Diaspora
The term diaspora ([ diˈaspoʀa ]; ancient Greek διασπορά diasporá , dispersion, scatteredness') denotes the existence of religious , national , cultural or ethnic communities abroad after they have left their traditional homeland and are sometimes scattered over large parts of the world. In a figurative sense, which is often colloquial, it can also refer to the communities themselves living in this way or their settlement area.
Originally, and for many centuries, the term only referred to the exile of the Jewish people and their dispersal outside their historical homeland. Since early modern times he has also referred to local minorities of the Christian diaspora. In Greece, the term is used to designate the Greeks abroad who make up over half of the Greek population.
Since the 1990s, the term diaspora has been increasingly brought into semantic proximity to the concepts of transnationalism or transmigration .
Origin and meaning
The word comes from the translation of the Septuagint , the Greek translation of the Hebrew-Aramaic Bible ( Tanakh ): "The Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth" ( Deut. 28.64 EU ) It is used as a metaphor that describes the dissolution of the people or separation and distance from their homeland.
Jewish diaspora
Originally, diaspora denoted settlements of the Jews that were closed after the fall of the kingdom of Judah in 586 BC. First arose in Babylonian exile and spread from there and from Palestine in the following centuries . After the expulsion of the Jews from Palestine by Emperor Hadrian in 135 AD , a new situation arose: unlike other refugees who set out in search of a new place to live, the expelled Jews were characterized by their being sent to one for religious reasons Believed to return to their homeland in Palestine. This belief in the Promised Land was anchored both in writing in the Hebrew-Aramaic Bible ( Dtn 30.3 EU ) and in the main prayer of the Jews . The end of the diaspora was to be brought about by the arrival of the Messiah ( Isa 11.12 EU ; Isa 27.12f EU ). This unique situation, which had an identity-forming effect on the Jews, motivated some scholars to limit the meaning of the term diaspora to the Jewish exile life from the first Babylonian exile to the expulsion from Palestine in 135 AD. On the other hand, the life of the Jews in the period after their expulsion in 135 up to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 is said to be called Galut. This definition became influential in Judaic studies because it is the only one given in the Encyclopaedia Judaica .
Today, however, the term is often applied to different manifestations of life outside of home, even if this is not tied to a belief in a Messiah. Nevertheless, the Jewish diaspora with 8,074,300 people (as of January 1, 2016) is still a relatively large and significant diaspora despite its inflationary use.
Other religious and ethnic diaspores
The term has also been used to refer to local minorities of the Christian diaspora since the early modern period. While the term diaspora has a negative connotation in the historical context of religion, the term diaspora in the current theoretical discourse no longer necessarily has a primarily negative connotation. In any case, the diasporic situation - life as an ethnic or cultural community abroad - can be seen as a paradigm of the globalized world. The diaspora finds itself in the field of tension between cosmopolitan detachment and a nationalism that no longer defines itself purely territorially. Diasporic cultures and groups have become diverse and heterogeneous. Terms used in the context such as exile , immigrant , outcast, refugee , expatriate or minority and transnationality show the problems of creating a generally applicable definition of the term diaspora from today's perspective.
William Safran has established six rules for differentiating diaspores from migrant communities . They keep a myth alive or keep a collective memory of their homeland. They consider their ancestral home to be their true home to which they will eventually return. They are committed to restoring or maintaining this home. And they relate personally or on behalf of their homeland to the point where it shapes their identity.
In addition to material problems, the diaspora situation confronts people with the question of their cultural identity . They often emphasize and exaggerate the values of their country of origin. Voluntary or forced demarcation and exclusion on the one hand ( parallel society ), assimilation up to the loss of the native language or religion of the community on the other hand are the extremes between which diaspora populations seek their way. The experience gained over the centuries can be valuable for a world in which cultural diversity is becoming the norm. Overall, minorities , who for a long time nowhere can hope to become a majority, develop specific political concepts; also towards other minorities.
Robin Cohen distinguishes between different concepts of diaspora in his book on the concept of diaspora. First of all, the victim diaspora , for which he cites the Armenians , the Jews or the African slaves as examples . He also lists the diaspora of labor migration and population movements in imperial colonial empires, citing the Indians in the Commonwealth as an example . He speaks of the diaspora of trade and examines it using the example of the Chinese and Lebanese. He describes a cultural diaspora and discusses this using the example of the Caribbean diaspora. After all, he deals with those notions of diaspora which above all articulate a strong longing for a homeland or even cultivate a myth about this homeland. The last traces of their original cultural affiliation of people in a diaspora are therefore often the resistance of the exiled community to a change of language and the maintenance of traditional religious practice.
List of diaspores
Important diaspores include the following communities (in alphabetical order):
- The Afghan Diaspora , v. a. Refugees who flee and have fled due to the wars in Afghanistan since the 1980s, v. a. to the neighboring countries Iran , Pakistan and Tajikistan , but also to Europe (most of them to Germany and the United Kingdom ) and America (to Canada and the USA ).
- The African diaspora as the entirety of Africans and their cultures, which historically and a. dispersed by slavery .
- The Albanian diaspora comprises several million people who live outside their traditional homeland in Albania and Kosovo ( Kosovar Albanians ), Serbia ( Albanians in Serbia ), Montenegro and Greece ( Çamen and other long-established Albanians in Greece ). Because of economic and political migration, most of them now live in Italy ( Albanians in Italy and Arbëresh ), Greece ( Arvanites ), Germany ( Albanians in Germany ), Switzerland ( Albanians in Switzerland ), the USA ( Albanians in the United States ) , the United Kingdom ( Albanians in the United Kingdom ), Turkey ( Albanians in Turkey ), Austria ( Albanians in Austria ), Belgium , Argentina ( Albanians in Argentina ), Canada ( Albanians in Canada ), Croatia ( Albanians in Croatia ), Australia ( Albanians in Australia ) and Sweden ( Albanians in Sweden ).
- The Arab diaspora , e.g. B. in France , Israel , East Timor or Turkey .
- The Armenian Diaspora , arose from the expulsions to which the Armenians were repeatedly exposed throughout history. The survivors initially fled to several areas in the Middle East and later formed numerous other diaspora communities worldwide (especially in the USA ( mainly in California ) and France )
- The Azerbaijani diaspora of several million Azerbaijanis, most of whom live in Russia (one to two million) and the USA.
- The Bosnian diaspora , about two million people who v. a. fled during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, most of them in (Western and Northern) Europe, Australia and New Zealand .
- The British Diaspora : English , Scots and Welsh people who emigrated for various reasons, most of them to Australia, Spain and the USA.
- The Bulgarian diaspora , about three million Bulgarians, most of them in Turkey, Greece, the US, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany.
- The Chinese diaspora , over 50 million people worldwide, most of them in other countries in East Asia as well as in the USA and Canada, see also Chinese diaspora .
- The Christian diaspora of the Christian minorities, especially in East and Southeast Asia; also the denominational diaspora (e.g. Catholics in northern and eastern Germany (see Bonifatiuswerk ) and in northern Europe, Protestants in southern Europe).
- The Eritrean diaspora , about one million emigrants who v. a. fled during the War of Independence 1961–1991, most of them to neighboring Sudan , or to Europe ( Italy , Germany and Sweden ).
- The Greek Diaspora , the v. a. who has lived in Italy, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus since ancient times, and since modern times in the USA, Canada, Australia and Europe, especially in the United Kingdom and Germany.
- The Indian diaspora and most of the emigrants live in neighboring Nepal as well as in the USA, Malaysia, the UAE , Saudi Arabia , the United Kingdom, South Africa , Canada and Mauritius .
- The Iraqi diaspora , several million Iraqis who have fled the past and present war in their country, most of whom live in Syria , Jordan , the United Kingdom, Israel, Iran, Egypt , Germany and Sweden.
- The Iranian diaspora , many of whom fled during the 1979 revolution, most of them live in Turkey , the UAE, the USA, Bahrain, Canada, Israel , Germany and the UK.
- The Irish Diaspora , Irish refugees as a result of the Great Famine in Ireland and political and / or religious oppression (most of them today in the USA, Great Britain , Australia and Canada ), today's descendants approx. 80 million worldwide.
- The Islamic Diaspora as the Muslim minority in Europe and North America .
- The Italian diaspora of the approx. 27 million migrants of Italian origin worldwide who moved their country from a. left between 1870 and 1920 and then in the decades after World War II , mostly for economic reasons; several or at least about a million live in South America in Brazil , Argentina , Venezuela , Peru and Uruguay , in North America in the USA, and in Europe in France and Germany; just under a million are also based in Australia.
- The Jewish diaspora in the modern sense as those Jews who live outside the Jewish state of Israel , whereby diaspora in the narrower sense predominantly means voluntary exile and Galut or Galuth ( Hebrew , exile, diaspora, community of exile) means involuntary exile (see also link below). There are traditionally four Galujot (plural of Galut) distinguished: the Babylonian exile, the Persian exile, the Hellenistic exile and the Edomite exile, which in principle continues to this day (in the Roman Empire and its successor civilizations).
- The Colombian diaspora , about five million who have existed since the early 20th century BC. a. fled civil wars, most of them to the USA, neighboring Venezuela and Spain .
- The Korean diaspora of about seven million people, most of whom live in China, the United States, Japan, and Canada.
- The Kosovar diaspora of just under a million, most of them in Switzerland, Germany and the USA.
- The Croatian diaspora of around two and a half million Croats outside of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, most of them in the USA, Chile , Argentina , Germany, Austria and Australia.
- The Cuban Diaspora, emigrants who fled during the Cuban Revolution of 1959, most of them to the USA ( Miami , Florida ).
- The Kurds , who with 40 million people form the largest nationality worldwide without a state of their own (see Kurdistan ), most of whom (16 million) live on the territory of Turkey, several million each in Iran, Iraq and Syria. Outside the region, most of the Kurds are resident in Germany (at least half a million), France (around 150,000), Sweden and the United Kingdom.
- The Lebanese diaspora , approximately 15-16 million people, who v. a. live in Brazil, Argentina, USA and Australia.
- The North Macedonian Diaspora , about 600,000 people (a third of the total Macedonian population), most of them in Australia, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Serbia, the USA, Brazil, Canada, Argentina, as well as neighboring Greece.
- The Mexican diaspora , about 35 million people (about a quarter of all Mexicans), the vast majority of whom live in the United States.
- The Montenegrin diaspora , about 40% of all Montenegrins live outside the country, most of them in Turkey, the USA and Serbia.
- The Nigerian diaspora, about three million people, most of them in the US and the UK (at least half a million each).
- The Pakistani diaspora, about seven million people, most (more than a million each) in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the United Kingdom.
- The Polish diaspora of around 20 million migrants of Polish descent worldwide, around half of whom live in the USA, three to five million in Germany, 2 to 3 million each in the United Kingdom and Brazil, and one million each in Canada and France.
- The Portuguese diaspora , about seven million, of which five million are in Brazil, and a larger number each in the USA, Venezuela and in France, Canada, South Africa and Angola.
- The Puerto Rican diaspora , five million Puerto Ricans in the US, and smaller groups in Canada and Spain.
- The Roma diaspora , around 10 million, most of them in Turkey, Romania , the USA, Hungary , Bulgaria , Spain, France, Serbia and Greece.
- The Romanian diaspora , about seven million, including about one million in Italy , larger groups (at least half a million each) also in Spain, Germany and the USA.
- The Russian diaspora of around 4.4 million Russians in Europe (including around 1.2 million in Germany) and four million in America
- The Scottish Diaspora , at least 20 million worldwide, several million each in the USA and Canada, larger groups (at least half a million each) in England and Northern Ireland ( Ulster Scots ).
- The Serbian diaspora , two to three million worldwide, most of them in Germany, Austria and the USA, Australia, Canada, Sweden and Switzerland.
- The diaspora of the Sikhs outside the Punjab , i.e. H. India and Pakistan, about ten million, most of them in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia.
- The Somali diaspora , four to five million, most of whom live in neighboring Ethiopia , Kenya and Djibouti .
- The Southeast Asian diaspora of scattered refugees as a result of the numerous wars in Southeast Asia ( Second World War , Indochina War , Vietnam War )
- The Syrian diaspora , between eight and 15 million, most of them in Brazil, Turkey, Lebanon (over a million each), Jordan , Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Iraq , the US, Egypt, Kuwait, Germany and Greece.
- The Tamil diaspora , about three million Tamils outside India and Sri Lanka , most of whom live in Malaysia , the United Kingdom, the United States, South Africa, Canada, and Singapore .
- The Turkish diaspora of around seven million Turks living outside Turkey worldwide, most of them in Germany (around 1.6 million), larger groups also in France, the Netherlands, the USA, and Austria.
- The Chechen diaspora , around two million who fled because of the Chechen war in the 1990s, mostly to (other parts of) Russia , otherwise also to Turkey, Kazakhstan , France, Austria and Belgium .
- The Ukrainian diaspora , at least five million, most of them in Russia (just under two million), Canada (over a million) and the USA (just under a million).
- The Hungarian diaspora of around five million people of Hungarian descent living outside of today's Hungary (in Europe most of them in Romania and the USA (over a million each), larger groups also in other neighboring countries of Hungary, especially Slovakia , Serbia , and Ukraine and Austria, as well as Canada, Israel and Germany).
- The Venezuelan diaspora , emigrants who v. a. live in the US, Mexico, Brazil, and Italy.
- The Vietnamese diaspora , many who fled during and after the Vietnam War ; most of them live in the United States, neighboring Cambodia , France and Taiwan .
Modern diaspora
As the century of migration , the 20th century is characterized by countless refugee movements , which have their origins in war, nationalism, poverty and racism. In the first half of the 20th century, numerous refugees from Europe, Asia and North Africa saw their salvation in North America.
The refugee ethnic groups include a .:
- Afghans
- Albanians , large communities in Italy ( Arbëresh ), in Greece ( Çamen ), in Turkey and in many European countries and the USA
- Arameans (Christianity)
- Armenians
- Assyrians (present)
- Bosniaks , in the course of the Bosnian War .
- Bulgarians , 15th-18th centuries Century in the course of the Ottoman occupation of Bulgaria (flight to Bessarabia) and forced resettlement in the area of today's Turkey. Currently, around one million Bulgarians born in Bulgaria live permanently abroad.
- German , unless they were made after the 1944/49 expulsion from the eastern territories of the German Reich remained
- Hutu
- Iraqis , (approx. Four million) in the course of expulsions and persecution of opposition members, the first Gulf War (1980–1988), the second Gulf War (1991), the sanctions from 1991 to 2003, the Iraq war in 2003 and the current unsafe situation in Iraq
- Iranians , initially persecuted under the Shah, then reinforced by the Islamic Revolution
- Irish
- Yazidis
- Jews , see also: Holocaust
- Yugoslavs , one to two million people today live scattered around the world due to the political circumstances in the former Yugoslavia. There is evidence of around 375,000 Yugoslavs living in the USA today
- Cubans (about two million) who left their country for political and economic reasons after the revolution and settled mainly in the USA . See also: Cubans in exile
- Kurds who have fled Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria
- Lebanese , there are around three and a half million living in Lebanon and more than half a million outside
- Palestinians
- Poland , 10 million in the United States , 1 million in Great Britain, 2 million in Germany Poles, see Poland in Germany
- Roma and other ethnic minorities
- Serbs , about 6 million abroad in the course of the fragmentation of Yugoslavia and from Kosovo . Over a million Serbs live in German-speaking countries alone today.
- Tamils , in the wake of the civil war in Sri Lanka
- Tibetans
- Chechens
- Tutsi
- Overseas chinese
- various ethnic minorities from the Russian and former Soviet domains
Diaspora politics
Diaspora policy, also known as emigrant policies, aims in most cases on the one hand to strengthen the ties of the emigrants to their places of origin and countries and on the other hand to promote their integration in the host country. Diaspora policy should not be confused with emigration policy, which regulates the act of emigration itself. Diaspora policy starts later: With the rights, duties and participation opportunities of emigrated citizens who already live outside the national borders. The approaches to integrating the emigrated citizens in their countries of origin are referred to as "state-led transnationalism" (in English state-led transnationalism).
Reasons for diaspora politics
There are many reasons why countries of origin have an interest in lasting ties to their emigrants. They range from ensuring a steady flow of money transfers (remittances) to controlling the population living abroad to functionalizing the emigrants as a foreign policy lobby in the country of residence. The most important policy area is civil rights, followed by social policy measures that represent an expansion of welfare state functions beyond national borders.
Diaspora policy is also important for the host countries of the migrants, because some countries actively help their emigrated citizens to integrate into the local society. Such political approaches can lower the integration costs for emigrants - and offer a so far little-used potential for cooperation between countries of origin and destination.
Challenges for home and host countries
Diaspora politics nonetheless remains a challenge. The expansion of policies beyond national borders answers a concern of many emigrants, but it also leads to new demands - be it for more transparent and institutionalized participation in the country of origin or for more and better support in the host country. This remains difficult terrain for government policy. Beyond the national borders, closely coordinated political approaches are required for areas that fall within the jurisdiction of very different authorities in the country itself. At the same time, the resources for implementation abroad via the consular network and cooperation with migrant organizations and local representatives are generally much lower.
Latin America as a pioneer
The tolerance of dual citizenship has become more widespread in Latin America than in any other region of the world. With the exception of Cuba, all states allow their emigrated citizens to acquire a second citizenship without losing the first. While nationality and citizenship are often used synonymously in Europe, there is a legal distinction between the two categories in Latin America. While nationality denotes membership in a nation state, citizenship (in Spanish ciudadanía) is a sub-category of it, which relates to the status of formal participation in the political community.
Research on Latin America shows that the expansion of diaspora politics there is linked to an orientation towards civil rights and state services that can have a positive influence on integration in the host countries. It is also true for European host countries that among the diverse forms in which countries of origin maintain ties with their emigrants, there are opportunities for productive cooperation that can reduce the costs of migration and integration - for the benefit of all parties involved. Both countries of origin and receiving countries as well as migrants can benefit from this.
The expansion of state functions and political innovations in dealing with emigrants are a global trend that reflects a new interest in the countries of origin in their emigrated citizens. Latin America experiences the expansion of diaspora politics as strategies to revive a broken relationship with all those people who have left their countries for lack of prospects.
literature
- Gavriʾel Sheffer: Diaspora Politics. At Home Abroad . Cambridge University Press, New York 2003, ISBN 0-521-81137-6 .
- Ruth Mayer: Diaspora. A critical explanation of terms . Transcript, Bielefeld 2005, ISBN 3-89942-311-9 .
Web links
- Institute for Diaspora and Genocide Research at the Ruhr University Bochum
- Jona Lendering: Diaspora . In: Livius.org (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ entry diaspora in Duden.de , accessed on April 13 of 2019.
- ↑ Jenny Kuhlmann, Exil, Diaspora, Transmigration , Federal Center for Political Education , October 6, 2014. Accessed July 4, 2017.
- ^ Encyclopaedia Judaica , Second Edition, Volume 5: Coh-Doz , pp. 637–643.
- ↑ Sergio DellaPergola: World Jewish Population, 2016. In: Arnold Dashefsky, Ira M. Sheskin (Ed.): American Jewish Year Book 2016. Springer, 2017, pp. 274, 311-317. ISBN 978-3-319-46121-2 (e-book: doi: 10.1007 / 978-3-319-46122-9 ; limited preview in Google Books ).
- ↑ Ruth Mayer: Diaspora. A critical definition. transcript Bielefeld, 10/2005. ISBN 978-3-89942-311-2 . Limited preview ( Memento from February 14, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ William Safran: Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return. In: Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies. 1, 1991, pp. 83-99 ( doi: 10.1353 / dsp.1991.0004 ).
- ^ Robin Cohen: Global Diasporas: An Introduction . Routledge, 2008, ISBN 978-0-415-43550-5 .
- ↑ http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/2006/0251/tema02.php (Russian-Cyrillic text)
- ^ VG Makarov; VS Christoforov: «Passažiry‹ filosofskogo paroxoda ›. (Sud'by intelligencii, repressirovannoj letom-osen'ju 1922 g.) ». In: Voprosy filosofii No. 7 (600) 2003, pp. 113-137 [Russian: «The passengers of the ' Philosophership' . (The fate of the intelligentsia persecuted in the summer / autumn of 1922) »; contains a list with biographical information on all intellectuals exiled from Russia between 1922 and 1923].
- ↑ Serbs in Germany, Serbia-Montenegro.de Serbs in Germany and in German-speaking countries ( Memento from November 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b Pedroza, Luicy; Palop, Pau; Hoffmann, Bert: New Proximity: The Policy of the States of Latin America towards their Emigrants . Ed .: GIGA Focus Latin America. tape 3 . Hamburg July 2016, p. 13 ( giga-hamburg.de [PDF]).
- ↑ Pedroza, L., Palop, P. & Hoffmann, B .: Emigrant Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean . FLACSO-Chile, Santiago de Chile 2016, ISBN 978-956-205-257-3 , pp. 360 ( giga-hamburg.de [PDF]).