Diasporas

Historical Development of the Term

The word diaspora derives from Greek words speiro (“to sow”) and dia (“over”) and is related to the word diaspeirein: a scattering of seeds as from a bursting pod. From the Ancient Greek context, where it referred to the colonization and settlement of Asia Minor and the Mediterranean, the word found its way into the Greek translation of the Old Testament and, over the centuries, became almost inseparable from the mournful narrative of Jewish exile. Later, particularly through the 1960s and 1970s, the word was applied by extension to a handful of other victimized groups who, although forced to leave a homeland, have maintained real and symbolic ties to their homeland; these groups include Armenians, Africans, and Palestinians. Some recent scholarship insists that the term designates these specific groups rather than a more general concept.

However, the term underwent a revival during the last quarter of the 20th century, particularly in the 1980s and early 1990s, becoming an emblem of globalization and associated shifts in international migration. The term was applied much more broadly than it had been before, sparking off a prolonged definitional debate. At one extreme, some researchers began to use the term loosely to refer to any group residing outside its place of origin—and even to nonmigrant minorities such as homosexuals. Some scholars have argued that such indiscriminate usage renders the term indistinguishable from migration or minority and therefore analytically useless. As Roger Brubaker contends, if all people are in a diaspora, then no one is. Thus, at the other extreme, some traditionalists insist that the term should only be used to refer to “victim” groups dispersed through coercion, who maintain an antagonistic relationship with their host societies.

To mediate between the maximalist and minimalist definitions and to impose some kind of conceptual coherence on this flourishing literature, various scholars—notably William Safran and Robin Cohen—composed checklists of key diasporic features, which became useful analytical tools for deciding whether and in what sense particular groups “qualified” as diasporas. These definitional criteria helped focus debates around questions such as the following: Were diasporas necessarily forcibly dispersed from their homeland, and marginalized in their host countries, or could they also stem from voluntaristic migration and a sense of cosmopolitan connection to both places? What types of identity were involved—only ethnic and racial, or national and religious also? Could someone be part of a diaspora without realizing it? Did diasporas have to result from [Page 414]the movement of people, or could they also arise from the movement of borders? Was home a real or an imagined place?

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