This project works to take a transnational Black feminist and cultural rhetorics approach to blend an interdisciplinary culmination of theories and concepts on the impact of migration and displacement on Somali women, their identity, and the carrying of culture. It is a multi-location geographic comparative study between Kenya, Italy, and Australia, investigating how Hamilton's "communities of consciousness" are manifested in the temporal and spatial constructions of Somalia displayed among women in the diaspora. As Hamilton expressed, "The geographical displacement of people is a complex social process not just a physical movement...[and] must be conceptualized as contributing to the definition of what people were, what they are, and what they may become" (emphasis orig. 397). Using the Somali diaspora as an example of a people who were, are, and are still becoming, this research works to empower and embolden the value and strength of women's knowledges in consistently supporting the continuation of varied cultural practices among the African Diaspora.The dissertation toggles between these central themes to answer two main questions: 1) How Somali culture and identity is rhetorically reconstructed among women in the diaspora, and 2) How practices of Somali culture manifest and become materialized in the physical spaces women in the diaspora construct in their homes.
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