Concept: Diaspora

Definition: (noun) the dispersion of any people from their original homeland

Related Terms: creolization; hybridity; translocational positionality; intersectionality; memory; identity; digital diasporas

Description: If “refugee” and “displacement” carry connotations of suffering and exclusion, diaspora can suggest resourcefulness and resources, talent and entrepreneurship. A Greek word meaning “to sow over, or to scatter,” and originally used to refer to the Jewish diaspora spread out from its Biblical homeland in Palestine, the term extends to include any group maintaining its cultural identity outside its country of origin. African, Chinese, Latin American, and South Asian diasporas are large and are further sub-divided on the basis of national origin or region, language, religion, and other self-chosen markers. Smaller diasporas may include Polish, Russian, or Sri Lankan groups scattered globally. One interesting contradiction is that diasporas take on, over time, the characteristics of their specific milieus, especially second and third generations. For instance, early diasporic films by the British-Pakistani screenwriter Hanif Kureishi—My Beautiful Laundrette (1986), Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987), My Son the Fanatic (1999)—show the two worlds of his characters through generational conflict amidst the chaos of a changing London. 

Ties to the homeland is a strong driver of diasporic media and journalism, as the scholar Matthew Frye Jacobson demonstrates in his book, Special Sorrows (2002) in which early 20th century Irish, Polish and Jewish immigrants in the United States sought to influence homeland politics, a feature that has seen a remarkable revival in recent years. As internet culture has spread throughout the world, nations are reclaiming their own, and diasporas are finding it much easier to keep in touch with developments “back home.”

Uniquely positioned to look both ways, diasporas have become a thriving area of study since the 1990s.    

S.C. 2024

Further Readings:

Li, Melody Yunzi. Transpacific Cartographies: Narrating the Contemporary Chinese Diaspora in the United States. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2023.

The Routledge Diaspora Studies Reader, 2011.

Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 

Dudrah, Rajinder. Bollywood Travels: Culture, Diaspora, and Border Crossings in Popular Hindi Cinema. London: Routledge, 2012.

Landis, Winona. Ms Marvel, Qahera, and superheroism in the Muslim diaspora, Continuum 2019 33:2, 185-200.