'Diasporic Constructions of Home and Belonging' (CoHaB)
An International Transdisciplinary Research Project
Financed by the European Union’s Marie Curie ITN 

All over the world, stable concepts of home and belonging have, for a variety of reasons, become the exception rather than the rule. This has led to dramatic cultural, social and political changes and challenges. The study of diaspora and migration has therefore evolved into a burgeoning field of research with an urgent practical relevance. The CoHaB Network unites some of the best research institutions in this field, i.e. the University of Muenster, Germany, the University of Mumbai, India, the Universities of Oxford and Northampton and the School for Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in the U.K. and the University of Stockholm in Sweden, in the conviction that interdisciplinary training as well as international and inter-sectoral co-operation are key to any productive study of diaspora. CoHaB is based on the resolve to strengthen interdisciplinary research between the social sciences and the humanities in the field with a view to establishing diaspora studies as a transdisciplinary research area in its own right. Training young early stage researchers for Ph.D. degrees on the basis of this conviction means to provide them with the opportunity to conduct their work in a variety of disciplinary environments as well as outside a purely academic context. Secondments to associated non-academic partners, the Centre for Advanced Studies in India (CASII), India, The Migration Policy Group, Belgium and the Cabinet d’Avocats, France, will not only help the fellows gain insight into specific diaspora-related, extramural fields of work, but also tie in the results of their work experience with their academic work. Academic secondments to co-supervisors from within CoHaB guarantee a sound interdisciplinary basis. Co-operating within this network, young researchers from various disciplinary backgrounds, but with similar interests in the field of diaspora studies, will join forces to develop their projects on a shared platform. Applicants will be expected to engage in an open-minded and continuing dialogue about the methodology, theory, and terminology of diaspora studies as a transdiscipline. All project submission will be expected to attend to the nexus between aspects of diaspora on the one hand and constructions, politics, and ideologies of home and belonging on the other.

As the purpose of the Marie Curie projects is to internationalise research, applicants for the CoHaB Fellowships will have to apply to universities in the CoHaB network outside their home countries.

Professor Nilufer E. Bharucha

Coordinator and Scientist-in-Charge