What is Diaspora?
Diaspora is a term taken from the Greek terminology "diasperio" where 'dia' means 'over' 'through' or 'across' and sperio means 'to sow' or 'to scatter' which means Diaspora is a movement of a person or community from one national boundary to another national boundary. In another word, the term diaspora refers to any people or ethnic population forced to leave their original homelands either interestingly or difficulty. Diaspora is a Greek noun taken from the composite verb dia-and-speirein. Which addressed the meaning of 'to scatter, spread, disperse, be separated.
Diaspora people leave their original place, country and relatives and go to the foreign land. Diaspora give both positive and negative connotation. In positive meaning it somehow as a matter of pride and valorization and opportunity. In the negative sense diaspora address displacement, scattering, dislocation, homelessness, nostalgic, alienation, identity crisis, hybrid. They are not completely accepted by new culture, locality and culture.
Diaspora Studies
In the real sense, with the reference of William Safran, Knott and Sean, actually we find such features in diaspora writings. Therefore diasporic people are the writer of diasporic literature. They write various genre of literature with their own feelings, emotions. They became hybride in culture and language. Diaspora writer mentition what they loss, what they gain or celebrates in foreign environment. In these issues, they get subjectmatter to write about how they become mediators of homeland and foreign land.
Getting visa for another country is not a simple task. In the process of launching visa people may face so many problems either people go to abroad interestingly or forcefully, life settlement in new territory is hard. Even if people have to fulfill such terms and conditions they keep on leaving their place of origin and entering into other parts of the globe. Diasporic people have following features:
a.
Dispersal of
population from the homeland
b.
Retention of
imagination of the homeland on collective memory
c.
Cultivation of
a variety of myths about the homeland
d.
Partial
assimilation in the host society
e.
Hoping to return
to the homeland
f.
Some kind of
commitment for restoration of prosperity of the homeland
g.
Continued interest in keeping linkage with
the homeland.
In
this way, diasporic studies deals with the network that interconnects
relatives, friends, fellow countrymen at home and abroad and float formal and
informal associations. It brings out the innovative and creative aspects of the
individual in the process of their meeting aspirations, transcend
socio-cultural boundaries and establish new networks. They also form their own
community if they have a large number in their group, commonality in
socio-cultural or ethnic traits, common adversary and an effective leadership
for a community to be created in an alien world. Indian community of Trinidad
is an example of this point.
Hybridity is
analyzed unadventurously with the relation to diaspora, as the process of
cultural mixing where the diasporic arrivals adopt aspects of the host culture
and rework, reform and reconfigure which result a new hybrid culture or 'hybrid
identities' for example Chinese diaspora is dominant in diasporic discourse having its own distinctive
features. Chinese people are in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand,
Malaysia, Latin America, Canada, Germany, Australia and so on parts of the
world due to variety of causes.
History of Diaspora
Since the human
civilization this term was used. In the ancient time the word was used to
describe of the Jews after they were dispersed from Judea or Palestine first by
the Babylonians in during 6oo BC and then by the Romans in during 70 BC. But
now it has been used to describe broadly which addressed the group of people
unified by a common religion, culture, custom left there sovereign state or
land forcefully or voluntarily.
According to Kim Knott
and Sean MC Loughin- Diasporas means the formal and informal relationships of
the people being maintained with homelands and with relatives and friends
scattered globally.
In this postmodern world
people dislike to stay one national boundary. Scholars in the humanities, in
their writing used diaspora culture, experiences, feeling to convince audience.
Thus, today there is an enormous bibliography on diaspora history and culture
in literature.
In ancient period diaspora gives positive connotation and it was seen as the matter of pride and valorization. But now a days, it refers negation connation too. It's because it has come to represent the state of displacement, scattering, sense of loss, dislocation, homelessness. Even though they have new land they could not mingle with new religion, language, culture and other aspects of life styles. It brings the sense of loss, loss of original homeland which make them alienated, sense of displacement, dislocation and painful feeling, sometime they feel scattered too. Diasporic people in such cases make their imaginative journey back to their own homeland. They want to continuous relationship with their relatives and family members. This act of trying to retain to their homeland is. Performed by creating 'imaginative homeland' in their native land celebrates cultural programs. Notwithstanding, their physical presence is there in the foreign land. Therefore they are like scattered and alienated even in the big mass.
William
Safran Points out some of the common features of diaspora as:
a.
Dispersal to two or more locations
b.
Collective mythology of homeland
c.
Alienation from host land
d.
Idealization of return to homeland
e.
Ongoing relationship with homeland etc.
Home and Memory
The memories of the original homeland are no factual
reproductions of the fixed past in which the diasporic subject used to live.
Rather the memories are fluid reconstructions set against the backdrop of the
remembering subject's current conceptualization of home. These
conceptualizations are partly shaped by social ascription and contestations of
home. In terms of the first generation of migrants their own memory functions
while in the context of new generations the memory of the homeland is just a
collective one that comes up to them through their communal forces. So, their
memories of the homeland are fragmented. The emergence of new and new
generations brings fluidity in the memory of the original homeland. This
fluidity is the result of the continuous process of recalling, interpreting and
reconstructing the past in terms of the present as well as the light of an
anticipated future.
Exile
Having the terminological origin in
different linguistic and cultural settings, both these terms got their origin
to address Jewish experience in the beginning. In the present scenario they
suggest the state of being exiled or banished from the original homeland and
the multiple facets of scattered experience of such scattered people who live
away from their homeland identifying themselves. In their own state if they
done blonder mistake people fore fully exiled from their county. Slowly and
gradually those very people became diasporic people.
Migration
Time and again, the notion of diaspora has close
relationship with the issue of migration and its fundamental divisions like
voluntary and forced or economic/labor and refugees migration. Analysis of
migration and the outcome of migration (integration, assimilation, segregation
or exclusion) is another division in this notion. These categorized are found
both in the analysis of migration and in the migration policy field as well.
The forced migration is one thing that doesn't welcome the migrants' personal
decision. But the choice migration is the result of the choice of the migrants
which is usually economic in purpose. It's economic in the sense that people
migrate from one geographical territory to another for earning their living.
Nevertheless, besides economic betterment, study, marriage and other reasons
lie at the background for the voluntary migration of people.
Hybridity
One of the popular scholar from India Homi Bhabha
sees hybridity as an 'in-between' term, referring to a 'third space', and to
ambivalence and mimicry, especially in the context of what might, uneasily be
called the colonial cultural interface. Clifford defines the term as "a
discourse that is traveling or hybridizing in new global conditions,"
emphasizing "travel trajectories" and "flow".
With relation to diaspora, hybridity is analyzed conventionally as the process of cultural mixing where the diasporic arrivals adopt aspects of the host culture and rework, reform and reconfigure this production of a new hybrid culture or 'hybrid identities'. Hence, hybridity is considered as a process rather than a description.
Conflict and Security
The discourse of diaspora is often associated with the issue of conflict and security. Migration, which is at the base of diaspora formation, is seen and analyzed to create conflict as well as the problem of security. When large numbers of people migrate to the host society, the position of the migrants becomes uncertain in both the societies. The problem of uncertain position and fear results into the public discourse. Migration was seen to raise unemployment, crime and problem in national culture and the environment.
References
Timilsena (2022). The Platform of Literary Discussion to the University Students
Knott, Kim., Sean McLoughlin. Diasporas: concepts, intersections, identities. Rawat Publications, 2011.
Radhakrishnan, R. ‘Diasporic Meditations: Between Home and Location’. University of Minnesota. 1996.
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