Annual Lecture: Creolization and Diaspora: the delicate dance

Professor Robin Cohen (Emeritus Professor and Principal Investigator of the Leverhulme-funded Oxford Diasporas Programme, University of Oxford)

Abstract

A diasporic consciousness generally reflects a degree of unease in the current place of residence. In evoking diaspora, a homeland or a looser notion of ‘home’ is reconstructed and revalorized through fabulation, recovered historical memory and social organization. The past provides a continuing pole of attraction and identification.

Creolization is a ‘here and now’ sensibility that erodes old roots and stresses fresh and creative beginnings in a novel place of identification.

Diaspora and creolization are apparently heading in different directions. But all is not what it seems. In this lecture, Robin Cohen will explore the complex relationship, the delicate dance, between diaspora and creolization

Biography

Robin Cohen is Emeritus Professor and Principal Investigator of the Leverhulme-funded Oxford Diasporas Programme, University of Oxford. Prior to Oxford, he held appointments at the universities of Ibadan, Birmingham, the West Indies, Warwick and Cape Town. He is author of Global Diasporas: an Introduction and author, editor or co-editor of many other books on the themes of globalization, migration, development and cultural difference.

Admission

The lecture is free and open to all. No booking is required.

Organiser: Centres & Programmes Office