Diaspora

The term diaspora (in Ancient Greek, διασπορά – "a scattering or sowing of seeds") refers to any people or ethnic population who are forced or induced to leave their traditional homelands, the dispersal of such people, and the ensuing developments in their culture.

Origins

Initially the term diaspora meant "the scattered" and was used by the Ancient Greeks to refer to citizens of a dominant city-state who emigrated to a conquered land with the purpose of colonization, to assimilate the territory into the empire. The current meaning started to develop from this original sense when the Old Testament was translated into Greek, the word "diaspora" there being used to refer to the population of Jews exiled from Judea in 586 B.C.E. by the Babylonians, and from Jerusalem in 136 C.E. by the Roman Empire. Probably the earliest use of the word in reference specifically to Jewish exiles is in the Septuagint version of Deuteronomy 28:25, "thou shalt be a dispersion in all kingdoms of the earth."

It subsequently came to be used to refer interchangeably to the historical movements of the dispersed ethnic population of Israel, the cultural development of that population, or the population itself. The term was assimilated from Greek into English in the mid 20th century, and an academic field of diaspora studies has been established relating to the wider modern meaning of 'diaspora'.

Sometimes refugees of other origins or ethnicities may be may be called a diaspora, but the two terms are far from synonymous. Long term expatriates in significant numbers from one particular country may also be referred to as a diaspora. In all cases, the term diaspora carries a sense of displacement; that is, the population so described find themselves for whatever reason separated from their national territory; and usually they have a hope, or at least a desire, to return to their homeland at some point, if the "homeland" still exists in any meaningful sense.

History contains numerous diaspora-like events. The Migration Period relocations, which included several phases, are just one set of many. The first phase Migration Period displacement from between 300 C.E. and 500 C.E. included relocation of the Goths, (Ostrogoths, Visigoths), Vandals, Franks, various other Germanic tribes, (Burgundians, Langobards, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Suebi, Alemanni, Varangians), Alans and numerous Slavic tribes. The second phase, between 500 C.E. and 900 C.E., saw Slavic, Turkic, and other tribes on the move, re-settling in Eastern Europe and gradually making it predominantly Slavic, and affecting Anatolia and the Caucasus as the first Turkic peoples (Avars, Bulgars, Huns, Khazars, Pechenegs) arrived. The last phase of the migrations saw the coming of the Magyars and the Viking expansion out of Scandinavia.

However, such colonizing migrations cannot be considered as Diasporas indefinitely; over very long periods, eventually the migrants assimilate into the settled area so completely that it becomes their new homeland. Thus the modern population of Germany do not feel that they really belong in the Siberian steppes that the Alemanni left 16 centuries ago, the Hungarian Magyars are not drawn back to the Altai, and the English descendants of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes do not yearn to reoccupy the plains of northwest Germany. Compare, nevertheless, the Jewish Sephardim of Iberia and Ashkenazim of Eastern Europe, settled in those areas for many centuries, and yet never allowed to fully assimilate there.

The 20th century and beyond

The twentieth century saw huge population movements. Some of these were due to natural disasters, as has happened throughout history, but some involved large-scale transfers of people by government action. Some Diasporas occurred because the people accepted, or could not avoid, the consequences of political decisions (such as Stalin's desire to populate Eastern Russia, Central Asia, and Siberia; or the transfer of millions of people between India and Pakistan in the 1947 Partition). Other Diasporas have occurred as people fled ethnically directed persecution or oppression: for example, European Jews fleeing the Holocaust during World War II; other European nationalities moving west away from Soviet Union annexation , and the Iron Curtain regimes after World War II; and the Hutu and Tutsi trying to escape the Rwandan Genocide in 1994.

During the Cold War era huge populations of refugees formed out of areas of conflict, especially from Third World nations; all over Africa (e.g., and 1.5 millions Armenians forced out of Armenia by the Turks. Forced to march in the Syrian dessert where a lot of them ended up settling, over 80,000 South Asians expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin in 1975), South America (e.g., thousands of Uruguayan refugees fled to Europe during the military rule in the 1970s and 80's) and Central America (e.g., Nicaraguans, Salvadorians, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Costa Ricans and Panamanians), the Middle East (the Iranians who fled the 1978 Islamic revolution), the Indian subcontinent (thousands of former subjects of the British Raj went to the UK after India and Pakistan became independent in 1947), and Southeast Asia (e.g., the displaced 30,000 French colons from Cambodia expelled by the Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot). The millions of Third World refugees created more diaspora populations than ever before.

Many economic migrants may gather in such numbers outside their home country that they form an effective diaspora: for instance, the Turkish Gastarbeiter in Germany; South Asians in the Persian Gulf; and Filipinos throughout the world. And in a rare example of a diaspora in a prosperous Western democracy, there is talk of a New Orleans, or Gulf Coast, "diaspora" in the wake of Hurricane Katrina of 2005, if a significant number of evacuees do not start to return.

List of notable diasporas

History provides us with many examples of notable Diasporas.

In popular culture

• Futuristic science fiction sometimes refers to a "Diaspora," taking place when much of humanity leaves Earth to settle on far-flung "colony worlds."

See also

• Diaspora studies
• Diaspora politics
• Exodus is another Biblical term related to migration, but with a connotation of grouping rather than the scattering of a diaspora.
• Displaced person
• Ethnic cleansing
• Population transfer
• Slave trade
• Immigration
• Refugee

Notes

All links retrieved October 9, 2007.

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