Redefining “Diaspora”

Abstract

Current definitions of diaspora-definitions used by academy and policymakers alike-contribute to marginalization of immigrant, minority, and ethnic communities, in terms of both societal inclusion and inclusion in foreign policy process. They therefore serve to undermine stated goals of Canadian multicultural project and to skew foreign-policymaking as policymakers seek to protect it from special pleading of ethnic minorities.A new definition of diaspora is needed-one that takes into account current political environments and that encompasses all peoples who find themselves in diasporic situations. As borders have become more porous and increasing numbers of people have moved into diaspora, ways of understanding diasporic condition-including questions of who is diasporic and nature of diasporic populations' relationship to wider society-need to shift in order to take into account critical factors of globalization, new understandings of citizenship, changed international environment, and unique challenge of Canadian multicultural project.William Safran, Robin Cohen, and others have defined diaspora in ways that made sense for particular frameworks, and while they have been valuable, national and international politics have changed. Diaspora is an apt word, but its use and our understanding of it need to change to keep pace with kinds of conversations diasporic-receiving countries are having.THE CLASSIC DEFINITIONSWilliam Safraris 1991 definition of diasporic people suggests that they have been dispersed from specific 'centre' to two or more places; continue to hold collective memory, vision, or myth about original homeland; continue to believe that original homeland is their ideal, true home and dream of returning; believe that they should remain committed to maintenance or restoration of original homeland; sustain strong ethnocommunal bond based on that ongoing relationship with homeland; and maintain troubled relationship with wider society, believing that they can never be fully accepted and causing them to remain partly alienated and insulated from it.1Robin Coheris 1997 Global Diasporas distinguishes between victim, labour, imperial, and trade diasporas. He agrees with Safraris criteria, but suggests that, in addition to foregoing, may have been an expansion in search of trade or economic opportunities. Moreover, he argues, diasporic communities continue to hold a sense of empathy and solidarity with co-ethnic members in other countries of settlement and the possibility of distinctive creative, enriching life in host countries with tolerance for pluralism.2Michele Reis distinguishes between classical (Jewish and Armenian, among others), modern (slave and colonial), and contemporary diasporas. Contemporary diasporas, she argues, are product of postcolonial, globalized world, characterized by fragmentation and dislocation, ongoing transnational communication, and an implication that dispersal to overseas territories need not imply decisive break with homeland nor is uprooting of diasporic group considered permanent.3Jana Braziel Evans and Anita Mannur write that diaspora can be seen as naming of other.4 Paul Bramadat notes that, in both popular and scholarly writing, the word 'diaspora' is typically used to refer to nonChristian religious groups that have been in some sense dispersed throughout world, but which continue to maintain important and sustaining ties to foreign homeland.5In that same vein, David Carment and David Bercuson, in their recent edited The World in Canada, argue thatmembers of diaspora may include ethnic migrants, first, second, or even third-generation immigrants, as well as expatriates, students, guest workers, and refugees. The term reflects rise of truly transnational populations, people who can be thought of as almost literally living in two places, playing an active role in two communities simultaneously. …