Popular Culture in Translocal Spaces: Processes of Diasporisation

In this proposed research project, we are going to look at how different practices within the realm of popular culture (music, virtual space, body modifications) constitute diaspora as an imagined common space. We perceive popular culture as a crucial space where processes of translocalisation and diasporisation become manifest, where identities are negotiated and reconstructed through performative practices. Our research focuses on the Cape Verdean diaspora in Lisbon (Portugal) and the Comorian in Marseilles (France) which allows for a rarely taken comparative perspective on the diaspora communities of two countries who share many similarities in geographic terms but who have been colonised by two different colonial powers. Drawing on intersectional approaches and concepts of performativity (Butler) and hybridity (Bhabha), we aim to analyse the following research questions: How is diaspora being constructed through popular cultural practices? Who considers which practice important and why? Are there differences with regard to structural categories such as gender, generation, class, race/ethnicity and locality? How is "belonging" being negotiated through these practices? How does translocality manifest itself in these practices? How is the relation between translocalisation, transnationalisation and diasporisation? Several domains could prove relevant regarding processes of translocalisation and diasporisation. However, we are convinced that the chosen fields, i.e. music, virtual space and body modifications, are of special relevance as all three are, in a sense, "border spaces" - spaces through which borders can become manifest but which are also potentially porous at the same time. According to intersectional approaches, we perceive the various boundaries between diaspora communities and the majority population as constituted mainly by structural categories such as race, class, gender and generation. Perceptions of skin colour certainly constitute a domain in which processes of racialization are most evident. Therefore one focus in this project is on skin bleaching as one form of (racialised) body modification. Virtual space most obviously has the potential to bring (new) diasporic communities into existence and new media change the ways in which people act translocally. Finally, music is easily spreading and another domain where borders become transgressed, in the material as in the non-material sense. Music has for long played an important role in the expression of diasporic identities and has not lost any of its appeal and importance. However, new forms of music have emerged in which generational relationships and their relation to translocal flows is reflected. In addition to common methodical approaches within social sciences such as qualitative interviews, participatory and non-participatory observations and discourse analysis, the research project aims at the inclusion of audio-visual means of documentation. Audiovisual media will not only be used in the process of data collection but will also be used as one way of disseminating our research results. The interdisciplinary research team, encompassing African Studies, Development Studies, Political Sciences and Visual Anthropology, has the necessary qualifications to reach the goal of the project: gaining a new and deeper understanding of the ways in which popular culture shapes diasporic communities.

With this project, we aimed to look at how different practices within the realm of popular culture constitute diaspora as an imagined common space. We focused specifically on processes of diasporisation that take place among Cape Verdeans in Lisbon and Comorians in Marseilles. Field research was carried out on two community-related cultural practices which include dance and music: Twarab in Marseille and Batuku in Lisbon. Further, the case study on Marseille also included research on Afrofolk music and hiphop. All these practices, with the exception of hiphop, had received little attention from researchers up to now. The specific focus on events which was especially developed by Katharina Fritsch with regard to Twarab, but also taken up by Hanna Stepanik in the Batuku case study, added a new perspective to the understanding of the role of popular culture practices in the creation and maintenance of diasporic communities. In our research we examined the impact of different structural categories such as gender, generation, class, race/ethnicity and locality. The project combined a strong theoretical framework with a solid empirical base that was acquired through extensive fieldwork of several months in each location. The truly transdisciplinary research conducted in the course of this project certainly contributed to the fields of Diaspora Studies and Popular Culture Studies but also fed back to the disciplines African Studies, Political Science and Development Studies where the project team have their background. Further, the project was strongly connected to the research platform on "Mobile Cultures and Societies" at the University of Vienna and thus also left its impact on the debates within transdisciplinary Mobility Studies. Reflections on research methods were given much space within the project. Working in a transdisciplinary team and with audiovisual methods generated much need for discussions about positionality and ethics. Besides numerous written texts, the project has produced two research films and both have been realised in cooperation between researchers and the film-maker Andres Carvajal. The first film "Creating Comoria" focused on the Franco-Comorian Afrofolk group Afropa and the second film "Twarab Stories from Marseille" which has been developed together with the artist Mounir Hamada Hamza focused on the precarious situation of (Franco-)Comorian artists working in the area of Twarab. The films have been shown at numerous events in Austria as well as in France and in the case of "Twarab Stories from Marseille" also on the Comoros. Another major new contribution to research methodology that was developed as part of the project was on the use of social media as archives for researching popular cultures and the aspects that need to be considered when doing so.