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
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
Within studies of World Christianity, an approach to identity construction and negotiation that foregrounds multiple identities has been gaining momentum in recent years. Some of this research has... Show moreWithin studies of World Christianity, an approach to identity construction and negotiation that foregrounds multiple identities has been gaining momentum in recent years. Some of this research has focused primarily on Christians with multiple religious identities. The most insightful work in this regard has combined a social-scientific approach with theological reflection, as seen in work from Catherine Cornille (2002), Peter C. Phan (2004), Peniel Jesudason Rufus Rajkumar and Joseph Prabhakar Dayam (2016), and André van der Braak and Manuela Kalsky (2017). In other research, the attention has been on how Christians construct and negotiate non-religious identities. For instance, in work on the Middle East, scholars such as Andrea Pacini (1998), Sidney H. Griffith (2008) and Kail C. Ellis (2018) vividly illustrate how Christians in the Middle East have negotiated a range of competing ethnic, national and cultural identities. Similarly, research on religion in Africa from J. D. Y. Peel (2015), Marloes Janson and Birgit Meyer (2016) and Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator (2018), among others, has advanced our understanding of the interdependence and fluidity of various cultural and social identities in multireligious settings. In line with this forward momentum, this special issue of Studies in World Christianity examines the topic of Christianity and multiple identities from diverse methodological approaches, conceptual lenses and geographic locations. Show less
