Everything about Diaspora totally explained
The term
diaspora (in
Ancient Greek,
διασπορά – "
a scattering or sowing of seeds") refers to the forcing any people or
ethnic population 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
Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek; the word "diaspora" then was used to refer to the population of
Jews exiled from
Judea in 586 BC by the
Babylonians, and from
Jerusalem in AD 136 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. As an academic field,
diaspora studies has been established relating to the wider modern meaning of the usage 'diaspora'.
Sometimes
refugees of other origins or ethnicities 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've 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 meaningful displacements. In this sense, individuals may have multiple homes throughout their diaspora, with different reasons for maintaining some form of attachment to each.
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 AD 300 and 500 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 AD 500 and 900, saw
Slavic,
Turkic, and other tribes on the move, resettling 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 can't 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 don't feel that they 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 don't yearn to reoccupy the plains of northwest Germany. In comparison, however, the Jewish
Sephardim of
Iberia and
Ashkenazim of
Eastern Europe also settled in those areas for many centuries, and yet didn't assimilate because of strong Jewish traditions of separation, a religious commitment to their own kind, and intolerance on the part of the majority.
One of the largest and most historic diasporas of pre-modern times was the
African Diaspora which began at the beginning of the
16th century. During the
Atlantic Slave Trade, about ten million people from West, West-Central and Southeast Africa were transported to the
Western Hemisphere as
slaves. This population would leave a major influence on the culture of English, French, Portuguese and Spanish
New World colonies. The
Arab slave trade similarly took large numbers out of the continent, although the effect of the diaspora to the east is more subtle.
Another example is the mid-19th century
Irish diaspora, brought about by a combination of harsh imperial British policies and the
An Gorta Mór or "Great Hunger" of the
Irish Famine. Estimates vary between 45% and 85% of Ireland having emigrated, to Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia.
The 20th century and beyond
The twentieth century saw huge population movements. Some involved large-scale transfers of people by government action. For instance,
Stalin shipped millions of people to Eastern
Russia,
Central Asia, and
Siberia both as punishment and to stimulate development of the frontier regions. Some migrations occurred to avoid conflict and warfare. Other diasporas were as a consequence of political decisions, such as the end of
colonialism.
During the Japanese occupation of
China (1937-1945), Manchuria was considered a Japanese prefecture, and
Korea (1910-1945) was also under Japanese influence. Millions of Chinese fled to western provinces not occupied by Japan (for example Tibet and Sinkiang) 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.
Other diasporas have occurred as people fled ethnically directed persecution, oppression or
Genocide. Examples of these include: the
Armenians who were forced out of Anatolia by the
Ottoman Turks during the
Armenian Genocide1 (1915–1918), with survivors settling in areas of the
Levant, United States, Europe and South America.
European
Jews emigrated from the Russian Empire, Hungary and Poland, fleeing pogroms and discrimination from the 1880s to shortly after WWI. Others fled from persecution by Nazi Germany actions, mostly before the
the Holocaust of
World War II when borders closed. Other eastern European refugees moved west, away from Soviet annexation, and the
Iron Curtain regimes after World War II. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans, who had lived in eastern countries for nearly two centuries, were expelled by the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia after WWII, and moved west.
Galicia, North of
Spain, sent many emigrants into exile during
Franco's military regime from 1936 to his death in 1975.
The
1947 Partition resulted in the migration 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.
During and after the
Cold War-era, huge populations of refugees migrated from areas of conflict, especially from then-
developing countries. In the
Middle East, the
Palestinian diaspora was created as a result of the establishment of
Israel in 1948 and further enlarged by the
1967 Arab-Israeli War. Many
Iranians fled the
1979 Iranian Revolution following the fall of the
Shah. Tens of thousands of
Iraqis have fled conflict in their nation since 2003.
From
Southeast Asia 30,000
French colons from
Cambodia were displaced after being expelled by the
Khmer Rouge regime under
Pol Pot. Beginning before that, many Vietnamese emigrated to France and later to the United States after the Vietnam War.
Diasporas have occurred in
Africa, including the
expulsion of 80 000 South Asians from Uganda in 1975. Hundreds of thousands of people fled from the
Rwandan Genocide in 1994 into neighboring countries. Thousands of refugees from deteriorating conditions in Zimbabwe have gone to South Africa.
In
South America, thousands of
Chilean and
Uruguayan refugees fled to
Europe during 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,
Salvadorians,
Guatemalans,
Hondurans,
Costa Ricans and
Panamanians fled conflict and economic conditions. The millions of
Third World refugees created more numerous diasporal populations, but the principle of peoples' becoming refugees because of war precedes written history.
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. 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 undocumented aliens who never acquired legal residency or US citizenship.
Some diasporas are due to
natural disasters. In a rare example of a diaspora in a prosperous Western democracy, observers have labeled evacuation from
New Orleans and the
Gulf Coast as a "diaspora" in the wake of
Hurricane Katrina of
2005, since a significant number of evacuees have not started to return.
Earlier mass movements of the two waves of the
Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the North, Midwest and West comprised a diaspora and resulted 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, disfranchisement 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-ridden American Great Plains and "Arkies" from the Ozarks of the American South in the 1930s. The majority of both groups went west to California.
1: The events known as the "Armenian Genocide" continue to be debated. Some people don't believe the events conform to criteria for state-sponsored genocide, although they agree that many Armenians died in the turmoil of the break-up of the Ottoman Empire.
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."
The song "Prayer of the Refugee" from
Rise Against's album
The Sufferer & the Witness was originally named "Diaspora" when it was leaked.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Diaspora'.
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