Les Combattants - Ideologies of Exile, Return and Nationalism in the DRC

Abstract

Focused on London, this article looks at the ideology and practice of Congolese nationalism in exile, and at the ideas of home, belonging and return connected with this. Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) migrants came to Western Europe escaping violence and economic and political collapse but, for a long time, the imaginative concentration of the diaspora was not on politics, but on a consumer-based version of the good life. This article traces how this changed in the 2000s with the diaspora becoming a focus for violent and racialized forms of nationalism. Tracing this evolution historically, we look at how the practices and ideologies of 'return' and 'home' have come to express this transformation of exile nationalism.