Negotiating Home in Exile

Abstract

The Arab uprisings of 2011, and their slogans of freedom, dignity and justice, gave the Arab diaspora hope. Their aftermath led to disappointment, but many Arab diasporans still dream of returning home. The tension between their real, imagined and in-transit homes keeps these immigrants in home and exile simultaneously. The paper analyses the negotiation between distant and present, real and imagined homes, in finding and settling into a new home in the Arab diaspora in Berlin. It discusses the theory that the modern public sphere is primarily attached to territorially defined modern nation-states. Migration and transnationalism have challenged the bounded nature of nation-states and have allowed forces from and outside national territories to interact with forces beyond territorial limits, via satellite TV channels, social media and migration. This transnational push in the national public sphere has empowered the Arab diaspora to renegotiate their belonging to their host and home countries.