Diaspora Geopolitics (Tamils in Canada)

Jennifer Hyndman (Social Science and Geography, York University), Amarnath Amarasingam (Religion, Queen’s University) and Gayathri Naganathan (Surgery, University of Toronto) examine how the state can often frame diaspora political engagement in terms of violent nationalisms, extremism and threat.

Focusing on the Tamil community in Canada, the researchers propose a different view of diaspora nationalisms as transnational, influenced by democratic liberalism, and an expression of and related geopolitics shaped “from below,” within the exiled diaspora.