Multiple Homes and Parallel Civil Societies: Refugee Diasporas and Transnationalism

Abstract

Asylum and refugees have been key players in the making of and transnational communities. The human rights approach to and refugees which appeared to be the hall mark of western states during the cold war era has disappeared. This disappearance has been clearly marked particularly in the aftermath of 9/11. Asylum is now increasingly perceived through the lens of migration and security issues. A pervasive security oriented discourse advances the sacrifice of fundamental rights and freedoms not only for local populations but very systematically and effectively for refugees, and other migrants. Border controls, confinement and encampment of refugees, interdiction policies, destitution as a threat to seekers and deportation are all mechanisms by which North America and Fortress Europe, steadfastly attempt to prevent refugees and from reaching their shores. These special issues of Refuge, the current one and the following one, dealing with and transnationalism, are being published in this context. (1) Transnationalism as a phenomenon incorporates the economic, cultural and political practices of migrants, including refugees, who traverse several borders. The terms and transnational have simultaneously become metaphors and categories that include various communities of displaced people, circulating migrants and people in limbo. While theorizing has a longer history, the of the study of from history to area studies, cultural and literary studies and geography is relatively new. The conflation of studies in and transnationalism in the past decade has a symbolic representation in the title of a journal: Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies. While this conflation opens up new and challenging areas for research enquiry, it also creates some conceptual confusion and at times, uncritical interchangeability of and the transnational in a simplified manner. The proliferation of diasporic categories such as labour diaspora, asylum diaspora, victim diaspora, feminist diaspora, military diaspora and refugee diasporas underscores a crucial element in the nature of the diaspora: ambiguity. However, we need to be cautious in not eliminating the historical specificity of these diasporas. While there is certainly a convergence between and transnational communities, it is critically important to maintain a conceptual and analytical distinction between them. The term has historically been used to describe the experience of forced displacement and to analyze the social, cultural and political formations that result from this forced displacement. Transnational communities can be generally defined as communities living or belonging to more than one national space. The condition of forced migration is not necessarily a component of transnational communities. However, the distinction between and transnational is not always clear in social science literature. While some scholars have argued in favor of identifying a closed set of attributes and have been only minimally concerned with the actual conditions of diasporic existence, (2) others have preferred to use the term in the broader sense of human dispersal. (3) The traditional naming and meaning of can be expanded to include several communities that express new identities and cultural practices as the result of displacement, hybridity and transnationality and mediated through economic transnationalism in the context of globalization. While recognizing that can eventually evolve into powerful transnational communities, it is sufficient to say that multiple and simultaneous ways of belonging and multiple ways of incorporation in the home and host countries is the one key theme that is common for both. This is the most important theme that animates the dynamics of transnational groups in the contemporary age. …