MA Migration and Diaspora Studies

The MA dissertation gives you a unique opportunity to pursue a long-standing or new interest and/or to explore, in some depth, a topic that is relevant to your anticipated career and/or future research plans. The 10,000 word dissertation must be submitted by September in the final year of study. The topic is chosen by the student, with guidance from the MA programme convenor and/or dissertation supervisor (who will be allocated early in Term 2). Students should link their topic with themes and concerns raised in the MA programme's core modules, but may also wish to pursue angles of inquiry suggested by option modules that speak to their own particular interests, whether disciplinary, geographic or thematic in focus.

This course offers an exploration of the formation of diasporas and their cultural politics. It looks at how diasporic subjectivities are formed through gendered aesthetic practices and performances, which can take on and signify religious, cultural, political meanings, which are in turn constantly negotiated, hybridised and re-fashioned across bodies, times and spaces.

What is migration? Is this the “age of migration”? What is Diaspora and what challenges do diasporic communities bring to modern political constructions such as the nation-state, national “imagined” communities, citizenship and their associated metaphysics of sedentarism? This course will explore these issues by critically engaging with the ways in which migration and diaspora have been understood historically and in modern and contemporary times. Different theories, approaches, and disciplinary angles will be introduced and discussed. We will also consider what de-colonising approaches to migration and diaspora might look like. By drawing on established and less charted bodies of work on migration studies, diaspora and identity, transnationalism, postcolonial and de-colonial studies the course offers an interdisciplinary approach to the emergence of diasporas, the reformulation of 'home' and the simultaneous instability and reinforcement of nation-states.

In this module we explore the complex and often paradoxical relationship between place, mobilities and food. We critically interrogate claims made about food system 'delocalisation', 'deskilling' and 'gastro-anomie'. We examine food markets, street foods and restaurants as sites of both cultural production and labour exploitation, of social interaction, cosmopolitanism and open debate, and of social control, surveillance and spatial cleansing. We explore contemporary forms of ethical food activism, including in the digital realm, and consider the complex role of food in migration.

This module questions and investigates the way that forced migration takes place, is represented and is responded to at the international and national level. It uses multidisciplinary approaches, drawing on anthropological, legal, sociological and developmental perspectives to interrogate the causes and consequences of forced migration, the labelling and control of forced migrant populations, the international legal and policy frameworks that contextualize protection and other responses to them. Drawing particularly on examples from sub–Saharan Africa, it asks what options are open to displaced people in the context of political, humanitarian and developmental responses to them.

Whether we think about migration, development, geopolitics, or citizenship, all questions of our time seem to revolve around the conceptualisation, functions and effects of borders and bordering processes. Borders are central to processes of social change, and the course identifies different approaches to studying borders’ significance in such processes. Borders have also become a key site of policy and political intervention, and the course explores border management practices related to fostering, preventing or channelling the circulation of commodities and people. Finally, the course reflects on the relation between borders, border management and inequalities. Borders are gendered, racialised and power laden. Yet, they are also sites of agency, resistance and subversion. Borders are privileged sites of analytical enquiry, as they render concrete and reproduce selective opportunities, inequalities and contestations.

Migration and diaspora are - like gender – not descriptive, objective categories, but analytical tools to name positions of power. In this course we discuss what gendering, diaspora and migration can imply as analytical (not descriptive) categories and how they are constructed interdependently by power relations. We will engage with a range of approaches to gender, migrations and diasporas and will address the social and political dimensions of migration and diasporas as well as politics related to constructions of non/belonging, cultural productions and imaginations.

The course will provide an in-depth introduction to international migration law. It covers key areas forming part of the broader field of what has been referred to as international migration law. This includes core concepts, such as sovereignty, nationality and statelessness; regional arrangements; migration control; trafficking and smuggling; the rights of migrants, with a particular focus on migrant workers; and broader questions of global migration law and policy. It also explores cross-cutting issues, such as race, gender, age, and intersectionality that are of increasing importance in the field of international migration law. The course builds on a range of theoretical perspectives that enable students to critically interrogate the genesis of, and current developments in international migration law.

This module examines international migration and diaspora politics as transnational processes in world politics. Cross-border mobility and diasporic political projects are key features of the contemporary international environment, yet they remain undertheorized in International Relations. How do migration and diaspora politics inform or challenge our understandings of the state, national identity, sovereignty, and the nature of the international system? What is the relationship between international migration and key areas of concern for International Relations scholars such as economic development, diplomacy, international security and global normative contestation? A range of theoretical approaches and empirical examples will be covered.

This module outlines the development of African Philosophy in the 20th century, a discourse that hinges on the following questions: does philosophy exist in Africa? What are the specific qualities that distinguish it from Western philosophy? We will survey the trends in African philosophical thought classified under the rubrics of ethnophilosophy", "nationalist-ideological philosophy", "sage philosophy", and "professional philosophy", and discuss specific concepts with philosophical reference or resonance, such as race, time, but also development or art. Several classes will be devoted to influential contemporary philosophers, in particular Paulin Hountondji, Kwame Anthony Appiah, V.-Y. Mudimbe, Henry Odera Oruka, and Kwasi Wiredu."

This course explores the construction and lived realities of race in its intersection with gender, and its rootedness in colonialism and empire, both historically and in the present. It critically situates anthropological knowledge as central to both the perpetuation and the critical analysis and political critique of race" as a category of difference with social, political, and economic effects. Exploring the fluid, socially constructed, and powerfully effective nature of both gender and "race" the course explores the ways they intertwine in theory and in lived experience across diverse societies and political discourses. At the same time, we explore how the categories of race and gender have been the object of scientific discourses and technologies of control. Also exploring social theory and other scholarship beyond anthropology, the course examines the diverse and interconnected understandings, experiences, and effects of “race”and gender as systems of meaning-making and power across spaces, places and historical times. "

This module deepens student understanding of key concepts in medical anthropology with a special focus on a) the materiality of bodies, substances, and practices, and b) science and technology studies that explore how knowledge comes into being, how it gains traction in the world, and how it shapes existing subjectivities and creates new ways of being and relating.

This module is concerned with South Africa's tumultuous twentieth-century history. It commences with the reconstruction of the South African state following the end of the South African War (1899-1902), and examines the respective origins and consequences of formal segregation (1910s - 1930s) and apartheid (1940s - 1980s). It is especially concerned with the ways in which ordinary Africans negotiated daily life within the strictures of these forms of state repression. A significant part of the module is concerned with the emergence of African nationalism, resistance to apartheid, and the collapse of the apartheid state at the end of the twentieth century, a conflict that engulfed all of southern Africa.

This module offers an investigation into the theories and key texts that inform the dynamic field(s) of postcolonial, decolonial and anticolonial studies, with a specific focus on law. Whilst anticolonial uprisings are as old as the global project of Euro-American colonialism and imperialism itself, the long twentieth century saw the emergence of a body of thought that critically addressed the realities of both an enduring ‘coloniality of being’ around the world and the prospects of a Third Worldist approach to social, political and legal justice claims. This body of thought is the core preoccupation of the module, taught by a diverse team of experts in the field. No prior knowledge of law is required to attend the module.

A central component of globalization is the mass movements of people and the consequent growth of a variety of communities and networks whose lives are played out across and beyond national borders. Media and communications are central to the lives and practices of such collectivities and take many different forms. Many diasporas have developed a range of media channels to bind members and maintain connection with the homeland. Religious communities are amongst the biggest transnational media players, for example in the development of Christian broadcasting channels or the multiplicity of sites for Koranic interpretation on the Net.

This module takes research methods as philosophically and practically exciting techniques and attitudes that allow us to know and understand the world better. The material addresses the history and foundations of anthropological knowledge, and describes some of the key concepts in anthropological methodology by using 'ethnographic writing' as a guide. The module encourages self-reflexivity, ethical conduct, and an anticipatory awareness of research practice and design. We explore ideas such as participant observation, the field, fieldwork, fieldnotes, interviewing and the ways in which scales of knowledge (local and global) can be brought into conversation through well-thought through methodology.

This module combines theory and anthropological case studies to help students develop a critical knowledge of approaches to address contemporary global challenges in sustainability. It seeks to deepen students' awareness and understanding of how people around the world apprehend and deal with the pressing social and environmental challenges they face, and the range of concepts and practices enacted to deliver sustainable futures. The module invites students to grapple with the contested and culturally-situated nature of these paradigms, and how they are underpinned by forms of economic and political power.

This module is a practical guide for engaging research and ideas in real-world settings. ‘How to change things’ is focused on advocacy, communication and learning to see how organisations work and ideas gain traction. Students will learn how to present research to different audiences, including parliamentary lobbying, report writing and social media. How to effectively put complex research ideas into engaging words, graphics, presentations? How to ensure that ideas are fed to the right audiences? The module encourages students to make a positive difference in the world building on their educational experience at SOAS as a resource. Students will explore how anthropology can be used to positively influence opinion, ways of working, thinking and institutions.

This module guides students through key concepts and theories that have underpinned the discipline of social/cultural anthropology over the last five decades, with particular attention to how theoretical concerns and orientations are continually rethought and retooled to address contemporary conditions. The module consciously departs from the conventional “canon” (i.e., the “founding fathers” approach) to offer a more inclusive and vibrant picture of the discipline’s (post-1960s) theoretical shifts. But it does so without overlooking the reverberations of anthropology’s past colonial entanglements, and without giving up its older core question: what does it mean to be human? Weekly class sessions and readings address a variety of topics across the anthropological spectrum, without diluting their analytical and empirical richness.

This module is open to all students interested in understanding major transitions in the conceptualisation of the social since the 1960s. Highlighting important currents in poststructuralist thought in anthropology and beyond, the module explores sources of new ideas and frameworks that are themselves of fundamental significance to all humanities and social science scholars. The module guides students to engage with and critically evaluate the theoretical underpinnings of social anthropology as a field of inquiry, and the ways these have been rethought in the face of recent historical and political shifts inclusive of decolonisation and neoliberalism. It introduces new vital concepts and currents, themselves the result of intense interdisciplinary encounters between anthropology on the one hand, and sociology, history, philosophy and political science, on the other.

This module bridges theory and practice in the fields of migration, diaspora and humanitarian practice. It is born from the belief that knowledge and practice produced by grassroots organisations, activists, practitioners and artists should be intertwined with academic knowledge and validated as part of a real decolonising effort. This course at SOAS is uniquely positioned to bridge theory and practice and offers students a fantastic opportunity to not only learn in London but engaging with one of the most diverse and vibrant cities in the world. “SOAS in London, London in SOAS” is the core idea behind this course.