Концепт «диаспора» в современном теоретическом дебате

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of the transformation of methodological discourse on the concept of diaspora in the framework of migration issues studies. The development of research in a certain area is always associated with methodological issues that give rise to different approaches, despite this, they require their own solutions. The study of the experience of conceptualizing the concept of diaspora seems necessary from the point of view of clarifying the instrumental capabilities and, consequently, the methodological productivity of this concept, which is necessary for the selection and consistent justification of research optics in the process of developing a strategy for studying various aspects of international migration and separately the diaspora as its significant component. The transformation of the theoretical debate is considered within the framework of its periodization proposed by R. Cohen. Based on the analysis of a number of Western concepts of diaspora, the main approaches to the interpretation of this concept are revealed: essentialist and relativistic. Representatives of the first approach (W. Safran, R. Cohen) position diaspora as a kind of the model, which has fixed features that determine its unchangeable essence. The most significant of them are forced nature of migration, the connection with the homeland and the desire to return there. Despite the fact that R. Cohen proposed an expanded somewhat liberalized set of features of diaspora, it continued to be considered from the point of view of the necessary presence of certain features of this community, which makes it possible to define it as a diaspora. This approach has been criticized. Its opponents were representatives of relativism and constructionism (Clifford, Gillroy and Hall). They identified the flexibility of diaspora, the diversity of its causes, a number of acquired features and aspects of existence, in addition to the connection with the motherland. The second approach considers a new type of diaspora – trans-diaspora – in the context of transnational migration. The diaspora began to be positioned procedurally in the new conditions of a globalizing world and transnational living space. Thus, two types of definitions of the concept of diaspora have been formed: reterritorialized and deterritorialized. The author of the article reveals the features of these approaches and their methodological productivity from the point of view of a research strategy.