![]() William Safran, one of the first authors to be published in the review Diaspora edited by Kachig Tololyan, suggests that in his view the term diaspora could be consider as a “metaphoric designation” and could apply to various populations (expatriates, political refugees…). ![]() Travel remittances) or symbolic contacts as in the sentence: “the next year at Jerusalem” at the end of the prayer for Pessah (Easter).ĨMore recently, Robin Cohen (1997a) in his book Global diasporas: an introduction continued to underline the lack of theorization in the publication about diasporas and suggest that the “Jewish archetypal” could be a base for reflection even if it couldn’t be a transposable model. In his point of view, three criteria could be proposed for a definition:ħ1. the maintenance and the development of a own collective identity in the “diasporised people ”Ģ. the existence of an internal organisation distinct from those existing in the country of origin or in the host country ģ. Significative contacts with the Homeland: real contacts (i.e. ![]() And, also, because during the second half of the XIXth Century some groups with many similarities with the Jewish diaspora appear in Europe, such as the Greek diaspora or the Chinese. Gabriel Sheffer, himself, in his book “ Modern Diasporas in International Politics” (published in 1986) wrote that it is a mistake to maintain the concept of diaspora only for the Jewish people because may others have existed before (such as Nabatheans, Phenicians or Assyrians). A need to theorisationĦThe first theory of diaspora appeared, according to Gabriel Sheffer, with the work of Amstrong in his paper: “Mobilized and proletarian diasporas” published in the American Political Sciences Review in 1976 (Dorai et al., 1998). To summarize this period, the question was: does there exist a “ disposition,” such a specific spatial and social organisation that characterizes and differentiates the migrant groups, described under this denomination of diaspora, from the other social and spatial “disposition,” produced by the other migrants groups and studied before. But, quickly, some authors as such Alain Medam (1993) or James Clifford (1994) expressed their disinterest in the concept because in more and more researches the concept was quoted just for to describe phenomena characterized only by the dispersion of a population originated from one nation-state in several “host countries.” And these authors called for more theorization.ĥThe key question for the Academics was to explore the notion of diaspora to find those specific elements that explained the need to refer to this notion rather than any other concepts of social sciences. ![]() So, it is only during the 80’s that the concept of diaspora has known a period of expansion. Chines to Canada, non-Whites to Australia”.ĤDuring the 70’s, when assimilation theory and other theories based on the same meaning of integration models demonstrated their fallibility, the notion of diaspora occurred progressively to describe migrants groups: migrants maintaining their ethnic tradition, a strong feeling of collectiveness (Bruneau, 1995 Dorai et al., 1998 Shuval, 2003). Groups that were thought unable to do this, weren’t admitted, eg. It was due to the fact, as Judith Shuval (2002) underlined, that “before the 1960’s, immigrant groups were generally expected to shed their ethnic identity and assimilate to local norms. Before the 80’s, there are only few quotations of this concept. In Hebrew, “the term initially referred to the setting of colonies of Jews outside Palestine after the Babylonian exile and has assumed a more general connotation of people settled away from their ancestral homelands” (Shuval, 2003).ģIn social sciences, the term diasporas is recent. Based on speiro (to sow) and the preposition dia (over), in the Ancient Greece, the word referred to migration and colonisation. This introductive paper is an attempt to clarify the development of a concept since the beginning of its life inside the Social Sciences during the 70’s.ĢThe term diaspora finds its roots in the Greek language and is based on a translation of the Hebrew word, Galut. Full or empty of meaning, we are speaking today of “Cultural Diasporas” (Cohen), of “Fear Diasporas” (Appaduraï), of “Virtual Diasporas,” etc. 1There are some words that are used at loosing theirs meanings.
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