept of displaceability to show how these groups are kept in a condition of permanent temporariness through deliberate state policies and how this erodes their citizenship. Displaceability expands understanding of displacement from an act to a systemic condition of informal urban living. In displaceable conditions actual displacements or the potential threats of it are utilised as an administrative tool to extract services from the urban poor and coerce them into participating in unequal political exchanges. My study shows that while these refugees and migrants become displaceable through state mechanisms, they negotiate this condition through their own brands of politics from below. Show less
‘Let us Live as Hindus’: Narrating Hindu Identity Through Temple Building Processes in Amsterdam Zuidoost (1988-2015) asks how Hindu identity has been narrated through turbulent processes of... Show more‘Let us Live as Hindus’: Narrating Hindu Identity Through Temple Building Processes in Amsterdam Zuidoost (1988-2015) asks how Hindu identity has been narrated through turbulent processes of temple building in Amsterdam Zuidoost. It focuses on a critical event in 2010, when a community of Hindus was ordered to evacuate a temporary space that the local district government had provided them. The author argues that struggles to establish a purpose built temple in the neighbourhood are articulated as forms of 'Hindu hurt' that are strategically narrated through the experiences of being ex-colonised indentured workers. However, the ways in which Hindu hurt are articulated shift dramatically after 2010, revealing the ways in which the trauma of losing their temporary space has constructed a moral economy in which transparency, democracy and Hindu solidarity become central tenets of ideal Hindu practice. This dissertation analyses a body of correspondence from 1988-1996 and uses extensive ethnographic interviews with various Hindu and non-Hindu actors in Amsterdam Zuidoost. It also attempts to link current discussions of citizenship in the Netherlands to scholarship on Hindu hurt in the diaspora. Show less
