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Diaspora The term diaspora (in Greek, διασπορά – "a scattering [of seeds]") refers to the move- ment of any population sharing common eth- nic identity who were either forced to leave or voluntarily left their settled territory, and became residents in areas often far remote from the former. It is converse to the nomad- ic culture, and more appropriately linked with the creation of a group of refugees. However, while refugees may or may not ulti- mately settle in a new geographic location, the term diaspora refers to a permanently- displaced and relocated collective. Diasporic cultural development often as- sumes a different course from that of the population in the original place of settlement. It tends to vary in culture, traditions and oth- er factors between remotely separated com- munities. The last vestige of cultural affili- ation in a diaspora is often found in com- munity resistance to language change and in maintenance of religious practice. Origins and development The first mention of a diaspora created as a result of exile is found in Deuteronomy 28:25 "thou shalt be a dispersion in all kingdoms of the earth". Its use began to develop from this original sense when the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek[1]; the word diaspora then was used to refer to the population of Jews exiled from Israel in 607 BCE by the Babylonians, and from Judea in 70 CE by the Roman Empire.[2] It subsequently came to be used to refer interchangeably, but exclus- ively, to the historical movements of the dis- persed ethnic population of Israel, the cultur- al development of that population, or the population itself.[3] To date, when capitalized and without modifiers (that is, simply the Di- aspora), the term generally refers specifically to the Jewish diaspora. The wider application of diaspora evolved from the Assyrian two-way mass deportation policy of conquered populations to deny fu- ture territorial claims on their part.[4] In An- cient Greece the term diaspora meant "the scattered" and was used to refer to citizens of a dominant city-state who emigrated to a conquered land with the purpose of colonisa- tion, to assimilate the territory into the em- pire.[5] First modern attestation of diaspora is in 1876 from the Greek diaspora, derived from diaspeirein "to scatter about, disperse," from dia- "about, across" + speirein "to scatter".[6] Sometimes refugees of other origins or ethnicities may be called a diaspora, but the two terms are far from synonymous.[7][8] The term became more widely assimilated into English by the mid 1950s, with long-term expatriates in significant numbers from other particular countries or regions also being re- ferred to as a diaspora.[9][10][11][8] An aca- demic field, diaspora studies, has become es- tablished relating to this contemporary more general sense of the word. In all cases, the term diaspora carries a sense of displacement; that is, the population so described finds itself for whatever reason separated from its national territory; and usually it has a hope, or at least a desire, to return to their homeland at some point, if the "homeland" still exists in any meaningful sense. Some writers have noted that diaspora may result in a loss of nostalgia for a single home as people "re-root" in a series of mean- ingful displacements. In this sense, individu- als may have multiple homes throughout their diaspora, with different reasons for maintaining some form of attachment to each. Native American diaspora New World history records many diaspora- like events wherein major populations of the indigenous peoples in the Americas were either dispersed or transported. These dy- namics continue. Virtually every Native American tribe, community and confedera- tion in North, South and Central America has this experience as part of their family stories. Colonialists divided indigenous communities intentionally; however, strong Native Americ- an blood lines remain visible. These document-based methods of proving Native From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Diaspora 1 American blood lines largely preclude all but reservation families. European diasporas Further information: European diasporas Greek Diaspora 6th c. BC European history contains numerous diaspora-like events. In ancient times, the trading and colonising activities of the Greek tribes from the Balkans and Asia Minor spread people of Greek culture, religion and language around the Mediterranean and Black Sea basins, establishing Greek city states in Sicily, southern Italy, northern Libya, eastern Spain, the south of France, and the Black sea coasts. Greeks founded more than 400 colonies.[12] Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Achaemenid Empire marked the beginning of the Hellenistic peri- od, which was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization in Asia and Africa, with Greek ruling classes established in Egypt, southwest Asia and northwest India.[13] The Migration Period relocations, which included several phases, are just one set of many. The first phase Migration Period dis- placement from between AD 300 and 500 in- cluded relocation of the Goths (Ostrogoths and Visigoths), Vandals, Franks, various oth- er Germanic people (Burgundians, Lan- gobards, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Suebi, Ale- manni, Varangians and Normans), Alans and numerous Slavic tribes. The second phase, between AD 500 and 900, saw Slavic, Turkic, and other tribes on the move, resettling in Eastern Europe and gradually making it pre- dominantly Slavic, and affecting Anatolia and the Caucasus as the first Turkic tribes (Avars, Bulgars, Huns, Khazars, Pechenegs and pos- sibly Magyars) arrived. The last phase of the migrations saw the coming of the Hungarian Magyars and the Viking expansion out of Scandinavia. However, such colonizing migrations can- not be considered indefinitely as diasporas; over very long periods, eventually the mi- grants assimilate into the settled area so completely that it becomes their new home- land. Thus the modern population of Hungary do not feel that they belong in the Western Siberia that the Hungarian Magyars left 12 centuries ago; and the English descendants of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes do not yearn to reoccupy the plains of Northwest Germany. Another example is the Irish diaspora, be- ginning mid-19th century and brought about by a combination of harsh imperial British policies and the An Gorta Mór or "Great Hun- ger" of the Irish Famine. Estimates are that between 45% and 85% of Ireland’s popula- tion emigrated to countries including Britain, the United States, Canada, Argentina, Aus- tralia and New Zealand. The size of the dia- spora is demonstrated by the number of people around the world who claim Irish an- cestry; some sources put the figure at 80-100 million. In 1492, a Spanish expedition headed by Christopher Columbus reached the Americas, after which European exploration and colon- ization rapidly expanded. In the 16th century perhaps 240,000 Europeans entered Americ- an ports.[14] In the 19th century alone over 50 million people left Europe for the Amer- icas.[15] African Diaspora One of the largest diasporas of pre-modern times was the African Diaspora, which began at the beginning of the 16th century. During the Atlantic Slave Trade, twenty million people from West, West-Central and South- east Africa were transported to the Western Hemisphere as slaves. This population left a major influence on the culture of English, French, Portuguese and Spanish New World colonies. The Arab slave trade also transported large numbers of Africans from the continent, although the effect of the Diaspora to the east is more subtle. It has not received as much historical study in the West, but af- fected millions of Africans.[16] Asian diaspora Chinese emigration (also known as the Chinese Diaspora) first occurred thousands of years ago. The mass emigration that From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Diaspora 2 occurred from the 19th century to 1949 was caused mainly by wars and starvation in mainland China, as well as political corrup- tion. Most immigrants were illiterate or poorly educated peasants and coolies (Chinese: ??, translated: Hard Labor), who immigrated to developing countries in need of labor, such as the Americas, Australia, South Africa, Southeast Asia, Malaya and other places. The largest Asian diaspora outside of Asia is that of the Indian diaspora. The overseas Indian community estimated at over 25 mil- lion is spread across many regions in the world, on every continent. It constitutes a di- verse, heterogeneous and eclectic global community representing different regions, languages, cultures, and faiths. The common thread that binds them together is the idea of India and its intrinsic values (see Desi). The Romani are widely dispersed with their largest concentrated populations in Europe. Linguistic and genetic evidence in- dicates the Romanies originated from the In- dian subcontinent, emigrating from India to- wards the northwest no earlier than the 11th century.[17] At least three waves of Nepalese diaspora can be identified. The earliest wave dates back to hundreds of years as early marriage and high birthrates propelled Hindu settle- ment eastward across Nepal, then into Sikkim and Bhutan. A backlash developed in the 1980s as Bhutan’s political elites realized that Bhutanese Buddhists were at risk of be- coming a minority in their own country. At present, the United States is working to- wards resettling more than 60,000 ethnic Ne- palese from Bhutan in the US as a third coun- try settlement programme.[18] A second wave was driven by British re- cruitment of mercenary soldiers beginning around 1815 and resettlement after retire- ment in the British Isles and southeast Asia. The third wave began in the 1970s as land shortages intensified and the pool of edu- cated labor greatly exceeded job openings in Nepal. Job-related emigration created Ne- palese enclaves in India, the wealthier coun- tries of the Middle East, Europe and North America. Current estimates of the number of Nepalese living outside Nepal range well up into the millions. The 20th century and beyond The twentieth century saw huge population movements. Some involved large-scale trans- fers of people by government action. For in- stance, Stalin shipped millions of people to Eastern Russia, Central Asia, and Siberia both as punishment and to stimulate develop- ment of the frontier regions. Some migra- tions occurred to avoid conflict and warfare. Other diasporas were created as a con- sequence of political decisions, such as the end of colonialism. Ethnic cleansing Other diasporas have occurred as people fled ethnically directed persecution, oppression or genocide. Examples of these include: the Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks who were forced out of Anatolia by the Ottoman Turks during the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides1 (1915–1918), with survivors set- tling in areas of the Levant, United States, Europe and South America[19]. Since World War I, the Assyrian diaspora has steadily increased so that there are now more Assyrians living in western and eastern Europe, North America and Australia, than in the Middle East. At the turn of the century, the Christian population in the Ottoman Em- pire had numbered about 5,000,000. When the Turks’ massacres ended in 1923 and fol- lowing the population exchange and the 1950s pogroms, only a few thousand Greeks remained. WWII and the end of colonial rule As WWII unfolded, Nazi Germany deported and killed millions of Jews. Some Jews fled from persecution to western Europe and the Americas before borders closed. Later other eastern European refugees moved west, away from Soviet annexation,[20] and the Iron Curtain regimes after World War II. After WWII, the Soviet Union and Communist-controlled Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia expelled hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans, who had lived in eastern countries for nearly two centuries, in retali- ation for Nazi invasion and attempts at an- nexation. Most moved west, with tens of From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Diaspora 3 thousands seeking refuge in the United States. Galicia in northern Spain sent many emig- rants into exile during Franco’s military re- gime from 1936 to his death in 1975. Following WWII, the creation of the state of Israel, and a series of uprisings against co- lonialist rule, the Middle East was almost en- tirely emptied of its historic Jewish popula- tions of nearly 1 million, the majority of whom found refuge in Israel and became known as Mizrahi Jews. At the same time, the Palestinian diaspora was created as a result of the establishment of Israel in 1948, in which 750,000 people were displaced. It was enlarged by the effects of the 1967 Arab-Is- raeli War; today the Palestinian refugee pop- ulation is the oldest in the world. The 1947 Partition resulted in the migra- tion of millions of people between India and Pakistan. Many were murdered in the unrest of the period, with estimates of fatalities up to 10 million people. Thousands of former subjects of the British Raj went to the UK from the Indian subcontinent after India and Pakistan became independent in 1947. From the late nineteenth century Korea, and formally from 1910, became a Japanese colony. Millions of Chinese fled to western provinces not occupied by Japan (i.e., in par- ticular Ssuchuan/Szechwan and Yunnan in the Southwest and Shensi and Kansu in the Northwest) and to Southeast Asia. More than 100,000 Koreans moved across the Amur River into Eastern Russia (then the Soviet Union) away from the Japanese. During the Japanese war with China (1937-1945), Japan established Manchuria as a multi-ethnic pup- pet state, Manchukuo. The Cold War and the formation of post-colonial states During and after the Cold War-era, huge pop- ulations of refugees migrated from conflict, especially from then-developing countries. Upheaval in the Middle East and Central Asia, much of which related to power struggles between the United States and the Soviet Union, created a host of new refugee populations which developed into global dia- sporas. The Afghan diaspora resulted from the 1979 invasion by the former Soviet Union; both official and unofficial records in- dicate that the war displaced over 6 million people, resulting in the creation of the largest refugee population worldwide today. Many Iranians fled the 1979 Iranian Revolu- tion following the fall of the Shah. The Assyrian diaspora expanded as the Civil War in Lebanon, the coming into power of the Islamic republic of Iran, the Ba’athist dictatorship in Iraq, and the present-day un- rest in Iraq pushed even more Assyrians on the roads of exile.[21] Tens of thousands of Iraqis have fled conflict in their nation since the beginning of the American occupation of Iraq in 2003. In Southeast Asia, many Vietnamese people emigrated to France and later to the United States after the Cold War-related Vi- etnam War. Later, 30,000 French colons from Cambodia were displaced after being ex- pelled by the Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot. In Africa, a new series of diasporas formed following the end of colonial rule. Uganda ex- pelled 80,000 South Asians in 1972. Hun- dreds of thousands of people fled from the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 into neighboring countries. Thousands of refugees from deteri- orating conditions in Zimbabwe have gone to South Africa. The long war in Congo has also created massive numbers of refugees. In South America, thousands of Chilean and Uruguayan refugees fled to Europe dur- ing periods of military rule in the 1970s and ’80s. A million Colombian refugees have left Colombia since 1965 to escape the country’s violence and civil wars. In Central America, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Costa Ricans and Panamanians fled conflict and poor economic conditions. Migration diasporas: A subject of debate Some scholars argue that when economic mi- grants gather in such numbers outside their home region, they form an effective Di- aspora: for instance, the Turkish Gastarbeiter in Germany; South Asians in the Persian Gulf; Filipinos worldwide; and Chinese workers in Japan. Hispanics or Latinos in the USA are some- times referred to as a newly developed "dia- spora" or dispersions of immigrant peoples from Latin America into the United States, and ethnic groups continued their cultural distinction, such as Mexican-Americans, Puerto Rican people, Cuban-Americans, etc. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Diaspora 4 Since the 1970s, Mexican immigrants to the United States have been chiefly economic refugees coming for work; many have crossed the border illegally or remained un- documented aliens who never acquired legal residency or US citizenship. Earlier mass movements of rural migra- tion in the U.S. occurred: The two waves of the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the North, Midwest and Western states comprised a diaspora and res- ulted in urbanization of more than 6.5 million African Americans from 1910-1970; many were recruited by northern businesses eager for labor for their developing industries, but the people were also voting with their feet to leave behind segregation, lynchings, disfran- chisement and limited chances in a rural economy. Historians identify as another diaspora the mass migration of people during the Dust Bowl years: the "Okies" from the drought-rid- den American Great Plains and "Arkies" from the Ozarks of the American South in the 1930s; the majority of both groups went west to California. More recently, some observers have labeled evacuation from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina a diaspora, since a significant number of evacuees have not been able to return, yet maintain aspirations to do so. Other scholars maintain that inclusion of such migrations under the heading of "diaspora" has caused a blurring of terms. The International Organization for Migra- tion said there are more than 200 million mi- grants around the world today. Europe hos- ted the largest number of immigrants, with 70.6 million people in 2005, the latest year for which figures are available. North Amer- ica, with over 45.1 million immigrants, is second, followed by Asia, which hosts nearly 25.3 million. Most of today’s migrant workers come from Asia.[22] In popular culture Futuristic science fiction sometimes refers to a diaspora, taking place when much of hu- manity leaves Earth to settle on far-flung "colony worlds. İsmet Özel wrote a poem titled "Of not be- ing a Jew" in which he lamented the fact that he felt like a pursued Jew, but had no second country to which he could go. He writes: Your load is heavy He’s very heavy Just because he’s your brother Your brothers are your pogroms When you reach the doorsteps of your friends Starts your Diaspora In The Malazan Book of the Fallen, by Steven Erikson and Ian Cameron Esslemont, the Di- vision of the Crimson Guard is known as the Diaspora. After the war between the Malazan Empire and the Guard ends in stalemate after a protracted duel between Skinner (of the Guards) and Dassem (first sword of the Empire) ends in a draw, the Guards’ leader Kazz D’Avore disappears and the Guards split into companies to search for him. This search is also known as the Diaspora of the Malazans. The song "Prayer Of The Refugee" by Rise Against, was originally called Diaspora, and was featured on Guitar Hero with said name. See also - • List of diasporas • Armenian diaspora • Basque diaspora • British diaspora • Greek diaspora • Irish diaspora • Jamaican diaspora • Jewish diaspora • Mexican diaspora • Polonia • Quebec diaspora • Refugees of Iraq • Romani diaspora • Displaced person • Ethnic cleansing • Exodus • Expatriate • Human migration • Immigration • Population transfer • Refugee • Rural exodus • Slave trade • Ummah From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Diaspora 5 • Turkish diaspora Citations and notes [1] p.81, Kantor [2] pp.53, 105-106, Kantor [3] p.1, Barclay [4] pp.96-97, Galil & Weinfeld [5] pp.1-2, Tetlow [6] Diaspora [7] Katrina scatters a grim diaspora BBC [8] ^ Out of the Hadhramaut [9] The world’s successful diasporas - Research - World Business [10]Diasporas of Highly Skilled and Migration of Talent [11]Katrina scatters a grim Diaspora BBC [12]Early development of Greek society [13]Hellenistic Civilization [14] "The Columbian Mosaic in Colonial America" by James Axtell [15]David Eltis Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic slave trade [16]Braziel, Jana Evans. 2008. Diaspora - an introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell. [17]Kalaydjieva, Luba (2001). "Genetic studies of the Roma (Gypsies): A review". BMC Medical Genetics 2: 5. doi:10.1186/ 1471-2350-2-5. http://www.biomedcentral.com/ 1471-2350/2/5. Retrieved on 2008-06-16. [18]Bhaumik, Subir (November 7, 2007). "Bhutan refugees are ’intimidated’". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ south_asia/7082586.stm. Retrieved on 2008-04-25. [19]A Letter from The International Association of Genocide Scholars [20]An International Conference on the Baltic Archives Abroad [21]Codeswitching Worldwide II, by Rodolfo Jacobson [22]Rich world needs more foreign workers: report, FOXNews.com, December 02, 2008 References • Kantor, Mattis, The Jewish time line encyclopedia: a year-by-year history from Creation to the Present, (New updated edition), Jason Aronson, Northvale NJ, 1992 • Barclay, John M. G., (ed.), Negotiating Diaspora: Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004 • Galil, Gershon, & Weinfeld, Moshe, Studies in Historical Geography and Biblical Historiography: Presented to Zekharyah Ḳalai, BRILL, 2000 • Tetlow, Elisabeth Meier, Women, Crime, and Punishment in Ancient Law and Society, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005 • Cohen, Robin, Global Diasporas: An Introduction, University of Washington Press Seattle, 1997 • Shain, Yossi, Kinship and Diasporas in International Politics, Michigan University Press, 2007 • Braziel, Jana Evans. 2008. Diaspora - an introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell. External links • Livius.org: Diaspora Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora" Categories: Diasporas, Diaspora studies, Greek loanwords This page was last modified on 19 May 2009, at 14:26 (UTC). All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax- deductible nonprofit charity. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Diaspora 6
