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Defining Diaspora, Refining a Discourse
Abstract
Kim Butler is Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History at Rutgers University. She is the author of Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition Säo Paulo and Salvador (Rutgers UP, 1998), which won both the Wesley-Logan Prize for African Diaspora History conferred by the American Historical Association and the Letitia Woods Brown Prize of the Association of Black Women Historians. She has also published a dozen articles and reviews, among them the forthcoming "Garveyism in Brazil"; "Africa in the Reinvention of Nineteenth Century Afro-Bahian Identity" (Slavery and Abolition, 2001); and "From Black History to Diasporan History: Brazilian Abolition in Afro-Atlantic Context" in Comparative History of Black People in Diaspora, edited by D.C. Hine (Indiana UP, 1999).
1. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, the Rutgers University Center for the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture, the Rutgers University Black Atlantic/African Diaspora Seminar Series, Yale University, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. I am greatly indebted to all those who commented and helped me think through these issues, with special thanks to Colin Palmer and Khachig Tölölyan. This article was completed with the support of the Scholars-in-Residence Program at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
2. Diasporan theorists have noted that this definition, as offered by Walker Connor (among others), is too broad to be useful. (For a critique of Connor, see Safran 83; Tölölyan, "Rethinking" 15, 29-30).
3. Egg creams (which, incidentally, contain neither eggs nor cream) were once a popular fountain drink in New York City.
4. Tölölyan discusses a host of factors contributing towards the increase in usage of the construct of diaspora in "Rethinking Diaspora(s)"
5. A survey of the Dissertation Abstracts International database identified 487 dissertations published between 1990 and 2000 with the word "diaspora" in either the title or the abstract.
6. "Without such a realization," he wrote, "the expression African diaspora may be doomed to the study of enforced dispersal only—to slavery" (Shepperson 51). Jon Stratton revisits the Jewish paradigm in light of its recent representations by diasporan scholars.
7. Safran's final two categories differentiate between (5) commitment to the maintenance and safety of the homeland and (6) a more generalized connection to the homeland that defines the diaspora's "ethnocommunal consciousness and solidarity."
8. For example, Tölölyan points out that the traditional understanding of coercion into diaspora now extends to economic coercion. He also highlights the fact that diasporas need not exist as a distinct ethnic group in the homeland but may, instead, form as a result of diasporization.
9. Robin Cohen also makes this modification to Safran's list ("Diasporas" 514-5).
10. This provocative phrase, coined by Benedict Anderson, has been especially useful in developing theories of diaspora.
11. Gérard Chaliand and Jean-Pierre Rageau included the criterion of time in their definition of diaspora (xiv-xvii).
12. This problem is addressed by Robin Cohen in "The Diaspora of a Diaspora."
13. This approach differs from that of James Clifford, who has suggested defining what is or is not a diaspora through relational positioning. He writes, "Rather than locating essential features, we might focus on diaspora's borders, on what it defines itself against ... Diasporas are caught up with and defined against (1) the norms of nation-states and (2) indigenous, and especially autochthonous, claims by 'tribal' peoples" (307). While I am proposing an alternative way of defining diaspora studies, Clifford (and others) nonetheless raise issues of vital concern that must be addressed as points of analysis within...
... Kim D. Butler (2001) remarks that homeland ties are a "hallmark of diasporan identity" (p. 204). ...
... This finding appears to be consistent with the literature in diaspora studies. In Brubaker's (2005) and Butler's (2001) work, they emphasize that the orientation and bonding to homeland are key constituents of a diaspora as the homeland has a special place among diasporas. Similarly, Tölölyan (2007) highlights the function of homeland ties and says, "they [diaspora] turn again and again towards the homeland through travel, remittances, cultural exchange, and political lobbying and by various contingent efforts to maintain other links with the homeland (p. ...
Despite the Nepalese diaspora being a part of the South Asian diaspora in Canada—the largest fraction of Canadian diasporas—systematic investigations into and knowledge about the Nepalese diaspora is strikingly limited. The existing studies centred on the South Asian diaspora predominantly deal with the Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, and Bangladeshi diasporas and often homogenize the Nepalese diaspora with these diasporic groups. This study, as the first scholarly investigation into this group, examines the emerging and fast-growing Nepalese diasporic community in Canada. Based on government data, reports, and in-depth semi-structured interviews, this article presents the history of the Nepalese diaspora in Canada. It also delineates their diasporic experiences as they arrive and embark on a new journey to Canada and some contemporary socio-cultural and intergenerational issues that have arisen in this diasporic community. The article finds a rapid growth in the Nepalese diaspora in about the last two decades. It identifies the quest for a better life, health care, social security, children’s education, and escape from political turmoil and instability in their native country as the chief reasons for this influx of Nepalese in Canada. The article also uncovers dramatic career shifts, adaptation or settlement-related strains, longing for homeland, cultural decline, and growing intergenerational gaps as the key post-immigration challenges encountered by the Nepalese diaspora in Canada.
... While immigration is a physical phenomenon that involves the transnational movement and settlement of people outside of their homeland, diaspora is a wider notion that involves both physical and psychological transnational experiences including identity struggles and transnational ties (Grossman, 2019). The concept emphasizes identity as a process and negotiation, not static or essentialized, and encompasses a wider range of dispersion and diasporic identities that take time to build (Butler, 2001). Diasporic communities often maintain connections with their homeland through transnational involvement and ties that can both be physical, such as economic, sociocultural, and political activities, and emotional, such as psychological identification with their homeland and compatriots (Kemppainen et al., 2022). ...
In this study, we aimed to understand the formation of cultural assets within diasporic families through participation in ethnic sport. Yosso’s Community Cultural Wealth framework guided the study. An interpretive qualitative approach was employed to examine Korean diasporic families in the United States whose children are involved in Taekwondo, a Korean ethnic sport. Data were collected through interviews and observations. Our analysis revealed the development of four forms of Community Cultural Wealth: linguistic, familial, navigational, and resistant capitals, along with the newly identified transnational capital. These forms were developed and nurtured through learning ethnic language, cultural practices and heritages, bonding with families, building cultural ownership, and developing self-confidence and self-protection skills. We propose advancing the use of the Community Cultural Wealth framework in sport management and offer implications for optimizing the use of ethnic sport to create more inclusive and diverse spaces for diasporic communities’ sport participation.
... In a context of superdiversity such as it occurs in New York city, with a rich history of migration and a high index of diversity, understanding how collective identities are formed is important to identify the strategies that diasporic communities use to construct symbolically and discursively their new home in the host country (Alexander 2017). As previously established by researchers, diasporic groups are not homogeneous communities Languages 2024, 9, 193 2 of 15 but contain multiple identities (Buttler 2001;Canagarajah and Silberstein 2012;Tseng and Hinrich 2021); in other words, these groups' identities are "frequently based on the homogenization of difference" (Gubitosi and De Oliveira 2020) since "a diaspora community is not a homogeneous group of people who share the same country of origin, but instead is a group of people who frequently have different backgrounds, culture and traditions" (Gubitosi et al. 2020, p. 215). This is critical when studying diasporic groups since, as this paper will show, Ecuadorians in New York may not come from the same neighborhood, or the same city, but they know they are fellow countrymen sharing the same linguistic and cultural practices even when they are not in the motherland anymore, and any empathy and fellow feeling among people must be accomplished situationally through language (Canagarajah and Silberstein 2012;Gubitosi et al. 2020). ...
Given that Ecuadorians are one of the largest groups of Hispanics living in New York, they have become a tight community that they now call little Ecuador. Although Ecuadorians living in the diaspora in NYC come from different parts of the country (mostly from the Andean region), they share the same cultural practices they performed in Ecuador that give them the sense of being in their country without bearing the instability and turmoil their country experiences. This shows how the group has fostered a sense of a multifaceted, multidimensional simultaneity between the host country and the motherland. The goal of this paper is to analyze the strategies Ecuadorian migrants use to validate their language and cultural practices to negotiate their identity as a group. Data for this paper come from ethnographic observations, semi-spontaneous conversations, oral interviews with members of the group, along with pictures taken while walking the community and participating in some of their events. Our study reveals that participants hold varying perceptions regarding their linguistic and cultural practices. However, it is noteworthy that they recognize these practices as a manifestation of Ecuadorianness, signifying a sense of solidarity among community members.
... Some groups have been moving around for centuries due to colonial persecution, while others have entered the fold of transnational diasporic communities in recent decades. Some historical ways to analyze diasporas have been by the cause(s) of mass movements, such as Cohen's (1997) classification of victim, labor, trade and imperial diasporas or Butler's (2001) captivity, conquest, forced exile and elective migration (Brinkerhoff, 2009, p. 34). ...
This paper examines the confluence of civic engagement and cyberspace by studying diasporic civic organizations (DCOs) within superdiverse and digitizing contexts. Civic engagement is crucial for DCOs, which often originate in superdiverse locales in migrant-receiving cities like Toronto. The paper explores how studying superdiverse locales provides a framework to move past ethnocentric interpretations of diasporic civic engagement and how digitization affects their organizations. The study focuses on three next-generation Bangladeshi Canadian DCOs through semi-structured interviews, digital archival analysis, and field notes. Findings show that digitization initially posed challenges due to inadequate support and resources during the early stages of the pandemic. However, digitization ultimately provided less resource-intensive interventions for a more dispersed audience. Simultaneously, unequal access to digital tools negatively impacts less-resourced, volunteer-run DCOs and their service recipients. Policymakers and service providers must find ways to support more effective and equitable digitization for DCOs originating in superdiverse locales.
... Respecto a la conformación de una comunidad en diáspora -y más allá de críticas epistemológicas en torno al concepto de diáspora (Cohen y Fisher, 2019) o de controversias por la excesiva proliferación del término en los últimos años (Brubaker, 2005)-, para el presente artículo cabe analizar las tres características fundamentales que diferencian a un grupo diaspórico prototípico de una población migrante o de una minoría social, con el fin de validar el término diáspora para referirnos a las nuevas generaciones de descendientes de marroquíes residentes por todo el mundo. Estas tres características son la dispersión continuada a dos o más destinos, una identidad de grupo diferenciada de la sociedad mayoritaria -un endogrupo frente a un exogrupo-y el mantenimiento de vínculos reales o imaginarios con un lugar de origen distinto al lugar de residencia (Butler, 2001;Safran, 2004;El Asri, 2012;Tölölyan, 2019). Con respecto a la dispersión no hay duda de que la emigración marroquí se ha dado de manera ininterrumpida a lo largo de los últimos 60 años, concentrándose fundamentalmente en Europa occidental y en tiempos más recientes en América del Norte y en los países del Golfo Pérsico (Berriane, 2018). ...
Este artículo examina el papel que desempeñan los referentes sociales surgidos de la diáspora marroquí como potenciales instrumentos de legitimación para el Estado y las élites tradicionales marroquíes, no solo a escala internacional y entre las comunidades marroquíes del exterior, sino también a nivel doméstico. Mediante el estudio de caso de sucesos específicos acaecidos en el año 2022 a dos referentes sociales de la comunidad marroquí en España, se analizan las estrategias de legitimación –cooptación o coacción– que desarrolla el Estado marroquí para garantizar que el posicionamiento político e identitario, así como la producción cultural, de los referentes sociales de la diáspora quedan en todo momento alineados con sus intereses y fundamentos.
... Thinking of diaspora as a socio-material assemblage is not an attempt to add a definition to the debate between the bounded (e.g. Safran 1991;Tölölyan 1996;Cohen 1997;Butler 2001) andunbounded (e.g. Hall 1990;Gilroy 1993;Clifford 1994;Brah 1996;Anthias 1998) paradigms. ...
The proliferation of diasporas has expanded the intricate web of political relations on a global scale. Transnationality has increasingly replaced methodological nationalism, and relationality blurred diaspora's boundaries. This article argues for framing diasporas as socio-material assemblages in a transnational space to capture the political agency of diasporas in action. This highlights diasporas' ability to forge their transnational political actorness and to expand their power of attractiveness. By tracing ideas and things behind the essential task of representing the homeland, this research explores the connections of the Kurdish Freedom Movement (KFM) in Europe, making three main arguments. First, it outlines the existence of transnational infrastructures of solidarity, which highlight a multi-ethnic plurality at work. Second, this research illuminates the role of the diasporas in the south-north flow of knowledge and political influence. Third, the article examines the desire which stabilizes the assemblage and makes the circulation of ideas possible and smooth.
Please find the Global Networks published version here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/BJI9UHGCKR4NFAGQI2ZQ?target=10.1111/glob.12460
Permanent link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/glob.12460
... The term 'diaspora' has become one of great academic contestation, with some viewing diasporas as 'discrete entities or groups' while others argue that the notion of a 'diaspora' is a social construction, 'a process through which spokespersons create and appropriate diasporic discourse, consciousness, and identity' (Grossman 2019(Grossman , 1264(Grossman -1265. As Butler (2001) notes, however, most scholars agree on three central features of diasporic communities: (1) they are formed through a process by which people are uprooted and dispersed from their country or place of origin (2) those who are dispersed maintain a relationship with that country or place (which can be understood as a real or imagined homeland) and (3) dispersed individuals identify as belonging to a social formation, which links them to one another, and to a common point of origin. ...
... Existing literature often shows that the contemporary labour diasporas differ from the colonial and indentured labour diasporas (for details, see Elo, Silva, and Vlacic 2023). There exists extensive literature that delineates different phases of diaspora studies, extended notion of diaspora, studies on classical and new diasporas and debates about what constitutes diaspora with old and new understanding of diaspora (Brubaker 2005;Butler 2001;Jayaram 2004;Sahoo 2015;Samaroo, Gooptar, and Mahabir 2022;Vertovec and Cohen 1999;Yong and Rahman 2013). ...
... Much like scholars who have studied how African-descended people have included themselves in diasporic networks via religion (Clarke 2004;Matory 2005;Griffith and Savage 2006;Garbin 2013), the purpose of this discussion is to ground this inclusion by way of specific trans-local activities, discourses of mobility, and the cultivation of Black Muslim diasporic identities via religious observances that animate pilgrimage. Moreover, as many have argued, it is necessary to distinguish diasporas from mere dispersals (Butler 2001). The aim, then, is to analyse how the transatlantic mobilities of Muslims of African descent living in the USA or in Senegal affect the emergence of specific cross-border solidarities and diasporic subjectivities in the context of a religious network. ...
In this article, I consider how migration practices around the Black Atlantic and discourses of repatriation mobilize Black African diasporic Muslim identities in present-day Senegal and in a mosque in South Carolina that is situated on land that was formerly a slave plantation. I use the term ‘reversion’ as a vocabulary of ‘diasporic becoming’ to signal how notions of Islamic piety are coupled with a politics of Black Atlantic Muslimness in the context of a West African Sufi tariqa – or ‘Black Atlantic Sufism’. Moreover, I consider how identity formation and African Muslim ancestry are impacted by discourses of geographic return and repatriation that are linked to spiritual tourism.
... While geographical relocation is a significant parameter, Hack-Polay and Siwale [2] argued that the geography aspect is insufficient to understanding diasporas, particularly in the context of globalisation which seems to have blurred borders. Hack-Polay and Siwale [2] define diasporas as groups of migrants (first generations and later generations) who are out of their country of origin for a protracted period of time and maintain an economic or psychological connection with the country of origin [3]. In this context, diasporas are an integral part of the social fabric of the host nations [4]. ...
In this article, we critique and extend Bourdieu’s notion of cultural capital to develop
the new concept of total diaspora cultural capital. We build on the limitations of cultural capital, which in the Bourdieu theory centre on materiality and class perpetuation. The article builds on an extensive review of the literature, using the PRISMA framework. We also use the findings of previous research to illustrate this argument. We differentiate between four types of organisations or groups that articulate various levels of cultural capital to build a body of evidence that establishes total diaspora cultural capital (type D groups) as a bounded collective identity creation encapsulating three main dimensions: appropriation, customisation and deployment. Total diaspora cultural capital is perceived as fitting the post-colonial global context through the acknowledgement that diasporas and hosts make the modern world, being agents who create and disseminate culture and economic sustainability through reciprocal appropriation of cultural assets. The research is the first to conceptualise the notion of total diaspora cultural capital. This research significantly extends Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital, which fails to capture the multiple contours of evolving sustainability perspectives. Total diaspora cultural capital creates bounded cultural capital that strengthens the agility of diaspora businesses.
This article aims to examine the response of the Israeli diaspora to a constellation of crises that has unfolded in Israel in recent years, with a particular focus on the events of 2023. Following a brief introduction, it presents theoretical and methodological remarks that contextualize the subsequent analysis. It follows with some considerations on Israeli migration, addressing fundamental inquiries, including whether the Israeli population living abroad constitutes a diaspora and the transformative effects that can shape multiple communities abroad into a diasporic entity. The article further explores the distinctive characteristics of the Israeli diaspora, highlighting the various dimensions of their transnational lives. The emergence of political transnationalism is analyzed, with attention to different manifestations and actions of individuals and organizations that contribute to what is referred to as the “awakening” of the Israeli diaspora. This includes an examination of the evolving relationship between the Israeli diaspora and local Jewish communities within the context of an ongoing crisis that remains unresolved at the time of writing. The article concludes with reflections on the broader implications of these developments.
The study of Caribbean Englishes in the diaspora is an area of engagement for the sociolinguistics of diaspora. It has been pioneered by studies of Jamaican Creole and English in London and offers enormous potential for very much needed further work on different Caribbean varieties in a wider range of locales. This entry turns to the development of Jamaican Creole in London since the 1950s to extract a four‐stage model for the development and transformation of a diasporic Caribbean English, spanning the stages (i) heritage speech of first‐generation immigrants, (ii) local ethnolect, (iii) stylistic resource in urban polylingual practices, and (iv) tributary to an emerging multiethnolect. The conclusion makes proposals for the theoretical expansion of diasporic Caribbean English studies.
Si les îles font l’objet de nombreux travaux de recherche en géographie, les mobilités des populations insulaires vers la France continentale restent relativement peu étudiées, en comparaison avec l’ensemble de la littérature sur les mobilités résidentielles et les îles. Identifiables comme diasporas, les populations des îles perçoivent ces mobilités avant tout comme une nécessité contrainte ou choisie. Il serait toutefois réducteur de qualifier ces mobilités uniquement par le besoin économique : la mobilité engage une palette plus large de motifs, qu’il s’agisse d’îles-États ou intégrées à des États continentaux. Ainsi, l’expérience de mobilité des îliennes et des îliens peut être utile pour saisir les modalités d’arrivées dans un nouveau territoire. Le mouvement, d’abord essentiellement contraint, peut se transformer en mobilité choisie sur le long terme avant de rentrer ou non sur les îles. L’objectif principal de cet article est alors de comprendre, d’analyser et de comparer les mobilités et l’insertion de deux diasporas îliennes (Polynésie et Comores) résidentes dans le Pays de Brest, territoire continental, littoral et urbanisé.
The archaeology of diaspora has grown in many directions during the first two decades of the 21st century. It has become a key way of understanding the short-term and long-term connections between people and communities defined by movement and migration. However, archaeologists of diaspora still at times struggle with old models of interpretation which seek out ethnic markers in material culture or signs of acculturation. How then do we move past these paradigmatic pitfalls? In this article we look to the concept of the neighborhood as a potential avenue away from a cul-de-sac of theoretical stagnation. Neighborhoods, spatially proximal areas in towns and cities, often comprise multiple diasporic communities in close contact. Ethnic and racial lines are not necessarily neatly maintained, challenging fixity or fluidity binaries when approaching diasporic communities. Thinking of the neighborhood as interpretive model in itself challenges us to think past siloed communities and look to the distinct ways in which social identities and networks are dynamically shaped by living space in urban contexts. Utilizing material from Santa Barbara’s Nihonmachi, we attempt to think through material culture through the lens of the neighborhood, appreciating the blurred lines across the multiple communities living on the block.
Reverse diaspora tourism is a form of international tourism in which the diaspora is visited by tourists from the home country, as opposed to diasporas visiting their home countries. This study aims to introduce the concept of reverse diaspora tourism to the literature and to highlight the economic, social, and cultural significance of the travel behavior and spending patterns of “reverse diaspora tourists” by comparing them with traditional diaspora mobility. The case study method, a qualitative research design, was used in this study. In this context, a semi-structured interview form consisting of open-ended questions was developed. Criterion sampling and disproportionate stratified sampling techniques were used to select the sample. In this context, face-to-face and e-mail interviews were conducted with 30 Kazakh diasporas living in Turkey and 30 Turkish diasporas living in Kazakhstan. The data collected from the participants were subjected to thematic analysis using the MAXQDA 2020 analysis program. The study revealed that reverse diaspora tourism is superior to diaspora tourism in terms of economic factors such as number of visitors, overnight stays, and tourism expenditure. In addition, reverse diaspora tourism makes an important social and cultural contribution to destinations. This study is original in that it introduces the concept of reverse diaspora tourism to the literature.
Resumo O presente artigo se propõe a refletir sobre as condições e as formas assumidas pelo engajamento de migrante. A atenção recai sobre a atuação de brasileiros no exterior durante um período de média duração, que tem início com o final do período de transição democrática em 1988 e finaliza com o processo de desdemocratização que caracterizou o período 2016 a 2022. Interessa compreender as oportunidades e restrições geradas pelo regime brasileiro e suas transformações para o engajamento de brasileiros estabelecidos no exterior. O estudo parte de uma abordagem qualitativa de fontes de natureza distintas, dentre as quais destacamos documentos produzidos pelo Ministério das Relações Exteriores, pela Organização Internacional para as Migrações, entrevistas e documentos produzidos por brasileiros no exterior, entre outros. A pesquisa evidenciou que o país de origem é uma das dimensões que geram oportunidades e restrições para a atuação política de brasileiros no exterior. O governo da pátria natal pode abrir ou fechar canais de diálogo institucionais, afetando assim a janela ou a estrutura de oportunidades políticas dos migrantes.
Objectives
Contemporary migrations show form and intensity of interaction between homeland and host communities to shape social dynamics and identities. We apply here a contemporary theoretical framework and biogeochemical analyses to elucidate the scale , processes , and impacts of migration in the Tiwanaku polity (6th–11th c. CE) by inferring the mobility of individuals interred at the Tiwanaku‐affiliated site of Omo M10 (Moquegua Valley, Peru).
Materials and Methods
For each of 124 individuals, we captured paleomobility across the life‐course by analyzing up to four enamel and bone samples that formed during discrete developmental periods for radiogenic strontium ( ⁸⁷ Sr/ ⁸⁶ Sr) and stable oxygen ( δ ¹⁸ O carbonate(VPDB) ) isotopes.
Results
At Omo M10, archaeological human enamel and bone values range from ⁸⁷ Sr/ ⁸⁶ Sr = 0.70632–0.72183 and δ ¹⁸ O carbonate(VPDB) = −13.4‰ to +1.7‰, with a mean of ⁸⁷ Sr/ ⁸⁶ Sr = 0.70763 ± 0.00164 (1σ, n = 334) and δ ¹⁸ O = −7.8‰ ± 1.9‰ (1σ, n = 334).
Discussion
Together with archaeological evidence, we interpret these data as evidence for multigenerational interaction between communities in the high‐altitude Tiwanaku heartland and at the site of Omo M10. Our results suggest that one‐fourth of individuals spent some part of their life outside of Moquegua and one in eight individuals from Omo M10 were first‐generation migrants. Greater mobility of females and juveniles at Omo M10 indicates that gender and family were important social constructs in maintaining relationships and cultural continuity in provincial Tiwanaku life, and communities maintained autochthonous migration streams with Tiwanaku‐affiliated populations throughout the south‐central Andes. Intra‐individual biogeochemical analyses of migration at Omo M10 contribute a nuanced perspective on the diverse experiences of multigenerational Tiwanaku colonies.
Provenance, as the foundational principle of archival studies, dictates that records with the same creator should be organized separately from those of a different creator. This idea of provenance, however, fails to consider different epistemologies of origin. Using an ethnographic study of the Palestinian diaspora in Southeast Michigan, this paper interrogates provenance through Palestinian epistemology and Palestinian futurism to theorize a transformative provenance that positions archival origins as both spatially and temporally unfixed. Rather than rejecting provenance, the concept is a useful departure point to consider how Western understandings of origin and custody can be broadened by other ways of knowing. In this article, I track the origins and custody of memories and stories, the main medium of records in this community, to highlight the culturally specific epistemologies involved in their preservation. I then propose a transformative provenance based on three qualities. First, intergenerational: Chain of custody belongs to both the past and the present, as stories belong to the time of a grandparent’s past exile and a grandchild’s present diaspora. Second, collective: With the spatial referent of memories being lost, ownership is shared within village kinship networks. Third, imaginative: Origins of memories exist in the past, present, and the future, as those in diaspora use memories to imagine future liberation. By grounding this analysis of Palestinian memory work within the community’s conceptualizations of knowledge organization, this paper contributes to current discourse around decolonial recordkeeping, non-Western epistemology, and the management of diaspora archives.
The diaspora has long been regarded as an empowering, egalitarian community, with its internal inequalities largely overlooked. In particular, little is known about how socioeconomic status affects intradiasporic relations. The current study challenges the romanticised perception of the diaspora by shedding light on its internal class disparities. Focusing on the Central Asian diaspora in Russia, the research demonstrates that diaspora elites may be involved in capitalising on the precarity of vulnerable dias-porans. More specifically, Central Asian migrant entrepreneurs have been found to weaponise diaspora solidarity to exploit and subjugate migrant workers.
Türkiye ve Ermenistan arasındaki sorunlar, farklı ve aktif olmayan bir çatışma türü olarak yer almaktadır. Bu ilişki türüne Azerbaycan ve Ermenistan arasındaki aktif çatışma ve Ermeni diasporanın rolü eklendiğinde ise mevcut literatüre aykırı olan bir durum ortaya çıkmakta, hem bölgesel ilişkiler hem çatışma çözümü önerileri daha karmaşık hale gelmektedir. Diaspora gibi güçlü ve ek bir etken komşuluk ilişkilerindeki sorunları derinleştirebilmektedir. Ermeni diaspora, kendi içinde farklılıkları olan bir topluluk olsa da 1915 olaylarının soykırım olarak tanınması, Ermeni kimliği ve Dağlık Karabağ’ın durumu konusunda güçlü ve ısrarcı ortak fikirlere sahiptir ve kendi önceliklerini Ermenistan’ın siyasetinden öncelikli tutmak istediğinde Ermenistan’ın iç ve dış politikasını etkileme potansiyeline sahiptir. İyi komşuluk ilişkileri geliştirebilmek için çatışma çözümü ve uzlaşma çalışmaları başlatmak gereklidir. Ancak diasporanın etkisi ve tutumu dikkate alınmadan hakiki ve uzun vadeli uzlaşma gerçekleşemeyecektir. Makalede, olumlu ilişkiler geliştirebilmek için günümüze odaklanan, ticari, iktisadi, siyasi ve eğitime ilişkin girişimler ile iş birliği içeren ve karşılıklı güven geliştirmeye önem veren araçsal uzlaşma yaklaşımı önerilmektedir. Çalışmada, uzlaşma yaklaşımları, üç ülkenin komşuluğunda uygulanabilecek uzlaşma modeli, diasporanın rolü ve uzlaşma yaklaşımlarındaki etkisi incelenecektir.
How do home-state elites react to emigrants who form diaspora communities abroad, and how do these attitudes change over time? The article explores these questions through an analysis of the discourse and policies of Israeli elites towards emigrants who created distinct diaspora communities and established ties with local Jewish diaspora communities between 1977 and 2023. The article highlights the important role that ethnic and national identities and the prospects of emigrants’ eventual return play in such attitudinal shifts. The home state may initially see diaspora formation as harmful for precipitating emigration and obstructing repatriation and ethnic immigration. However, when it becomes clear that the return of many emigrants is unlikely, home-state elites may come to support and even promote the formation of new diaspora communities and their ties with older diaspora communities to offset emigrants’ assimilation into their host society and increase their attachment to the home state.
The historic diaspora diplomacy literature has generally characterized politically active diaspora as foreign agents leveraged by their ancestral homeland to shape the foreign policy of their host nation. As such, diaspora groups have generally been assessed as net negatives on the foreign policy of their host nations, or as working against the common good of the host nation. This work seeks to challenge this narrow conceptualization and demonstrate that, when considered within a broader historical timeline, granted agency, and contextualized within a networked society, emergent mechanisms for state mobilization of diaspora groups to achieve foreign policy objectives become apparent. This work is focused exclusively on political diaspora groups within the United States and investigates select case studies to demonstrate the evolving nature of U.S.–diaspora relations and the opportunities presented as a result. The work concludes with several policy recommendations, derived from lessons learned within the case studies.
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Bayes, Jane H., and Laura Gonzalez. 2011. “Globalization, Transnationalism, and Intersecting Geographies of Power: The Case of the Consejo Consultivo del Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior (CC‐IME): A Study in Progress.” Politics & Policy 39(1): 11–44. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2010.00281.x .
Huijgh, Ellen. 2017. “Indonesia's ‘Intermestic’ Public Diplomacy: Features and Future.” Politics & Policy 45(5): 762–92. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12221 .
Singh, Amit, and Amit Sarwal. 2017. “Paraspara, Encounters, and Confluences: India's Soft Power Objective in the Indo‐Pacific Region.” Politics & Policy 45(5): 733–61. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12222 .
We offer insights into the factors impacting faculty-led academic/research collaborations between Mexican scholars employed in the USA and their Mexican colleagues working in Mexico. Founded on the idea that diasporic relationships include people involved in cross-border migrations yet maintaining ties with their homeland, we are referring to these faculty-led collaborations as diasporic. To offer nuanced understandings, data analyzed were obtained from 25 semi-structured interviews exploring collaboration in different professional, institutional, disciplinary, and regional contexts. Relying on Network Analysis of Qualitative Data, we were able to identify the most relevant drivers (e.g., personal relationships, common research interests, and cross-cultural understandings) and deterrents (e.g., political and legal challenges and institutional contexts) of diasporic collaborations influenced by institutional, national, and sociopolitical power dynamics. Our use of diasporic academic collaborations is intended to transcend this study; that is, although our analytic sample is comprised by diasporic Mexican academics, we argue that similar barriers and drivers may apply to academics from other countries who may be interested in participating in diasporic academic collaborations. Accordingly, we invite other researchers to expand this understudied research topic by providing access to our interview protocols and the detailed list of codes used to apply Network Analysis of Qualitative Data.
In this chapter, we contextualise the understudied presence of Australians in Italy, identifying the main types of migration and mobility that characterise the Australian diaspora in Europe today. These include “roots migration” of Australians of Italian heritage, comprising both temporary and long-term youth mobility and retirement migration; love migration; study migration; and business migration. We then examine the return migrations and repatriations of earlier migration waves and consider how contemporary experiences of transnational life, supported by polymedia environments, create active social fields that incorporate both places. Integrating migration studies and the sociology of emotions, we also include a netnographic case study focusing on the Australian community in Florence, a symbol of the nineteenth-century Grand Tour. Lastly, we provide a number of in-depth interviews in Florence with Australians of Italian and non-Italian heritage, as well as an analysis of the “Australians in Italy” Facebook group.
La salida de España del territorio saharaui en 1975 y su posterior ocupación por
Marruecos y Mauritania propiciaron el desplazamiento forzoso de población saharaui a
diversos territorios. Canarias fue una de las principales regiones españolas que acogió a un importante núcleo de la primera bolsa de ese exilio. Trascurridas varias décadas desde entonces, y con más de dos generaciones en el archipiélago (que han incrementado su número ante la prolongada irresolución del conflicto), este articulo persigue caracterizar el proceso de diasporización de la comunidad saharaui en Canarias; y cómo su carácter político ha condicionado el despliegue de prácticas
diaspóricas específicas de movilización y contestación.
La importancia de las diásporas en la política mundial se ha ido acrecentando durante las últimas décadas, sin desmerecer la atención de la que previamente han sido objeto a lo largo de la historia contemporánea. Diferentes autores ponen de manifiesto que ese creciente rol y relevancia de las diásporas en los asuntos mundiales no se ha visto acompañado, de manera equivalente, por el desarrollo de una teoría afín en la disciplina de las Relaciones Internacionales. El objetivo del presente artículo es recoger las principales perspectivas que explican la aparición, desarrollo y evolución de las diásporas, con especial énfasis en la construcción de las diásporas políticas. Sin pretensión de exhaustividad, se realiza un breve recuento de aquellas aproximaciones teóricas que permiten una mayor comprensión de las diásporas en general y de las diásporas políticas en particular. Se parte de una óptica constructivista, en desafío de las aproximaciones esencialistas, con el propósito de contribuir a un marco teórico desde el que explicar las diásporas políticas, propiciando una revisión bibliográfica sobre las mismas en el campo de las Relaciones Internacionales. Para ello, se da cuenta del origen del concepto de diáspora, su evolución, las aproximaciones clásicas (citando a aquellos autores más relevantes que partían de una perspectiva más estructuralista); y las perspectivas más recientes e innovadoras con una óptica más compleja y heterogénea de las mismas (de mayor diversidad interna y con un mayor número de espacios relacionales). De este modo, se parte de una concepción de las diásporas como construcciones sociales y políticas que, más allá de contener unos rasgos definitorios básicos, son comunidades transnacionales que surgen tras específicos procesos de movilización. Es en este marco concreto de las diásporas políticas en el que se establece su relación con los conflictos, la globalización y las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación (TIC); para acabar describiendo su construcción y evolución en un marco global donde el dinamismo sociopolítico de las diásporas está relacionado de manera compleja con el grado de integración o exclusión de sus miembros en sus sociedades de acogida, así como con la situación (de conflicto o no) de sus estados originarios, apuntando a una mayor longevidad de aquellas diásporas definidas como víctimas o cuya emergencia radica en su expulsión o salida forzada del país natal o de origen.
Black feminist anthropology has been and continues to be rooted in intellectual engagements with transnational Blackness, transnational feminism, queer politics, global anti-Blackness, anti-imperialism, and anticapitalism. Black feminist anthropology is a global endeavor that applies theory and lived experience to restructure ethnography and praxis that is engaged in an intersectional analysis of various oppressions and strategies for resistance, survival, and freedom. This chapter builds on those studies that identify the importance of including transnational Black feminism in the anthropological canon and supporting scholars who center Black women’s experiences throughout the diaspora. The aim is to encourage the use of a transnational Black feminist analytic to transform anthropological approaches to the study of Africa and its diaspora; constructions of labor, production, and reproduction; racialized identity formation; the performance of those identities across gender and sexuality; and narratives of oppression, resistance, and survival. The author centers transnational Black feminist frameworks that see the formation of diaspora as a site for solidarity that coalesce as a result of, around, and between women-led and gender-based political movements. For Black feminist anthropologists it names what was already possible, while providing an intentional epistemic framework and methodology for collaboration with Black feminists throughout Africa and its diaspora.
Dijital teknolojilerin gündelik hayattaki kullanım sıklığının artması beraberinde birçok geleneksel toplumsal olgu ve kurumun değişmesine yol açmıştır. Çeşitli sebeplerden dolayı ana vatanlarını terk etmek zorunda kalan toplulukları ifade etmek için diaspora kavramı da bu süreçte önemli değişikliklere uğramıştır. Günümüz dijital teknolojileriyle birlikte diaspora toplulukları birbiriyle etkileşime geçmek, kimlik deneyimlerini genişletmek, kendilerini ifade etmek için dijital alanlara yayılmış durumdadır. Bu çalışmada, önemli bir inceleme alanı olan dijital diasporaya ilişkin yapılan akademik çalışmalar bibliyometrik yöntem kullanılarak incelenmiştir. Çalışmada Web of Science veri tabanından elde edilen 62 araştırma makalesi VOSviewer yazılım programında görselleştirilmiş ve çalışmaların bibliyometrik verilerine ilişkin bilgiler haritalandırılmıştır. Çalışma sonucunda dijital diaspora konulu çalışmaların 2000’li yılların başından itibaren araştırılmaya başlandığı ancak bu konudaki çalışmaların 2020-2022 yılları arasında arttığı belirlenmiştir. En fazla çalışma yayımlayan ülkelerin başında Amerika Birleşik Devletleri gelirken, dijital diaspora çalışmalarının “iletişim” alanında (11) yoğunlaştığı belirlenmiştir. Çalışma sonucunda ayrıca dijital diaspora konulu araştırmaların, kimlik, kültür, asimilasyon ve dijital bölünme gibi kavramlarla ilişkisi çok az incelendiği gibi Twitter ve YouTube gibi ağlar üzerine yapılan çalışmaların da eksik kaldığı belirlenmiştir.
Between 31 October and 1 November 2020, thousands of Armenian Americans gathered in Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles to call attention to and draw support for Armenia in its conflict with Azerbaijan over the disputed border region of Nagorno‐Karabakh. Southern California is home to the largest Armenian population in the United States, with a neighborhood in East Hollywood which was designated Little Armenia in 2000. The protesters waved the Armenian flag and carried signs that said “End the Cycle of Genocide,” “Artsakh Is Armenia,” and “Defend Armenia.” In the same city, during the annual celebration of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Uyghurs joined Hong Kongers in a demonstration in front of the Chinese consulate in Koreatown. With yellow umbrellas that have become the symbol of Hong Kong resistance, they played “Do You Hear the People Sing” from the musical Les Miserables . Uyghur and Hong Kong communities overseas have united in campaigns, such as the boycott of the movie Mulan , and constructed a collective identity based on defiance toward Beijing. And in December of the same year, the Romanian diaspora played a central role in the election of the right‐wing political party Alianța pentru Unirea Românilor (Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR)) to the legislature. AUR's message of unifying all Romanians “wherever they are” resonated with emigrants, who felt disenfranchised in their countries of settlement and demanded protection from the homeland state and representation in its affairs. The demonstrations of Armenians, Hong Kongers, and Uyghurs in California, as well as the participation of Romanians abroad in the elections, are all instances of diaspora mobilization.
This article offers new insights into nostalgia and nationalism in the Syrian/Lebanese diaspora through the literary, artistic, and philanthropic work of Eveline Bustros (1878–1971). It relies on her underexplored published works as well as a rare collection of Bustros’ personal correspondence, journals, photographs, and speeches compiled by her family. After World War I, the French partitioned Bilad al-Sham into multiple polities and inaugurated a new citizenship regime dividing erstwhile Ottoman Syrians into categories of “Syrian” and “Lebanese.” In the midst of these geopolitical changes, Bustros and her family lived in Paris, where she began her celebrated literary career. Although she was a committed Lebanese nationalist, Bustros articulated hybrid notions of identity that elided distinctions between “Syrians” and “Lebanese.” Confronted with reports of sectarian violence during the Syrian Revolt (1925–1927), Bustros used her writings to grapple with the feasibility of peaceful coexistence in the Levant. Upon returning to Lebanon, she became a leading member in Lebanon’s early feminist movement while maintaining deep, affective connections to the Syrian interior. Bustros’ life and work complicate understandings of diasporic nationalism and nostalgia by highlighting fluid identities shaped by multidirectional bourgeois mobility, inviting scholars to consider nationalisms beyond the confines of the nation-state.
The goal of this research is to provide a diaspora-centered analysis of Black identity politics by illustrating how African populations navigate their diasporic identities and imposed racial boundaries when engaging with social movements like #BlackLivesMatter. Extending scholarship on Black immigration and Black politics, the present study highlights the processes by which racial histories, U.S. racial hierarchies, and gender hegemony guide African immigrants’ and children of African immigrants’ individual conceptions of Blackness as well as their political engagements. Using a qualitative design (N = 28 semi-structured interviews), I examine first-, 1.5-, and second-generation Africans’ connections to #BlackLivesMatter, a racial justice social movement mobilized in response to the police killings of African American men and women. Findings illustrate that while all participants express an implicit connection to #BlackLivesMatter by drawing attention to the visual aspects of their superordinate Black racial identity, there are certain sources of diasporic fragmentation that lead to racial distancing, intraracial group contention, and subsequent disconnections from the movement. Deconstructing the notion of Black political behavior as homogeneous, findings also suggest that political solidarity does not require uniformity in interests: when engaging in collective action, it is possible to express racial linked fate while also expressing substantial differences in culture and knowledge systems.
By granting the right to vote in general elections in 2014 for the Turkish diaspora, diaspora policies of political parties in Turkey have gained crucial importance, especially considering the rate of abroad votes form five percent of the total votes. In this study, I will try to answer the question of how the granting of the right to vote affected the main parties’ (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP and Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi - CHP ) diaspora policies. First of all, I start by introducing the Turkish diaspora. Followingly this, I will mention the history of the Turkish diaspora’s right of external vote. Thirdly, I will analyze the parties' election manifestos which they publish their manifestos before the elections in the general elections of 2011, 2015, and 2018. The reason behind selecting these specific elections is to reveal the alteration of these two main parties' diaspora policies since these elections are the last election before the granting of the external vote and the first two general elections afterward. Within the scope of this literature review and document analysis, the issue is analyzed in two perspectives within the framework of the concepts of external voting, election district, foreign policy, diaspora institution, culture and integration, political participation, and education.
İnsan davranışının nedeni olarak kabul edilen motivasyon, turizm davranışının arkasında yatan, insanı harekete geçiren güçlere sahip en önemli değişkenlerden birisi olmuştur. Turistlerin seyahat davranışlarını etkileyen motivasyonlar hakkında yeterli bilgiye sahip olmak önem kazanmaya başladıkça, tüm turizm türleri için ayrı ayrı motivasyon konulu çalışmaların sayısı artmıştır. Böylelikle, kültüre dayalı turizm türleri de motivasyon konulu çalışmalara konu olmuştur. Bu araştırmayla, kültüre dayalı turizm türlerinin (diaspora, etnik, inanç, kültürel miras, hüzün, gastronomi, şehir ve festival) motivasyon faktörlerinin kategorize edilmesi amaçlanmıştır. Kültüre dayalı turizm türlerinin 497 adet motivasyon faktörü olduğu ve bunların 39 tema altında birleştiği tespit edilmiştir. Sonrasında, tümevarım şeklinde ilerleyen içerik analizinin ikinci kısmında, 39 tema birer kod olarak kabul edilip birden fazla kültüre dayalı turizm türünün motivasyon faktörü olan kodlar aynı başlık altına toplanıp kategorize edildiğinde, 13 tema ortaya çıkmıştır. Sosyalleşme, rutinden kaçış, yenilik ve psikolojik rahatlama gibi birçok turizm türünün ortak motivasyon faktörü olan bu dört ziyaret sebebinin, kültüre dayalı turizm türlerinin de birçoğunun ortak motivasyon faktörlerinden olduğu görülmüştür.
In Edmonton, the capital city of the province of Alberta, Canada, music, sound, and devotion have gained extraordinary popularity and proliferation among the South Asian Hindu diaspora. From festival celebrations to community gatherings or congregations in temples, this phenomenon of Hindu religio-cultural practice has been an important magnet to attract a vast number of the Hindu diaspora. Spending hours together, members of the South Asian Hindu diaspora engage in devotional musical soundscapes; immerse themselves in those soundscapes through clapping, singing, and bodily movements; and deeply engage in devotional activities. Based on the ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2017 and 2022, including three case studies, this article discusses how these homeland echoes – recreating and resembling homeland music, sound, and devotional practices – play a powerful role in maintaining homeland ties and function as a constitutive element of collective identity of South Asian-ness for the South Asian Hindu diaspora in the Canadian society.
People of African descent use direct‐to‐consumer genomics services such as 23andMe and AncestryDNA for various family histories and health reasons, including identifying and interacting with the previously unknown living African genetic relatives. In this commentary, I argue that it is reasonable to consider that cousin pairs consisting of an African person and a descendant of an African person enslaved in the Americans during the Transatlantic Slave Trade (i.e., a person of African descent) have genealogical ancestors recent enough to be detected using autosomal DNA testing where the pair has shared ancestors in the range of 20–6 generations ago from the present.
Roger Rouse is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is currently a visiting research fellow at the University of California, Davis, Center for Comparative Research, where he is completing a book on the topic of his 1989 Stanford dissertation, "Mexican Migration to the USA: Family Relations in the Development of a Transnational Migrant Circuit."
The first version of this paper was written in early 1988 while I was a visiting research fellow at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego. It draws on fieldwork carried out between 1982 and 1984 under a doctoral fellowship from the Inter-American Foundation. I am grateful to both organizations for their support. Many of the ideas contained in the paper were developed in a study group on postmodernism organized with colleagues from the center. My principal thanks—for comments, criticisms, and immensely pleasant company—go to the group's members: Josefina Alcazar, Alberto Aziz, Roger Bartra, Luin Goldring, Lidia Pico, Claudia Schatán, and Francisco Valdés. I have also benefited from Khachig Tölölyan's sensitive reading of the text.
1. See Lockwood and Leinberger 35. The assertion of a false point of origin is apparently used so that the manufacturers can participate in foreign delivery contracts. See Soja 217.
2. "Hoy, ocho años de mi partida, cuando me preguntan por mi nacionalidad o identidad étnica, no puedo responder con una palabra, pues mi 'identidad' ya posee repertorios múltiples: soy mexicano pero tambien soy chicano y latinoamericano. En la frontera me dicen 'chilango' o 'mexiquillo;' en la capital 'pocho' o 'norteno' y en España 'sudaca.' . . . Mi compañera Emilia es angloitaliana pero habla español con acento argentine; y juntos caminamos entre los escombros de la torre de Babel de nuestra posmodernidad americana." Gómez-Peña (my translation).
3. See, for example, Clifford 22; and Rosaldo, Culture and Truth 217.
4. Jameson 83. Like Jameson, I find it useful to follow Ernest Mandel in arguing for the emergence since the Second World War of a new phase in monopoly capitalism, but I prefer to label this phase "transnational" rather than "late" partly to avoid the implication of imminent transcendence and, more positively, to emphasize the crucial role played by the constant movement of capital, labor, and information across national borders.
5. See Davis, "Urban Renaissance"; and Lipsitz, esp. 161.
6. It is important to stress that I am concerned not with the various meanings of this particular term but instead with the image itself. The term serves merely as a convenient marker.
7. See Williams 65-66.
8. Williams 65-66.
9. The combination of these images is readily apparent in the classic works on rural social organization by Robert Redfield and Eric Wolf (The Little Community and Peasant Society and Culture and "Types of Latin American Peasantry"), both of whom draw heavily on Mexican materials, and can also be seen in Immanuel Wallerstein's tendency (in The Capitalist World Economy) to use nation-states as the constituent units of his world system, at least in the core.
10. This approach has been used in two related but different kinds of study. In work focusing on migration itself—especially on migration within Mexico—changes have commonly been gauged by comparing the forms of organization found in the points of destination with arrangements revealed by detailed research in the specific communities from which the migrants have come. See, for example, Butterworth; Kemper; and Lewis. In work on communities known to contain a significant number of migrants and descendants of migrants—and especially in work on Mexican and Chicano communities in the United States—it has been more common to compare forms of organization found in these communities with arrangements discovered...
Martin Baumann has been Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Hannover since 1992. He is the author of Deutsche Buddhisten: Geschichte und Gemeinschaften (Marburg: Diagonal, 1993) and of the forthcoming Der Begriff der Diaspora als analytische Kategorie [The notion of diaspora as an analytical category] (Marburg: Diagonal, 1999); of many articles in English, including "Conceptualizing Diaspora: The Preservation of Religious Identity in Foreign Parts, Exemplified by Hindu Communities Outside India," (Temenos 31, 1995, 19-35); and of book chapters, such as "Sustaining 'Little Indias': The Hindu Diasporas in Europe," in Gerrie ter Haar, ed., Strangers and Sojourners: Religious Communities in the Diaspora (Leuven, Netherlands: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1998).
1. Apart from various contributions in the two books under review, I am especially thinking of Bishop's The Myth of Shangri-La and Dreams of Power; Dodin and Räther's Mythos Tibet; and Lopez's Prisoners of Shangri-La. These volumes do remind us that images of "Tibet" have not always been uncritical glorifications. At times, negative images of "degenerate Buddhism," "idolatry," and "tyrannical rule of priests" dominated.
2. Frankly, I am usually not a fan of postmodern and culture/critical studies talk with its sometimes lengthy enumerations of abstract nouns and adjectives and its bracketing constructions, such as (per)forming, (re)construction, etc. In the end, more often than not, the reader is left with no clear point at hand. Although such stylistic means may be applied with the intention of stimulating the reader's imagination, often these discourses turn out to be Leerformeln (empty statements) with little analytical or descriptive value.
3. I have taken this point from the review of Constructing Tibetan Culture by Huber ("Review"); see also Huber, "Shangri-La" 309-310.
4. Tibetan Buddhists make up some 20%-50% of all Buddhist groups, centers, and organizations in any given country (see Baumann, "Creating"; "Buddhism"). See also Williams and Queen. For recent developments in the US, see Prebish and Tanaka.
5. A soteriological reading interprets history within a theological context. It is assumed that despite God's wrath, which scattered a nation a long time ago, His grace will collect the dispersed at the end of time.
6. Apart from Arowele, see, among many, the interpretation of New Testament passages by Schnackenburg and Krüger. Pertaining to post-Reformation reuse of the term, see the overview provided by Schellenberg and the detailed study by Röhrig. An instructive example of developments and changes of a confessional diaspora minority (Catholics in Protestant Zurich, Switzerland) is provided by Altermatt. The term "diaspora" was naturally and unpretentiously used by members of minorities as a description of their situation, as well as, at times, as an "excuse" for shortcomings or changes.
7. Examples for historic descriptive accounts of Jewish settlements are Patai and Sachar. For the Christian side, see, for example, the numerous articles in the Protestant yearbook Die evangelische Diaspora. This qualification also applies to Ages's The Diaspora Dimension, which, despite the fact that its first chapter is titled "The Theory of Diaspora," remains confined to the study of Judaism. The only—quite early (1931) and analytically worthwhile—exemption, to which Tölölyan has pointed ("Rethinking" 9), is the entry on "Diaspora" in the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, written by Simon Dubnow.
8. Since the 1980s, a wide range of monographs with "diaspora" as a title component have appeared. See, among others, Azevedo; Harris, Global; Henderson and Reeds; R. Segal. The online bibliography "Diasporas and Transnational Communities," edited by Robin Cohen in collaboration with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Oxford, lists some 200 titles in the category "Africans (including Blacks)"; see www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk/wwwroot/bibliogr.htm. In his recent quantitative analysis of the use of "diaspora" in...
The problem of diasporas: the Jewish diaspora the Armenian diaspora the gypsy diaspora the black diaspora: the Chinese diaspora the Indian diaspora the Irish diaspora the Greek diaspora the Lebanese diaspora the Palestinian diaspora the Vietnamese and Korean diasporas.
This book offers an overview of the Sikh diaspora, exploring the relationship between home and host states and between migrant and indigenous communities. The book considers the implications of history and politics of the Sikh diaspora for nationality, citizenship and sovereignity.; The text should serve as a supplementary text for undergraduates and postgraduates on courses in race, ethnicity and international migration within sociology, politics, international relations, Asian history, and human geography. In particular, it should serve as a core text for Sikh/Punjab courses within Asian studies.
Khachig Tölölyan is Professor of English at Wesleyan University, co-editor of Pynchon Notes, and Editor of Diaspora. He is the author of a book in his native Armenian on the Armenian Diaspora, Spurki Mech ["In the Diaspora"] (Paris: Haratch P, 1980) and of various articles on diasporas and nationalism.
1. I am grateful to Professor Ellen Rooney of Brown University for reading two drafts of this paper, and to Professors Ina Baghdiantz-McCabe of Tufts University and Ara Sanjian of Haigazian College in Beirut, Lebanon, for information.
2. These three are not equivalent, and a different article would discriminate between them in terms of size, agenda, field of action, the kinds of demands they make on members, and the rewards they provide. Since, in this article, the "institutional saturation" of the Armenian diaspora is at issue, I will usually let "institution" stand for "organization" and "association."
3. The distinction between "ethnic" and "diasporic" is an important one that is frequently neglected in contemporary scholarship, as other related distinctions (between these two terms and exile, expatriation, minority, migrancy) are also overlooked. I have discussed the terminological and definitional problems elsewhere (Tölölyan, "Rethinking," particularly 16-9). In the excessively loose sense in which "diaspora" has come to mean "all people who are dispersed for whatever reason and live away from the homeland of their ancestors," ethnic groups are a subgroup of diasporas so conceived. But in a sociologically exact sense, a given community (Cuban-Americans or Armenian-Americans, say) consists of fractions: there are the assimilated, who are counted only for the purposes of inflating the figures of the community, for consolation; there are the ethnics, who retain some demonstrable, persistent, and symbolic connections with one or more communal institutions and identities; and there are the diasporic members, strictly defined, who evince consequential efforts to sustain organized, and perhaps institutionalized, connections with other diasporic communities and with the homeland, when possible.
4. "Transnation" is not a synonym for "diaspora." The former includes all diasporic communities and the homeland; the nation-state remains important, but the permanence of dispersion is fully acknowledged and the institutions of connectedness, of which the state is one, become paramount. Thus the populations of the diaspora, of the Republic of Armenia, and of the Republic of (Nagorno- or Nagorny-) Karabagh, whose very name and status remain disputed as this Armenian-inhabited enclave of Azerbaijan struggles to secede, are together considered the Armenian transnation. Averill uses the term in a comparable way for the Haitian people and culture in homeland and diaspora.
5. There are virtually no published studies in English of intracommunal Armenian violence in the Armenian diaspora; Schahgaldian and Kalpakian are partial exceptions. Armenian terrorism directed at Turkish officials and originating in diaspora has been a complex phenomenon involving culture and politics, and it has been studied in detail (Tölölyan, "Martyrdom"; "Cultural Narrative"; "Nation-State"; "Terrorism").
6. I wrote the first draft of this article before I had read Pnina Werbner's "Diasporic Political Imaginaries," in which she uses the term "diasporic public sphere" in reference to British Pakistani Muslims. She defines it as "a space in which different transnational imaginaries are interpreted and argued over, where aesthetic and moral fables of diaspora are formulated, and political mobilization generated" (11). This exactly applies to some of what goes on in the long-standing and strongly institutionalized Armenian diasporic public sphere. For more detail, see "Exile Governments in the Armenian Polity," in which I distinguish between the traditional government-in-exile and the diasporic Armenian government-of-exile, in which institutional practices and discourses construct a deeply divided yet functioning public sphere.
7. The 800,000 Armenians of the United States support one daily newspaper in Armenian and eleven weeklies, six in Armenian and five in English; two major periodicals, both...
Takeyuki Tsuda received his doctorate in anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley and is currently Associate Director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California—San Diego. He is the author of eight published articles, including "When Identities Become Modern: Japanese Immigrants in Brazil and the Global Contextualization of Identity" (Ethnic and Racal Studies, 2001); "Acting Brazilian in Japan" (Ethnology, 2000); "Transnational Migration and the Nationalization of Ethnic Identity among Japanese-Brazilian Return Migrants" (Ethos, 1999); and "The Permanence of 'Temporary' Migration: The 'Structural Embeddedness' of Japanese-Brazilian Migrant Workers in Japan" (Journal of Asian Studies, 1999).
1. This article is based on over twenty months of intensive fieldwork and participant observation in both Japan and Brazil. Nine months were spent in Brazil (1993-1994) among two separate Japanese-Brazilian communities in the cities of Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul) and Ribeirão Preto (São Paulo). During my subsequent one-year stay in Japan (1994-1995), I conducted fieldwork in the cities of Kawasaki (Kanagawa prefecture) and Oizumi/Ota (Gunma prefecture), where I worked in a large electrical appliance factory with Japanese-Brazilian and Japanese workers as a participant observer for four intensive months. Close to 100 in-depth interviews were conducted with Japanese-Brazilians and Japanese workers, residents, employers, and officials. See Tsuda, "Ethnicity") for a self-reflexive analysis of the methodological implications of my fieldwork experiences in Japan as an ethnically ambiguous anthropologist.
2. Excluding the approximately 650,000 Korean-Japanese who are still registered in Japan as "foreigners." Although most of them were born and raised in Japan, they are not granted Japanese citizenship and have not naturalized. The population of Chinese in Japan remains higher than that of the Brazilian nikkeijin. In 1994, there were 214,389 Chinese registered as foreigners in Japan. In addition, there were 39,552 illegal visa overstayers.
3. See Tsuda, "Motivation," for an analysis of the causes of Japanese-Brazilian return migration.
4. Of course, the Japanese-Brazilians have not always been regarded so highly. Before and during World War II, when Japan was a global imperialist menace, they were subject to considerable prejudice and ethnic repression in Brazilian society. See Tsuda, "When Identities," for a historical analysis of the Japanese in Brazil.
5. In 1989, a mere 14,528 Brazilians were registered as foreigners in Japan. Three years later, the population had exploded tenfold to 147,803, and their numbers have continued to expand steadily since then, despite Japan's prolonged economic recession.
6. Under the new immigration provisions, the nikkeijin are allowed to enter Japan on two types of visas, both of which can be renewed an indefinite number of times and have no activity restrictions.
7. Unless otherwise indicated, all English translations of interviews and published texts are my own.
8. See Tsuda, Strangers, for further analysis of Japanese-Brazilian ethnic experiences in Japan.
9. In a similar vein, Ong (738-9) observes that notions of cultural difference (instead of racial difference) are employed being increasingly in the ethno-political discourse of Western Europe to marginalize immigrant or minority groups.
10. See Tsuda, Strangers, for an analysis of how the Brazilian nikkeijin assert their Brazilianness in Japan.
11. Non-nikkeijin Brazilian spouses of Japanese-Brazilians are legally admitted to Japan on the same visas.
12. For a more extensive discussion of Japanese ethnic attitudes toward the Japanese-Brazilians, see Tsuda, Strangers.
13. Ethnic and national identity are considered synonymous in the Japanese case, since the nation is seen as composed of one ethnic group (see also De Vos and Suárez-Orozco 251; Ivy 3-4; Yoshino...
Four years after their “emancipation” in 1838, the former slaves of British Guiana protested against their conditions and their unfair treatment by the planters who sought to bind them to labor on the estates. When the planters introduced certain rules and regulations, which were intended to regulate the quality and quantity of work, and to reduce labor costs by lowering wages and abolishing customary allowances of free medical attention, housing, and provision grounds, the workers complained to the stipendiary magistrates and stopped work.
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