What Is a Diaspora Simple Definition

“The general attitude in Israel regarding its responsibility towards the diaspora is based on three principles,” Yadlin said. According to the Oxford English Dictionary Online, the first known recorded use of the word diaspora in the English language dates back to 1876, referring to “a vast work of evangelizing the diaspora (as it is called) among the national Protestant churches of the continent.” [32] The term was further assimilated into English in the mid-1950s, with long-term expatriates also referred to as diasporas in significant numbers from other specific countries or regions. [33] In relation to this meaning of the word, an academic field, diaspora studies, has been created. In English, in capital letters and without modifiers (i.e. simply the diaspora), the term refers specifically to the Jewish diaspora in the context of Judaism. [34] The dramatic increase in migration since World War II and the formation of many new diasporas, also in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the so-called “Muslim diaspora,” have led to much greater attention to the phenomenon, its research, and in-depth debates about its meaning and significance for countries of origin and destination. The main development of academic interest and engagement with diasporas began in the late 1980s and early 1990s. And it continues to grow. But in the case of Israel, it has a special obligation to protect Diaspora Jewry.

Gran Torino, a 2008 drama starring Clint Eastwood, was the first mainstream American film to feature the American Hmong diaspora. [102] The Afghan diaspora emerged from the former Soviet Union`s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979; Official and unofficial documents show that the war displaced more than 6 million people, resulting in the creation of the second largest refugee population in the world in 2018 (2.6 million in 2018). [89] The resettlements of the migration period, which took place over several phases, are only one of many resettlements in history. The first phase of expulsion by the migration period (between 300 and 500 AD) included the resettlement of Goths (Ostrogoths and Visigoths), Vandals, Franks, various other Germanic peoples (Burgundians, Lombards, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Suevi, Alemanni, Varangians and Normans), Alans and many Slavic tribes. In the second phase, between 500 and 900 n. The first Turkic tribes (Avars, Huns, Khazars, Pechenegs) as well as the Bulgarians and possibly the Magyars arrived. In the last phase of migration came the Hungarian Magyars. Viking expansion from Scandinavia to Southern and Eastern Europe, Iceland and Greenland. The recent application of the word “diaspora” to the Viking lexicon highlights their cultural profile, which differs from their predatory reputation in the regions they inhabit, particularly in the North Atlantic. [66] The more positive connotations associated with the term social sciences help to reconsider the movement of the Scandinavian peoples in the Viking Age. [67] A South Korean diaspora movement in the 1990s caused the birth rate in the country of origin to fall, as much of the middle class emigrated while the rest of the population continued to age.

In order to counter demographic change, the South Korean government launched a diaspora engagement policy in 1997. [93] Such colonizing migrations cannot be regarded indefinitely as diasporas; Over very long periods, migrants eventually assimilate so completely into the settlement area that it becomes their new spiritual home. Thus, the modern Magyars of Hungary do not feel they belong to Western Siberia, which the Hungarian Magyars left 12 centuries ago; and the English descendants of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes soon reoccupied the plains of northwestern Germany. Basically, there are now two theoretical approaches to current diasporism. One approach – called “transnational communities” – considers diasporas as imaginary transnational communities representing deterritorialized identities and strongly influenced by postmodern, globalized and hybridizing economic processes and developments. The main argument of this school is that diaspora units lose their ties to their countries of origin and exist as independent communities in the new global environment. The second approach argues that because of their inherent ethnonational identities and deep-rooted ties to a real or imagined homeland, reflected in the profile presented above, most diasporas cannot be considered purely transnational entities. After the presidency of Hugo Chávez and the founding of his Bolivarian revolution, more than 1.6 million Venezuelans emigrated from Venezuela to the so-called Bolivarian diaspora.

[96] [97] [98] Analysis of a Central University of Venezuela study entitled The Venezuelan Community Abroad. A new method of exile from El Universal notes that the Bolivarian diaspora in Venezuela has been caused by the “deterioration of the economy and social fabric, endemic crime, insecurity and lack of hope for a change of leadership in the near future.” [96] The upheavals in the Middle East and Central Asia, some of which were linked to power struggles between the United States and the Soviet Union, produced new refugee populations that developed into global diasporas. “Diaspora” is a Greek word meaning “to sow or disperse”. Applied to humans, the term was probably first used by the Greek historian Thucydides to describe the dispersal of the Greeks. The term gained more attention after appearing in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible`s Book of Deuteronomy, referring to the Jewish scattering in Babylon. Thus, the term was first applied mainly to the two ancient diasporas – the Greek and the Jewish. The term diaspora comes from the Greek verb diaspeirō which means “to scatter” or “to spread”. First used in ancient Greece, diaspora referred to people from dominant countries who voluntarily emigrated from their home countries to colonize conquered lands. Today, scientists recognize two types of diaspora: forced and voluntary. Forced diaspora often stems from traumatic events such as wars, imperialist conquest or slavery, or natural disasters such as famine or prolonged drought. As a result, people in a forced diaspora usually share feelings of persecution, loss, and the desire to return to their homeland. Nglish: Translation of Diaspora for Spanish speakers In Siam, regional power struggles between several kingdoms in the region led to a large ethnic Laos diaspora between the 1700s and 1800s by Siamese rulers to colonize large areas of the northeastern region of the Siamese kingdom, where Lao ethnicity is still an important factor in 2012.

Meanwhile, Siam decimated the Laotian capital and captured, tortured and killed the Laotian king Anuwongse. Both experiences, rooted in the Western tradition, constituted stereotypes of the diaspora, although other notable cases developed from the East into the Middle Ages and modern times. For example, in China`s long history, the spread of its population has often been perceived as a positive, or at least neutral, phenomenon, described in an ancient Chinese poem: “Wherever the ocean waves touch, there are overseas Chinese.” India`s influence has also spread, especially throughout the Indian Ocean region, settling its population beyond its own borders. In general, since the 19th century, the increase in the population of unskilled workers migrating to agricultural or industrial professions has attracted special attention worldwide. In contrast, a voluntary diaspora is a community of people who left their homes in search of economic opportunities, as in the mass emigration of people from depressed parts of Europe to the United States in the late 1800s. The concept of diaspora did not play an important role in the social sciences until the late 1960s; The use of the plural form of the word came even later. Despite its Greek origins, the term used primarily to refer to the Jewish experience, especially the expulsion of the Jewish people from their homeland to Babylonia (the Babylonian exile), as well as the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple. The term was thus associated with a sense of loss, since the dispersion of the Jewish population was caused by their loss of territory.

Nevertheless, since ancient times, the concept has also been used positively, albeit much less influentially, to refer to the Greek colonization of Mediterranean countries from the coasts of present-day Turkey and Crimea to the Strait of Gibraltar between the 6th and 4th centuries BC. However, due to the enormous historical and current complexity of the phenomenon, there is a need for a much more detailed profile that suits most ethnonational diasporas whose members share a common country of origin.