Diaspora Az
Erminia Mckissack
A diaspora (/daɪˈæspərə/ dy-ASP-ər-ə) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin.[2][3] The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently reside elsewhere.[4][5][6]
According to a 2019 United Nations report, the Indian diaspora is the world's largest diaspora, with a population of 17.5 million, followed by the Mexican diaspora, with a population of 11.8 million, and the Chinese diaspora, with a population of 10.7 million.[24]
There is confusion over the exact process of derivation from these Ancient Greek verbs to the concept of diaspora. Many cite Thucydides (5th century BC) as the first to use the word.[26][27][28] However, sociologist Stéphane Dufoix remarks "not only is the noun diaspora quite absent from the Greek original [Thucydides' Peloponnesian War, II, 27)], but the original does not include the verb diaspeírô either. The verb used is the verb speírô (seed) conjugated in the passive aorist."[29] The passage in Thucydides reads:
Dufoix further notes, "Of all the occurrences of diaspora in the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG), which draws upon almost the entire written corpus in the Greek language . . . none refer to colonisation."[31] Dufoix surmises that the confusion may stem from a comment by Jewish historian Simon Dubnow, who wrote an entry on diaspora for the influential Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences.[32] His entry, published in 1931, includes the following remark: "In a sense Magna Graecia constituted a Greek diaspora in the ancient Roman Empire."[33][a] "Magna Graecia" refers to ancient Greek colonies established along the Italian coast, which lost their independence following the Second Punic War and their integration into the Roman Empire.
When the Bible was translated into Greek, the word diaspora was applied in reference to the Kingdom of Samaria which was exiled from Israel by the Assyrians between 740 and 722 BC,[35] as well as Jews, Benjaminites, and Levites who were exiled from the Kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians in 587 BC, and Jews who were exiled from Roman Judea by the Roman Empire in 70 AD.[36] It subsequently came to be used in reference to the historical movements and settlement patterns of the Jews.[37] In English, capitalized, and without modifiers, the term can refer specifically to the Jewish diaspora.[38] The wider application of diaspora evolved from the Assyrian two-way mass deportation policy of conquered populations to deny future territorial claims on their part.[39]
However, the current entry on "diaspora" in the Oxford English Dictionary Online dates the first recorded use a century later to 1694, in a work on ordination by the Welsh theologian James Owen. Owen wanted to prove that there is no difference in the Bible between Presbyters and Bishops; he cited the example of the Jews in exile:
The term became more widely assimilated into English by the mid 1950s, with long-term expatriates in significant numbers from other particular countries or regions also being referred to as a diaspora.[43] An academic field, diaspora studies, has become established relating to this sense of the word.
William Safran in an article published in 1991,[44] set out six rules to distinguish diasporas from migrant communities. These included criteria that the group maintains a myth or collective memory of their homeland; they regard their ancestral homeland as their true home, to which they will eventually return; being committed to the restoration or maintenance of that homeland, and they relate "personally or vicariously" to the homeland to a point where it shapes their identity.[45][46][47] Safran's definitions were influenced by the idea of the Jewish diaspora.[48] Safran also included a criterion of having been forced into exile by political or economic factors, followed by a long period of settlement in the new host culture.[49] In 1997, Robin Cohen argued that a diasporic group could leave its homeland voluntarily, and assimilate deeply into host cultures.[50]
Rogers Brubaker (2005) more inclusively applied three basic definitional criteria: First, geographic dispersion (voluntary or forced) of a people; second, "the orientation to a real or imagined 'homeland' as an authoritative source of value, identity and loyalty"; and third, maintenance of a social boundary corresponding to the conservation of a distinctive diasporic identity which differs from the host culture.[51] Brubaker also noted that the use of the term diaspora has been widening. He suggests that one element of this expansion in use "involves the application of the term diaspora to an ever-broadening set of cases: essentially to any and every nameable population category that is to some extent dispersed in space".[52] Brubaker used the WorldCat database to show that 17 out of the 18 books on diaspora published between 1900 and 1910 were on the Jewish diaspora. The majority of works in the 1960s were also about the Jewish diaspora, but in 2002 only two out of 20 books sampled (out of a total of 253) were about the Jewish case, with a total of eight different diasporas covered.[53]
Most early discussions of the diaspora were firmly rooted in a conceptual 'homeland'; they were concerned with a paradigmatic case, or a small number of core cases. The paradigmatic case was, of course, the Jewish diaspora; some dictionary definitions of diaspora, until recently, did not simply illustrate but defined the word with reference to that case.
Some observers have labeled evacuation from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina the New Orleans diaspora, since a significant number of evacuees have not been able to return, yet maintain aspirations to do so.[55][56] Agnieszka Weinar (2010) notes the widening use of the term, arguing that recently, "a growing body of literature succeeded in reformulating the definition, framing diaspora as almost any population on the move and no longer referring to the specific context of their existence".[46] It has even been noted that as charismatic Christianity becomes increasingly globalized, many Christians conceive of themselves as a diaspora, and form a bond that mimics salient features of some ethnic diasporas.[57]
In contemporary times, scholars have classified the different kinds of diasporas based on their causes, such as colonialism, trade/labour migrations, or the social coherence which exists within the diaspora communities and their ties to the ancestral lands. Some diaspora communities maintain strong cultural and political ties to their homelands. Other qualities that may be typical of many diasporas are thoughts of return to the ancestral lands, maintaining any form of ties with the region of origin as well as relationships with other communities in the diaspora, and lack of full integration into the new host countries. Diasporas often maintain ties to the country of their historical affiliation and usually influence their current host country's policies towards their homeland. "Diaspora management" is a term that Harris Mylonas has "re-conceptualized to describe both the policies that states follow in order to build links with their diaspora abroad and the policies designed to help with the incorporation and integration of diasporic communities when they 'return' home".[60]
The diaspora of sub-Saharan Africans during the Atlantic slave trade is one of the most notorious modern diasporas. 10.7 million people from West Africa survived transportation to arrive in the Americas as slaves starting in the late 16th century CE and continuing into the 19th.[61] Outside of the Atlantic slave trade, however, African diasporic communities have existed for millennia. While some communities were slave-based, other groups emigrated for various reasons.
The largest Asian diaspora, and in the world, is the Indian diaspora. The overseas Indian community, estimated at over 17.5 million, is spread across many regions in the world, on every continent. It constitutes a diverse, heterogeneous and eclectic global community representing different regions, languages, cultures, and faiths (see Desi).[68] Similarly, the Romani, numbering roughly 12 million in Europe[69] trace their origins to the Indian subcontinent, and their presence in Europe is first attested to in the Middle Ages.[70][71]
The earliest known Asian diaspora of note is the Jewish diaspora. With roots in the Babylonian Captivity and later migration under Hellenism, the majority of the diaspora can be attributed to the Roman conquest, expulsion, and enslavement of the Jewish population of Judea,[72] whose descendants became the Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Mizrahim of today,[73][74] roughly numbering 15 million of which 8 million still live in the diaspora,[75] though the number was much higher before Zionist immigration to what is now Israel and the murder of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.
At least three waves of Nepalese diaspora can be identified. The earliest wave dates back to hundreds of years as early marriage and high birthrates propelled Hindu settlement eastward across Nepal, then into Sikkim and Bhutan. A backlash developed in the 1980s as Bhutan's political elites realized that Bhutanese Buddhists were at risk of becoming a minority in their own country. At least 60,000 ethnic Nepalese from Bhutan have been resettled in the United States.[77] A second wave was driven by British recruitment of mercenary soldiers beginning around 1815 and resettlement after retirement in the British Isles and Southeast Asia. The third wave began in the 1970s as land shortages intensified and the pool of educated labor greatly exceeded job openings in Nepal. Job-related emigration created Nepalese enclaves in India, the wealthier countries of the Middle East, Europe, and North America. Current estimates of the number of Nepalese living outside Nepal range well up into the millions.
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