Graduate student Anneeth Hundle, under the guidance of Dr. Damani Partridge, will undertake research on the factors that affect immigrant political participation in post-colonial nation states. The research is motivated by three primary concerns: first, to understand how the experience of colonialism affects later citizenship; second, to analyze the relationship between nation, violence, and migration; and third, to investigate systematically the mutually constitutive relationships between native and immigrant populations in post-colonial contexts.
The research will be carried out in Kampala, Uganda, and will focus primarily on women. The researcher will employ multiple ethnographic research methods, particularly participant-observation and semi-structured interviews. In addition to participating in and documenting interethnic relations in daily community life, the researcher will focus intensive data collection on a sample of 30 women drawn from three different groups differentially placed in relation to Asian immigration and citizen rights. These three groups are: African feminist-activists who have represented cases of violence against Asian-Indian women; with new migrant Asian-Indian women from India; and elite Ugandan Asian women with colonial ties to Uganda. The researcher also will collect oral immigration and histories, do media analysis of newspapers and feminist literature, and collect and analyze spatial data for urban Kampala.
The research is important because it will help to understand the factors that produce violence in diaspora communities in post-colonial settings. Because such violence is increasingly common in the world, findings will contribute not only to social science theory but also to improving social and political policies. In addition, funding this project contributes to the education of a social scientist.
