Description
In the growing literature on the governance of diaspora populations, most studies conceptualize it as something new, driven by recent globalization processes or emerging forms of governmental power. With the exception of a few critical studies (e.g. Varadarajan 2010), this obscures the historical embeddedness of contemporary diaspora governance. This paper addresses this gap by interrogating historical linkages and colonial continuities in contemporary diaspora governance. It will use a practice-theoretical approach to disentangle the agents, narratives, and spaces that assemble to make each governance practice possible, tracing the historical roots of these assemblages. Drawing on multi-method fieldwork conducted amongst the Tamil diaspora in London between 2016 and 2019, the paper will reveal the historical relations of diaspora governance in several ways: First, it will show how governance (i.e. policing and surveillance) practices conceived by British colonialists in South Asia continue to inform how diaspora Tamils are governed today. It will also demonstrate how contemporary governance practices a"ecting the Tamil diaspora often rely on linkages and discourses dating back to the British colonial period, for example cooperation around proscription between diaspora sending and receiving states.
