How dual is transnational identity? A debate on dual positioning of diaspora organizations

Abstract

Within the social sciences, most studies of transnationalism take the approach that migrants experience a duality between place of origin and place of residence. In that kind of approach, transnationalism refers to a sense of in‐betweenness caused by this duality. The aim of this paper is to show how the activities of an Iranian diaspora organization in Southern California (NIPOC) may seem essentialist at first but can be considered transnational because they transcend the duality of the past/place of origin and the present/place of residence. Through an example of an Iranian festival that is the creation of diaspora, I intend to show how national identity is detached from its assumed link to the nation state or ‘the country of origin’ and placed within a newly created imaginary space of a nation within a nation.