diaspora

The term diaspora has a long and rather specific history, but it has come to be adopted by various groups
to describe their situation (and that of others); it has also come to be used widely in the popular media
to describe a range of population movements (Bernal 2006 ; Mavroudi 2007 ; McAuliffe 2007 ; Braziel
2008 ). The term is, of course, most associated with the dispersion of Jews to many places in the world in
the years both before and after the birth of Christ. In 586 bc , the Babylonians dispersed the Jews from
Judea and in ad 136 it was the Romans who chased the Jews out of Jerusalem (Armstrong 1996 ). In
recent years, however, the use of the term has broadened to include the dispersion, dislocation, and de -
territorialization of any population (Bauman 2000 : 314). Most frequently, a diaspora involves the large -
scale dispersal of a religious, ethnic, racial, or national group. In addition to the Jews, other groups that
have experienced diasporas include the Lebanese, Palestinians, Armenians, and the Irish. In fact, the
term has come to be used so widely and loosely that many complain that diaspora discourse has lost a
consensus on the meaning of the term (Lie 1995 ), its meaning has in fact become less clear, and it is in
danger of becoming little more than a “ buzzword ” (Cohen 1999 : 3). It seems clear that it is best to
differentiate among the various diasporas rather than to combine them all under one all - encompassing
heading.

Nevertheless, there have been a number of efforts to develop an ideal - typical diaspora by enumerating
its various characteristics. Safran, for example, discusses “expatriate minority communities ” that are
dispersed from some original central location to two or more peripheral locations; have a collective
memory or mythology of their homeland that is maintained by the community and that binds them
together; involve people who are alienated from the country from which they emanated and are not –
and may never be – fully accepted there; involve people who nevertheless idealize a return to their
ancestral homeland and maintain a commitment to restore their homeland to its former glories (e.g.
independence, prosperity); maintain a relationship to the homeland not only through a commitment to
its restoration, but also through group solidarity and consciousness resulting from this commitment. Of
course, since this is an ideal type, no single diaspora conforms to all of these dimensions, nor could any
of them (Clifford 1994 ).

In another approach, a diaspora can be seen as involving one, several, or all of the following (Vertovec
1999 ). First, it is a social form. That form is defined by the fact that relationships are maintained even
though the population has been dispersed. The population spans transnational borders; they constitute
transnational communities. They involve a group of people who collectively defi ne themselves as such
even though they may be widely dispersed, perhaps even globally. While they reside in a different locale,
they relate to the homeland from which they and/or their forebears came. Second, a diaspora involves a
type of consciousness. Those involved have great sensitivity to various interconnections, especially those
that span borders, and to attachments that are decentered. They are aware of being different from those
around them and of the fact that those they identify with exist in multiple locales, as well as in the
homeland. Third, diaspora is a mode of cultural production. The diaspora’s cultural objects, meanings,
and images are produced in, and involve, global flows. Thus, they are highly fluid and subject to many
mutual influences, negotiations, transformations, and contestations. Fourth, a diaspora is political.
Individuals and/or collectivities involved in diasporas often become important political players in both
their host country as well as internationally (prominent examples include Palestinians and Tibetans)
(Bruneau 1995 ).
However, the preceding are rather static approaches to diaspora that are inconsistent with the more
fluid orientation to globalization adopted in this book. A better approach, at least for our purposes, is to
be found in Paul Gilroy ’ s ( 1993 : 190) The Black Atlantic which, most generally, is concerned with “
flows, exchanges and in - between elements. ” Implied here is a sense of diaspora as process, specifically
a transnational process. It is not tied to any specific locale (especially nation - state) but involves a
constant dialogue with both real and imagined locales. Thus, the Black Atlantic (Black cultures in the
Atlantic basin) cannot be understood as West Indian, British, or American, but as an ongoing relationship
involving the Black Atlantic in its entirety. The Black Atlantic (and diasporas in general) is therefore an
imagined (and contested) community rather than a specific geographic space(s). Thus, Gilroy ( 1993 : 18)
concludes that the Black Atlantic should be seen as “ a reterritorialized, multiplex and anti - national
basis for the affinity or ‘ identity of passions ’ between diverse black populations. ” The use of the term
diaspora has expanded with the process of globalization. There are not only more diasporas, but more
people describe themselves and their relationships with others in these terms. This relates, in Dufoix’s
(2007 : 311 – 16) referent (e.g., a state, a land, a nation, a people, a language, a culture). ” In fact, the
use of the term has become so common that Dufoix ( 2007: 314) describes the “ diasporization ” of the
world. It shares with globalization “processes such as the shrinking of the world, a disembeddedness of
time and space, glocalization, instantaneous communication, the reshaping of geography, and the
spatialization of the social. ” While diasporas were relatively unusual in a world dominated by powerful
nation - states and territories, they have proliferated with the decline of the nation - state and
deterritorialization. Furthermore, the trans - state community networks that characterize diasporas
today are made possible by a wide range of technologies (e.g. inexpensive air travel, cheap international
phone calls and phone cards [Vertovec 2004], cell phones, the Internet, Skype) that make
communication among far-flung people possible. Thus, diasporization and globalization are closely linked
today, and since the latter will continue to develop and expand, we can expect more and more dispersals
that are, or at least are called, diasporas. New technologies are playing such an increasing role in
diasporas that it could be argued that we have seen the emergence of “ virtual diasporas ” (Laguerre
2002 ). These virtual worlds have been created through “ international calls, faxes, emails, satellite TV
broadcasting, simultaneous media access through the Internet ” (Grainger 2008 : 47). These technologies
have provided new ways for people to maintain links with one another and for communities to maintain
themselves and even to create new communities (Spoonley 2001 ). Of course, a virtual diaspora requires
the prior existence of a real diaspora, the real dispersal of a given population.