Negotiating diasporic leisure among Zimbabwean migrants in Britain

Abstract

This article examines, from a theoretical and empirical perspective, the types of diasporic leisure experienced by the Zimbabwean diaspora in Britain through extensive fieldwork, including interviews and participant observation. It extends an emerging body of scholarship concerning the relationship between diaspora and leisure by discussing different conceptualisations of diasporic leisure as homeland-oriented, boundary-crossing, and technologically mediated. Specifically, this is done to highlight the role leisure practices play in the formation of diasporic consciousness and in negotiating and contesting transnational identities. The article develops a dialectic of diasporic leisure as a framework for understanding how leisure practices and activities reconnect the Zimbabwean diaspora in Britain, enabling them to construct transnational identities in a country that construes them as “other.” The paper’s central argument is that diasporic consciousness and identities are activated, materialised and mobilised in and through leisure practices.

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