At Once the Saviours and the Saved: “Diaspora Girls”, Dangerous Places, and Smart Power

Abstract

This article explores how racially marked young women and girls are sought to be discursively and materially incorporated into markets and imperial economic and geopolitical strategies in spatially differentiated ways, through an examination of a series of media productions which portray the engagement of young racialised British citizens with their countries of heritage. I propose the term "diaspora girls" to refer to the protagonists of these media productions, who are understood as embodying "British" post-feminist gender values and heroically carrying them to "dangerous" spaces of gender oppression and violence. In the context of current constructions of diasporas as agents of development, alongside the framing of migration as a "security threat" to the global North, these British citizens are viewed as ideally positioned to further the contemporary imperialist project. Their perceived empowerment is understood to be fragile and contingent, however, because of their affective connection with these spaces. Further, for those who are Muslim in particular, their perceived Britishness is understood as requiring continual reaffirmation and proof, thus reinforcing racialised structures of citizenship, and legitimising a border regime which reinscribes permanent North-South inequality.

Refusing Reform, Reworking Pity, or Reinforcing Privilege? The Multivalent Politics of Young People’s Fun and Friendship within a Volunteering Encounter

“…In terms of future lines of enquiry, the paper speaks of more scope for more conversations between scholarship on the “conditional incorporation” and anxious management of working‐class and racially‐marked youth in postcolonial nations and the spaces of international development and other global geographical imaginaries (cf. Wilson 2019). Tracing these underexplored linkages reveals not only the mutual articulations of the boundaries of “otherness” at seemingly disparate sites, but also that the way subjects are set in different positions—through class, race and gender—in relation to neocolonial encounters can be part of the fracturing and disrupting of colonial logics.…”

“…Though these initiatives are particular, they are typical of widespread contemporary currents. For example, Wilson (2019) explores popular representations of young British women’s engagements with their countries of heritage in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. She argues that discourses of development, particularly around assumed gendered oppression in the “non‐West”, function to enrol racially‐marked young women in neocolonial project of spreading “British values” abroad, whilst also reflecting the fact their Britishness requires “continual reaffirmation and proof, thus reinforcing racialised structures of citizenship” (Wilson 2019:1664; see also Back et al.…”

A ‘distinct UK offer’: The geographies of the FCDO's International Development Strategy 2022

“…It also articulates development as 'symbolis[ing] UK ideals' (FCDO, 2022, p. 11), particularly in reference to 'women and girls'. 'Women and girls' have long been one of the primary subjects of the UK's development strategy, often positioned, as they continue to be here, as key to economic prosperity and security (Wilson, 2019).…”

Re-orienting the Diaspora–Development Nexus

“…The rise of the diaspora as agents for development must be understood contextually, shaped by the inequalities of contemporary neoliberal globalization, digital technologies, and international travel, yet also embedded within racialized labour exploitation, colonial pasts, and coloniality in the present (Trotz and Mullings, 2013). Engaging diasporic communities in development rhetorically aims to respond to critiques of whiteness, power imbalances, ownership, and participation levelled at the global development industry (Ademolu, 2021;Boyle and Ho, 2017;Mohan, 2008;Wilson, 2019).…”