Preliminary Programme

Many studies of transnationalism incorporate elements of the sociological, economic, and political science literatures on ‘strangers’ – that is, immigrants of distant provenance settled in transitional societies (i.e., post-colonial or decolonised states, developing countries). Academic writings on transnationalism usually focus on the relationship of strangers to their ancestral homelands, whilst also examining their involvement in the politics of their adoptive societies as indicative of ostensibly successful integration. Yet investigations of the transfer of homeland politics to the new land of domicile, and how this shapes the interaction of the diasporic group with the host society over the historical longue durée, have elicited surprisingly little scholarly enquiry.
This paper will examine immigrant engagement in homeland politics in the diasporic content – thus effectively constituting transnational politics – and the ramifications of this process, using the history of the Lebanese in West Africa as a case study. The emigration of the Lebanese during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the dispersal of thousands of people from the Levant to the Americas, Europe, and eventually, West Africa. Unable to afford journeys to the USA – their preferred destination – some Lebanese immigrants settled for less desirable destinations, including several West African ports, from the 1890s.
The development of Lebanese politics on West African soil illustrates the importance of political organisation abroad for the processes of identity formation and attempts at building ‘community’ amongst an ‘alien’ population. Through an analysis of the formation of various Lebanese clubs and societies in Ghana in particular, this paper challenges the notion of the existence of a single Lebanese community in that country (or indeed, in West Africa at large), by exposing the political and ideological differences which existed among the immigrants, and examining how Lebanese groups and individuals were manipulated by various governments to suit their own political and diplomatic agendas. Fundamentally, it is argued that the pursuit of Lebanese political and associational rivalries represented the true nature of Lebanese community, coinciding with the burgeoning of a transnational cultural/political renaissance amongst the immigrants. In effect, the only unity of the Lebanese in Ghana could be found in their diverse political allegiances and multifarious individual strategies for challenging their alien status and negotiating their disparate political ideologies. Finally, the exporting of Lebanese politics to West Africa informed the political considerations of the British, the independent Ghanaian government, and several Middle Eastern governments. The transnational politics of a small diasporic population elicited political responses of international significance and influenced the histories of ideological discourse and diplomatic interaction between several states during the period, underscoring the importance of homeland transnational politics as practiced abroad. (Show less)

Ottoman Damascus was characterised by a high mobility, not only in terms of social stratification, but also in terms of the composition of its population. In this complex society, family foundations were used by different social groups in various ways. In my contribution, I would like to present the case of a foundation, established by a member of a (probably) exile community of Central Asian Sufis in Damascus and its environment in the first half of the 18th century. Against the notion of stability and perpetuity usually associated with endowments in an Islamic context, the historical evidence points to the fact that this family grouping did not plan to stay in Damascus on a permanent basis. The trust was dissolved in a legal action twenty years after it was founded. It is the more interesting to examine the changing strategies of the administration in the course of its short existence. The source material used in this investigation is culled from court records and the rich contemporary historical literature like chronicles and biographical collections. (Show less)

The aim of this paper is to analyze how family property was inherited per linea masculina e femminina between relatives and how a kinship network of an international family worked which owned properties not only in Florence but in Hungary as well. Two branches of the Scolari clan were bound together by marriage ties and that of inheritance. The head of their kinship network, Pipo Spano did not have children to whom family name and property might have been transferred. Therefore Pipo signed a contract of inheritance with his brother, a distant cousin and one of his nephews for ensuring the transfer of the ownership of his castle, lands and the patronage of churches and monasteries to his relatives. Thanks to the abundant number of wills left behind by Pipo Spano, by his brother, Matteo and their relatives, the strategies of collective property, shared ownership and wealth control can be analyzed during time and one can follow how the properties of the three Scolari were inherited by the daughters of Matteo Scolari as part of their dowry and how their three distant cousins followed the steps of their uncles caring for the female members of the consorteria, procurating their dowries, leading the construction of the family sacral spaces committed by their uncles and how they inherited not only material goods but also managed to keep in hand the offices held by Pipo Spano at Sigismund of Luxemburg’s Hungarian Kingdom. (Show less)

This paper explores how English law affected the lives of Hadhramis in Hadhamaut and the British Straits Settlement of Singapore during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is remarkable how Hadhramis in Arabia were subject to British law and in a sense, effective British control long before actual British annexation of Hadhramaut, due to their heavy dependence on wealthy Hadhramis in Southeast Asia for revenue. Since the nineteenth century, remittances from Hadhramis who had emigrated to Southeast Asia contributed significantly to the infrastructure of Hadhamaut. Arabs in Singapore for example made extensive contributions to the construction of roads, schools, dispensaries, the introduction of a local coinage system and a postal service in Hadhramaut. How did the British deal with cases involving Arabs who were domiciled in Hadhramaut but had property in the Straits Settlements? English law was formally imposed on the subject populations in the British Straits Settlement of Singapore after 1867. Thereafter, a waqf in Singapore was defined in terms of the English law on charities. English law of estates allowed a Muslim to distribute all his or her property in a will, regardless of the fact that Islamic law forbade such a will, having laid down specific precepts for the distribution of land. By forcing the administration of the inheritance of property through English legal terms, the British were made very much aware of the Arabs' landholdings. Wealthy Arabs in Singapore often made wills describing in detail to whom they bequeathed their property and money to after their death. Hadhramis in Singapore were very willing to engage the services of English lawyers, and this was known to appease the British colonial government. By willingly working within the British colonial system in the colony to the extent of hiring English lawyers, these Arabs played a part in ensuring that the colonial structure was maintained, even reinforced, creating a situation which clearly favoured the colonial power in charge. By utilizing British law to conduct their business, and financial matters, the Arabs opened up channels of surveillance for the British to keep tabs on their financial assets, and money flow. It is highly possible that the general cooperation of Hadhramis in the Straits Settlement of Singapore encouraged British plans of colonial expansion in Hadhramaut in the 1930s. (Show less)