Doctoral Dissertation Research: South Asian Transnationalism in Chicago and Toronto

作为北美最大的两个南亚商业区，芝加哥的德文大道和多伦多的杰拉德大街突显了这些城市不断变化的人口结构以及移民改变城市空间的方式。通过覆盖多个民族国家的移民网络和联系，这些商业区与其他城市地区相连，形成跨国地点。尽管过去15年产生的关于移民的学术研究一直在争论移民在其原籍国和居住国之间保持联系的程度，但在对移民跨国主义的理解上存在两个根本的差距。两种不同类型的跨国联系在很大程度上还没有得到探索。第一个问题是移民建立的联系，这些联系包括原籍国和居住国以外的地点，而第二个问题涉及特定城市和民族国家在促进构成移民跨民族主义的各种做法方面的关键作用。因此，这个博士论文研究项目将集中在两个主要的研究问题上：(1)在芝加哥和多伦多产生南亚商业区的具体南亚跨国网络是什么？(2)关于移民和国家归属的不同联邦政策和话语如何导致芝加哥和多伦多不同形式的南亚跨国主义？通过对商人、居民和社区领袖进行面试，并结合对德文大道和杰拉德街企业的参与者观察，博士生将研究在芝加哥和多伦多的南亚移民的具体跨国做法和联系。他还将探索这些网络如何将德文大道和杰拉德街复制为南亚商业区。档案研究和比较案例分析将考察美国和加拿大关于移民的国家话语和芝加哥和多伦多关于多元文化主义的城市话语在这两个城市和民族国家调解南亚移民跨民族主义的不同方式。该研究项目的预期结果应有助于解释南亚跨国网络对许多地点的象征性和物质联系的依赖程度。项目结果还应有助于确定这些网络在多大程度上受到联邦和城市一级关于移民的政策和话语的影响。通过合并城市、政治和文化地理中的辩论，拟议的研究将比较不同城市和不同民族国家对南亚跨国联系的影响。该项目还将揭示移民跨国主义的常见形式，这些形式在城市空间的改造中发挥着重要但被忽视的作用。项目成果将对移民政策产生影响，特别是因为它涉及公民身份、国家认同以及通过移民的日常生活建立跨国联系的方式。它们还将有助于了解城市如何更好地满足移民的需要，以及城市政策对移民跨民族主义的影响。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该项目还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究事业。

As two of the largest South Asian business districts in North America, Chicago's Devon Avenue and Toronto's Gerrard Street highlight both the changing demographics of these cities and the ways in which migrants have transformed urban space. Through migrant networks and connections that encompass multiple nation-states, these business districts are connected with other urban locales, forming transnational sites. Although scholarship on migration produced in the last fifteen years has debated the degree to which migrants maintain connections between their countries of origin and settlement, two fundamental gaps exist in understandings of migrant transnationalism. Two different types of transnational connections have gone largely unexplored. The first consists of connections forged by migrants that incorporate sites beyond countries of origin and settlement, while the second relates to the crucial role of particular cities and nation-states in fostering the diversity of practices that constitute migrant transnationalism. This doctoral dissertation research project therefore will focus on two primary research questions: (1) What are the specific South Asian transnational networks that produce South Asian business districts in Chicago and Toronto? (2) How do different federal policies and discourses on migration and national belonging lead to different forms of South Asian transnationalism in Chicago and Toronto? By conducting interviews with merchants, residents, and community leaders in conjunction with participant observation in the businesses on Devon Avenue and Gerrard Street, the doctoral candidate will address the specific transnational practices and connections of South Asian migrants in Chicago and Toronto. He also will explore how these networks reproduce Devon Avenue and Gerrard Street as South Asian business districts. Archival research and comparative case study analysis will examine the differential ways that national discourses on migration in the United States and Canada and urban discourses on multiculturalism in Chicago and Toronto mediate South Asian migrant transnationalism in these two cities and nation-states. The anticipated outcomes of the research project should help explain the degree to which South Asian transnational networks rely on both symbolic and material connections from numerous sites. Project results also should help identify the extent to which these networks are largely influenced by federal and city-level policies and discourses on migration.By merging debates in urban, political, and cultural geographies, the proposed research will compare the impacts of different cities and different nation-states on South Asian transnational connections. The project also will shed new light regarding the quotidian forms of migrant transnationalism that play a significant yet overlooked role in the transformation of urban space. Project results will have implications for immigration policy, particularly as it relates to issues of citizenship, national identity, and the ways in which transnational connections are produced through the everyday lives of migrants. They also will be relevant to understanding how cities can better address the needs of migrants as well as the effects of urban policies on migrant transnationalism. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this project also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.