Concept Of Diaspora

Diaspora: The Complexity of a Term

Diaspora: Problematic of the concept

The phenomenon of migration and the formation of communities outside of their countries of origin is by no means a new one. It is possible to find proof of this social occurrence from as early as Classical Antiquity. Nonetheless, the last five centuries have been representative of a time of fragmentation and dispersion like no other in the history of humanity. The exploratory and colonization travels begin in Europe from the 15th century; these marked the beginning of a process of colonization that led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, either voluntarily or forcefully. The changes that the world suffered in the 20th century, especially those that

Their existence however, questions the paradigms that had served to define the concepts of belonging, nation, and identity (Van Hear, 1998). Migrations have given origin to the proliferation of communities in the diaspora and to the redefinition of their role and importance in the current world, in light of the political weight that the nation state had acquired as a legitimate unit of representation under the premise of one territory, one language, one culture, and one government (Tölöyan,

Its reception and diffusion make it a ‘trendy’ term, both within, and outside of academia. The term goes from its simplest and most circulated definition, the dispersion of peoples (used to designate the experience of Jews, Greeks, Armenians, etc.), to claiming a semantic space of ample spectrum, which brings the term closer to other concepts related to the displacement of people for diverse reasons, such as exile and migration. It also juxtaposes ‘diaspora’ with the problem of ethnic, religious, and national identities, and in doing so, with phenomena such as nationalism, and most recently the so called global transnational forces that challenge the borders imposed by the nation states. Reflection on the concept obligates to consider two basic aspects: the differentiation of the term ‘diaspora’ from those others with which it has been related, and the distinctive uses that it has been assigned by specialists in different