Abstract: This article examines the ideological-political transformation of first-generation Kurdish political refugees from Iranian/Eastern Kurdistan (Rojhelat) with leftist political backgrounds, now residing in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and France. It explores how their ethno-national identity and leftist ideology, situated within the Kurdish diaspora, shape their political orientation in their host countries. The study is based on twenty-six in-depth interviews with current and former members of the offshoots of the Iranian Kurdistan Toilers’ Revolutionary Association ( Komalay Shoreshgeri Zahmatkeshani Kurdistani Eran, or Komala). Findings indicate that exposure to a European political-ideological atmosphere has shifted their stance from authoritarian to libertarian leftism, strengthening the role of Kurdish identity in their political attitude and orientation and fostering a balance between their ethnic and ideological affiliations. Beyond advocating for the Kurdish diaspora, their political engagement in Europe serves as a form of transnational lobbying to influence European countries’ politics regarding Kurdish rights in their country of origin.

This article reveals how Cherokees are reconnecting with rivers. The following analysis draws from Cherokee cosmo-epistemologies, posthumanism, and the methodological agility of ethnohistory, to argue that members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) are encouraging Cherokees at home in Southern Appalachia and in the diaspora to do as their ancestors did: be attentive to, and care for, a local uweyv (river), uweyvi (stream), immokalee (waterfall or tumbling water), or ama ganugogv (spring). By returning to the river —or “going to water” —Cherokees at home in the mountain South and those living in the diaspora can unite in recognizing that ama gvnida (water is life). Today, in an age of climate crisis, Cherokees are forming partnerships with non-Cherokee scientists to reclaim spiritual and scientific connections to the riverine ecosystems that their ancestors saw as central to cosmocentric understandings of the world. This reclamation is not without its cautionary tales, but in returning to the river Cherokees are working to help riparian spaces thrive so that Cherokees seven generations into the future will inherit healthy, life-giving waterways.

This article offers a sociological exploration of the experiences of LGBTQI Ukrainian migrants in queering the Ukrainian diaspora following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Employing Vertovec's (1997) conceptualization of diaspora as both a social form and a type of consciousness, a study was conducted involving twelve in-depth, semi-structured interviews with LGBTQI Ukrainian migrants to examine their engagements with Ukrainian diasporic communities and spaces, as well as their embodiment of diasporic consciousness. Next, the study analyzed how their LGBTQI identities influenced these engagements and whether their experiences can be considered a successful queering of the diaspora. The findings revealed that participants frequently encountered challenges in queering the diaspora as a social form, referring to the creation of queer spaces within, or outside of, the established ethno-cultural diasporic communities, due to the invisibility and underrepresentation of LGBTQI identities within these spaces. However, participants exhibited a distinctly queer diasporic consciousness, characterized by a positive identification with their homeland that was shaped by both their ethno-cultural and sexual/gender identities. In this regard, this article enhances academic understanding of the experiences of LGBTQI Ukrainians, a largely understudied group, and highlights a greater diversity in how LGBTQI migrants may engage with, and queer, diasporas. It argues that diasporas may be queered not only through the creation of physical queer spaces but also through the integration of intersectional identities that shape mental states of belonging.

This article engages with the history of the so-called Danube Swabians from the eighteenth century up to the present as a history of multiple diasporic possibilities. Showing how the Danube Swabian case complicates fixed understandings of homeland and host-state, the article also makes the case that the history of Germans abroad—especially of Germans in the Southeast of Europe—should be released from the tight analytical straitjacket of the German nation-state and/or of the host-states in the Southeast of Europe. A closer look at the migration processes underlying and informing Danube Swabian identifications reveals that the homeland has only at times been imagined as the German nation-state and that several other regional entities and nation-states have been considered potential homelands and points of reference. Moreover, the ‘return’ to the Federal Republic of Germany did not unmake the diaspora. Hence, this article invites a reassessment of the frames of reference typically used for engaging with Germans abroad in the past and in the present. It indicates that diasporic analyses should think of key characteristics of the diasporic condition, such as orientation to the homeland and representations of dispersion, as elastic and in flux.

In November 2021, Glen Youngkin, a Republican candidate, won the election for governor of Virginia. For many Virginians, his win was a surprise, especially since President Donald Trump had endorsed him. For Ethiopian communities, the election results were the outcome of months of lobbying and organizing due to their dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party leadership. This development highlights the direct consequences of US foreign policy on its domestic political environment, especially regarding issues ethnic communities care about and how they can influence democratic processes. In this line, this study investigates the relationships between host and homeland political rhetoric and the importance of understanding the political power of diaspora-based conflict communities. Using narrative inquiry, I analyzed the reasons behind the 2020 voting trends among Ethiopian communities in Virginia. For Ethiopian Americans, the ongoing war in the Tigray region, as well as the mainstream media and US government's framing of who is the victim and who is the perpetrator, demonstrates an unwillingness to engage with Ethiopian scholars and practitioners as well as a lack of historical and political understanding coming from the US government. In this polarized time, Americans cannot ignore the direct impact of foreign policy on domestic institutions and how immigrants contribute, through voting, to the election of public servants, including presidents and states representatives.