DIASPORA ONLY

Diaspora

Introduction to Diaspora: The Phases of Diaspora Studies

  • Classical Use: Prototypical Diaspora

  • The Expanded Concept of Diaspora

  • Social Constructionist

  • Consolidated Concept of Diaspora


The Classical Diaspora (Prototypical Diaspora)

Diaspora as the scattering of peoples arising from a cataclysmic event that had traumatized a group as a whole, thereby creating the central historical experience of victimhood at the hands of a cruel oppressor. 

Key Features of the Prototypical Diaspora

  • Traumatic dispersal from an original homeland

  • The salience of homeland in the collective memory of the forcibly dispersed group

Some Examples of Prototypical Diaspora

  • The African Slave Trade

  • 1915-1916 Armenian Massacres

  • 1948 Palestinian Withdrawal from Israel


The Metaphoric Designation (The Expanded Use of the Concept)

Diaspora as inclusive of many other ethnic groups that experienced similar circumstances to the prototypical diaspora, due to difficulties surrounding their departure or limited acceptance in their settlements. 

Key Features of the Prototypical Diaspora

  • They, or their ancestors, have been dispersed from an original center to two or more foreign regions.

  • Members of a diaspora still retained a collective memory of their original homeland, including its location, history, and achievements,

  • They believe that they are not fully accepted in their host societies and so remain partly separate.

  • They idealized their ancestral home , and it is thought that when conditions are favorable, they or their descendants should return.

  • They believe that the members of the diaspora should be committed to the restoration of the original homeland.

  • They continued various ways of relating to their homeland and their ethnocommunal consciousness and solidarity are in an important way defined by the existence of such a relationship. 

Additional Features

  • They may be dispersed for colonial or voluntarist reasons , aside from trauma.

  • There are positive virtues of retaining a diasporic identity.

  • Diasporas may mobilize a collective identity, in solidarity with co ethnic members in other countries.

  • Diaspora can be used to describe transnational bonds of co-responsibility even where historically exclusive territorial claims are not strongly articulated or homelands are practically lost.

Differences from the Classic Conception

  • May have involved less cruelty or had less impact on the homeland.

  • May have involved smaller portion of the population

  • May be legally free to come home 


Social Constructionist (Decomposition of the Conventional Diaspora)

Social constructionists argue that identities have become deterritorialized and constructed and deconstructed in flexible and situational ways, and diaspora has to be radically reordered to reflect this complexity 

Criticisms of Social Constructionists Against the Conventional use of DIASPORA

  • Home is a “mythic place of diasporic imagination”

  • Ethnicity and religion is not the only source of solidarity

  • The traditional notion of diaspora privileged the nation state 

Main Issues Countering Social Constructionism

  • If everyone is diasporic, then no one is distinctively so.

  • The social constructionist diaspora scholars privileged participant (emic) views over the observer (etic) views.

  • The core building blocks (i.e., homeland and ethnic and religious community) of diaspora were deconstructed.


Consolidation (Adopting New Views)

Confirms the importance of home and homeland to the concept of diaspora, while recognizing the validity of deterritorialization of identities.

Key Core Elements of Diaspora

  • Dispersion

  • Homeland Orientation

  • Boundary Maintenance

Examples of Literature During the Consolidation Phase

Shifts in the Homeland Diaspora Nexus: The Case of Dezionization (Safran, 2005) 

Recognizes that life in the diaspora may be sufficiently attractive, emotionally, and physically secure that it may not prompt permanent re settlement in Israel. 

Mobilizing Diasporas (Sokefeld, 2016) Uses intersubjectivity or collective identity as a starting point for questioning how diasporas can emerge and be sustained.


Conclusion

  • The evolution of the term diaspora has shown that there are difficulties in determining which claims can rightly be called

  • Possible solutions include:

    • Distinguishing between emic and etic views

    • The consideration of the passage of time

    • The identification of salient features of diasporas

    • The creation of typologies