Diasporas in Development: race, neoliberalism and "the core of smart power"

Dr Kalpana Wilson (The London School of Economics and Political Science)

This seminar will reflect on  the British state’s initiatives to promote diaspora participation in international development, in the context of enduring racism and shifting constructions of ‘race’ and ‘belonging’ in Britain and their relationship with changing patterns of global capital accumulation and imperialism. The argument that the ‘whiteness’ of development can be challenged through greater engagement by these institutions with black and minority ethnic communities in the global North has proved amenable to appropriation and incorporation within neoliberal discourses of development. In this context, we will examine some recent media representations of diaspora participation in development, and how these are both racialised and gendered.  We will go on to discuss how initiatives of the British and Indian governments which have taken place under the rubric of engaging with Indian diaspora organisations have been related to specific strategies of capital as well as the reconfiguration of racism in Britain since the 1990s.

Contact email: dt37@soas.ac.uk