Diasporas and the nation-state: from victims to challengers

Abstract

The notion of ‘diaspora’, used first in the classical world, has acquired renewed importance in the late twentieth century. Once the term applied principally to Jews and less commonly to Greeks, Armenians and Africans. Now at least thirty ethnic groups declare that they are a diaspora, or are so deemed by others. Why these sudden proclamations? Frightened by the extent of international migration and their inability to construct a stable, pluralist, social order, many states have turned away from the idea of assimilating or integrating their ethnic minorities. For their part, minorities no longer desire to abandon their pasts. Many retain or have acquired dual citizenship, while the consequences of globalization have meant that ties with a homeland can be preserved or even reinvented. How have diasporas changed? What consequences arise for the nation-state?⋆