Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia

The soft power of popular cinema – the case of India

“…One key reason for the popularity of Indian cinema is the existence of India's extensive and successful diaspora scattered around the world, their presence going back in some cases to 150 years (Amrith, 2011). This diaspora is also a critical resource for soft power dissemination, especially in the United States and Britain, where many Indians hold influential positions in boardrooms of transnational corporations, Ivy League universities and premium media organizations (Kapur, 2010) These are, in the words of Nye, 'soft power resources' (Nye, 2004a: 6).…”

Currents of Global Migration

“…In some cases the descendants of migrants assimilate into local populations; but at other times and in other places, the local-born children of migrants are reminded constantly of their alien origins; those origins are marked on their identity cards, in the neighbourhoods they live in, in persistent popular prejudices and stereotypes. We have seen, all too often, that even migrant origins in the distant past can become a reason for exclusion or discrimination -even, in extreme cases, expulsion (Amrith, 2011).…”

“…From (formal and informal) refugee settlements in Bangladesh, large numbers of Rohingya men have travelled to Malaysia and the Middle East in search of work; by the 1990s, over 200,000 Rohingyas were thought to live in the Middle East. And like other kinds of migrants, Rohingya refugees are increasingly connected to one another, virtually and through the Rohingya solidarity movement (Amrith, 2011;van Schendel, 2006).…”

“…These migrants, too, travelled under varying degrees of freedom and constraint, ranging from the voluntary movement using networks of kin and family, to the most restrictive forms of indentured labour not far removed from slavery. While received wisdom would put European transatlantic migrants on the side of freedom, and Asian migrant labour on the side of constraint, recent scholarship has painted a more complex picture (Amrith, 2011;Hoerder, 2002;Look Lai, 2009;Lucassen and Lucassen, 2011;McKeown, 2004).…”

“…Within Asia, the history of migration control has a different trajectory, but one that is equally relevant to understanding current conditions (Amrith, 2011). Historically, Asian states -and the Chinese state in particular -have been more concerned with controlling emigration than immigration, though the official ban on the emigration of Chinese subjects that lasted into the nineteenth century was rarely effective, and honoured mostly in the breach (Kuhn, 2008).…”