Nation and diaspora: Rethinking multiculturalism in a transnational context

Abstract

Multiculturalism has redefined the nation as comprising a culturally pluralist population. However, the increased linkages between countries, produced by accelerated globlisation, have also engendered intricate transnational networks between diasporas residing in several states. The telephone, internet, satellite television and other media help construct a web of connections among these transnations enabling them to maintain and enhance their cultural identities. Diasporas have creatively engaged with transnational media and are participating in a globalisation-from-below. An increasingly cosmopolitan outlook has been fostered by the inter-continental links. But multiculturalism policies tend erroneously to continue viewing members of immigrant communities as having engaged in a oneway trajectory that breaks ties with their past. The current conceptualisation of multiculturalism as fixed within the context of the nation-state does not allow for a well-considered response to the transnational contexts in which immigrants live out their lives. Some migrant-producing states have begun to address these circumstances, but those of immigrant-receiving governments have generally been reluctant to acknowledge them.