Engl.

319: Notes
Term ‘Diaspora’

The term has no set definition, and its meaning has changed significantly over time,
which makes it very difficult to measure.

General definition:

Diasporas are formed by migrants or descendants of migrants, whose identity and

sense of belonging have been shaped by their migration experience and background.

While the term was originally used to describe the forced displacement of certain
peoples, "diasporas" is now generally used to describe those who identify with a
"homeland", but live outside of it.

Definitions of "diasporas" also include not only first-generation emigrants, but also

foreign-born children of these individuals, as long as they maintain some link to their
parent’s home country.

These links – whether historical, cultural, religious, linguistic or affective – are what
distinguish diaspora groups from other communities. 

Normally, diasporas are characterized by most, if not all, of the following features:

 Migration, which may be forced or voluntary, from a country of origin in

search of work, trade or to escape conflict or persecution.
 An idealized, collective memory and/or myth about the ancestral home.
 A continuing connection to a country of origin.
 A strong group consciousness sustained over time.
 A sense of kindship with diaspora members in other countries.

In all cases, the term diaspora carries a sense of displacement the population so

described finds itself for whatever reason separated from its national territory, and
usually its people have a hope, or at least a desire, to return to their homeland at
some point, if the "homeland" still exists in any meaningful sense.
Some writers have noted that diaspora may result in a loss of nostalgia for a single
home as people "re-root" in a series of meaningful displacements.
In this sense, individuals may have multiple homes throughout their diaspora,
with different reasons for maintaining some form of attachment to each.
Diasporic cultural development often assumes a different course from that of the
population in the original place of settlement.
Over time, remotely separated communities tend to vary in culture, traditions,
language and other factors.
The last vestiges of cultural affiliation in a diaspora is often found in community
resistance to language change and in maintenance of traditional religious
practice.
Scholarly work and expanding definition
William Safran in an article published in 1991, 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.
While Safran's definitions were influenced by the idea of the Jewish diaspora, he
recognised the expanding use of the term.
Rogers Brubaker (2005) also notes that 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".

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