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Life on the Outside: The Tamil Diaspora and Long-Distance Nationalism. Oivind Fuglerud. Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 1999. 203 on.
This book is a significant contribution to the understanding of identity politics of refugees in transnational circumstance, drawing on a wide range of theory. Centering on Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in Norway, Oivind Fuglerud explores a broad range of social processes of general relevance. In a somewhat densely wrought, layered, yet accessible argument, he explores the Tamils' determination of "refugee" (as opposed to "migrant worker" and "asylum seeker") in relation to the development of a "long-distance," revolutionary nationalism, dedicated to the establishment of an independent Tamil nation-state, Tamil Eelam, in Sri Lanka. Fuglerud argues that refugee identity in Norway is increasingly circumscribed by the nationalist politics of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the dominant revolutionary force in Sri Lanka. This development in Norway is of particular interest given that many Tamils fleeing the horrors of civil war have little sympathy for LTTE leadership. Fuglerud considers the effects on migrant identity of both internal dissension among Tamils and of the larger Sinhalese/Tamil conflict. He locates a strong tension between two forms of self-understanding, one the cultural order based on kin and caste difference, the other a revolutionary order invoking a common Tamil identity. Fuglerud argues that this nationalism provides "a name for individual nostalgia and shared exclusion from the host society" (p. 178), while constructing new representations of migrants' Sri Lankan Tamil origin and connectedness.
This study benefits from Fuglerud's long-term, multifaceted association with Sri...