Current Sociology

http://csi.sagepub.com/

Diaspora
Eliezer Ben-Rafael
Current Sociology 2013 61: 842 originally published online 5 April 2013
DOI: 10.1177/0011392113480371
The online version of this article can be found at:
http://csi.sagepub.com/content/61/5-6/842

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

International Sociological Association

Additional services and information for Current Sociology can be found at:
Email Alerts: http://csi.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts
Subscriptions: http://csi.sagepub.com/subscriptions
Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav
Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

>> Version of Record - Aug 19, 2013

OnlineFirst Version of Record - Apr 5, 2013
What is This?

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

480371

13

CSI615-610.1177/0011392113480371Current Sociology ReviewBen-Rafael

Current Sociology Review Article

CS

Current Sociology Review

61(5-6) 842861
The Author(s) 2013
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0011392113480371
csi.sagepub.com

Diaspora
Eliezer Ben-Rafael
Tel-Aviv University, Israel

Abstract
Contemporary diasporas are studied from many different perspectives. One widely
acknowledged aspect is their capacity to illustrate dual homeness, and their challenging
national cultures aspiration to sociocultural unity. Insertion into new societies tends
today to erode the singularity of diasporic communities, but the symbols they retain or
create may still warrant cultural reproduction as transnational entities. The conceptual
distinction between collective identity, identification, and identifying is helpful when
considering how diasporas have become a factor in the multiculturalization of presentday societies, while themselves becoming multicultural entities through the influence
of the cultures prevailing in the diverse environments of their dispersed communities.
The incoherent even chaotic realities these contradictory tendencies generate for
analysts are not necessarily perceived in these terms by the actors. Their presence
in societies, their impact on non-diasporic populations, the new relations they create
between original and new homelands, and above all their endeavor as interconnected
cross-national spaces, represent developments that contribute to moving society
towards a new era.
Keywords
Chaos, diaspora, dual homeness, globalization, identity, interconnected space,
multiculturalism, transnationalism

Delineating the field

Diaspora (Cohen, 2001; Dufoix, 2008), a word of Greek origin, designates the dispersal
throughout the world of a people with the same origin. A descriptive notion, dispersion
often receives religious or ideological connotations such as in the Hebrew token of galut
(exile) that is imbued with messianic aspirations of Return. Understandings attached to
the diasporic condition may vary both within and between diasporas. Diasporics as a
Corresponding author:
Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv, Tel-Aviv, 69978, Israel.
Email: saba@post.tau.ac.il

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

843

Ben-Rafael

whole, however, always wish to insert themselves into their new environment, even
though they are also often motivated to retain a degree of loyalty to their singular legacy
and original milieu. Eventually they build institutions and expand networks that become
foci of cultural, social, and political activity. In all this, they represent a kind of ethnic
group that, like any other ethnic group, numbers individuals self-aware of a primordial
bond (religion, origin, or a language).
At this point, arguments divide scholars concerning the nature and plight of ethnicity
and transnational diasporas. The notion of ethnicity derives from ethnikos and means
heathen in Greek (Spencer, 2006: 45). It refers to entities that are smaller than society
(Eriksen, 1993) and whose members have a real or putative common ancestry. Eriksen
(1993) adds that an ethnic group never completely overlaps the nation, but constitutes a
collective of its own that may divide further into ramifications. These attributes are
linked to Giddenss (1991) contention that ethnics are engaged in a reflexive project of
identity-building.
The traits that circumscribe an ethnic entity denote, as a rule, a common origin or
cultural-linguistic legacy that assumedly commands commitment, retention, and transmission (Jenkins, 2007). Some scholars see here the indelible prints of primordialism
attributed to blood ties (Shils, 1957: 142), or a sense of natural affinity that does not stem
from social interaction (Geertz, 1973: 259260). Whatever the assumed source of primordialism, Bayar (2009) maintains that it offers a convincing hypothesis in light of the
persistence, among some groups, of ethnic allegiances over long periods of time and
within highly varied circumstances. This orientation finds support in a diversity of
empirical works cross-cutting, in many cases, the borders of the social sciences. Hence,
Cavalli-Sforza etal. (1994) present findings that tend to conclude that ethnic groups
demonstrate statistically significant distinctive genetic features. Opposing that kind of
interpretation, the circumstantialists or constructivists like Fredrik Barth (1969)
tend to see in ethnicity mainly a model of social organization rather than of cultural differentiation. Allegiances are constructed and reconstructed over time in different
contexts, and fluctuate according to individual interests and social claims (Ratcliffe,
2010; Stone and Dennis, 2003). Andreas Wimmer (2008) maintains, in this vein, that
different strategies may be adopted which redraw collective boundaries by including
new members, excluding others, or challenging hierarchical orderings of social categories. Scholars of this stream explain that for some groups ethnicity is a reaction to discrimination (see Smith, 1992, 1996). Primordialists reply that socially successful
groups often retain ethnic allegiances, demonstrating that ethnicity is a kind of groundrule of the human experience. However, this approach is refuted by the circumstantialists who identify here developments accounted for by the social benefits of invented
traditions.
Different explanations may apply to different groups, according to the diversity of both
contingencies and historical paths and legacies. The category of ethnic groups that is
becoming more and more salient nowadays consists of transnational diasporas, in the
context of contemporary globalization, the communication revolution, and unprecedented
migration movements. These processes have positioned those debates in new, unprecedented contexts. What distinguishes diasporas from other kinds of ethnic collectives is the
retention of allegiances and connectedness that cut across national boundaries, and link

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

844

Current Sociology Review 61(5-6)

people into a transglobal entity (Baubck, 1994, 1998). The establishment of a diasporic
community, however, is not a uniform process and it may vary from one place to another
in the same society, and in different countries. Robin Cohen (2007) distinguishes
between the solid diaspora marked by powerful myths of a common origin mostly a
territory labeled as the old country and the liquid diaspora that is constructed through
new cultural links (see also Bauman, 2000; Vertovec, 1997). Adding the intermediate
model of ductile diaspora, Cohen discusses these three models as ranging from historical-empirical reality to postmodern virtuality. Yet, one general novelty of our era,
according to analysts like Cohen and Vertovec, resides in the frequency among ethnic
groups of a sense of attachment to a territorialized origin that links collectives sharing
references to the same socio-geographical past.
This relation of transnationality constructs the unity of dispersed groups designated
by the specific diaspora (see Cohen, 1997; Laguerre, 2006). In some cases, a given term
is used to name the set of communities that originate, or see themselves as originating,
from the same place, while another term includes this set in addition to the original
homeland: the Jewish diaspora refers to Jews dispersed communities outside the Land
of Israel; the Jewish world consists of the same communities, plus Israel.
While this notion of transnational diaspora (or TD) indeed designates groups of
migrants scattered over the globe retaining bonds with their original homeland and
among themselves, this notion may also be extended to include dispersed and interlinked communities that deviate substantially from the usual case. It still holds, for
instance, for diasporas referring to more than one original homeland. One example
consists of the Chinese diasporics who refer to Mainland China, Taiwan, or Singapore
(Cheung, 2004; Fung, 1999; Ma and Cartier, 2004). In the same vein, one can note the
Sub-Saharan Africans whose ancestors were deported as slaves to the New World from
different places in Africa and who refer their origin to the Dark Continent as a whole
unlike Africans who emigrated after their nations won independence, and relate their
origins to specific countries (Franklin and Moss, 2001; Matsuoka and Sorenson, 2001).
Moreover, the notion of transnational diaspora also includes groups socially and culturally close to each other that experience amalgamation in the face of the prevailing
culture in their new environment, from which they feel equally remote. We recall here
the pan-diasporic tendencies exemplified by Latin American immigrants in the US
who have become Hispanics (Sommers, 1991), or immigrants from Arab countries in
Europe who tend to merge themselves into a Muslim or Arab population (HosseinZadeh, 2005). In either case, individuals may still conserve features marking their specific origins Mexican or Guatemalan in the first instance; Moroccan or Algerian in the
second. But at the same time, they are perceived, and widely perceive themselves, as
also forming a more general category in terms of the rest of society. Not too different is
the case of the Kurds who originate from several places that do not belong to the same
national setting, but who share elements of culture and a linguistic legacy facilitating
their coalescence, when they find themselves in a common diasporic condition.
Still another kind of diasporic group consists of returnees. Germany (Bade and
Oltmer, 1999), the Philippines (Constable, 1999), Japan (Tsuda, 2003), and Israel (BenRafael, 2003), among others, witness the resettling of people who in the past left it for
the diaspora but decided perhaps after some years, decades, or even generations

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

845

Ben-Rafael

whether for ideological or instrumental reasons, to return to the place they always
considered their real home. Throughout their period in exile, these returnees absorbed
the culture of their diasporic environments, and new markers now distinguish them from
their fellow-homelanders. This particularism may be the basis of a tendency to reconstitute communities to the extent that they valorize the retention, for them and their children, of these cultural resources and markers. In these rebuilt communities, previously
national tokens become diasporic markers, while previously ethnic-diasporic markers
signal attachment to a new national identity. This illustrates the continuation of the
diasporic code in inverse mode.
Also qualifying for the notion of transnational diaspora are groups that exhibit a transnational commitment to each other despite the absence of a shared old country, but that
concretize their sense of belonging to a global entity through supra-national organizations,
networks cross-cutting borders, and common cultural or religious markers. Jews saw
themselves as one people for centuries before the creation of Israel (Ben-Rafael, 2001)
and, in a similar vein, Gypsies (Fraser, 1995) perceive themselves primarily as a worldpeople without territorial attachment, and grant secondary significance to their presentday nationalities. This type of diaspora is quite exceptional, as is another category of cases
that gained substantial importance with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, and
which Rogers Brubaker (2009) names accidental diasporas. These cases refer to Russian
nationals who now find themselves in post-Soviet Europe, stranded within the borders of
newly independent states i.e. the Baltic states. Changes in national borders have made
them national minorities. This kind of group still qualifies for the notion of diaspora, since
their people maintain ongoing relations with their original homelands and display resistance to the disappearance of their home languages and cultural references.
The common denominator of all cases pertaining to these categories is that they are
transnational entities cross-cutting national borders. In each such case, narratives account
for the background of the dispersal and assess its challenges. They account for the existence of communities sharing allegiances to themselves and to the whole entity that they
form, and which includes where relevant one or more original homelands that may
consist of sovereign entities or territorialized minorities in one or more countries.
We focus below on TDs that do share one or more original homelands, assuming that
most of our analyses also apply to people who, for whatever reason, do not comply with
this condition. Even when taking this restriction into account, the field of relevant phenomena remains quite large, chiefly excluding cases of populations united only by religious
affiliation, ideological-political commitments, or cultural affinities but that lack a saga of
dispersal that started from a common real or virtual origin. For instance, in the extreme case
of world social mobilization like the Communists in the mid-twentieth century (Young,
2011), they shared a strong identification with the USSR as the home of socialism but
these feelings could not compare with the affinity that worldwide communities reserve for
a homeland (fatherland or motherland) which they feel they stem from.

Identity, identifying, and identification

The growing body of research focusing on TDs underlines a number of features. More
than a few scholars emphasize the role of central policies in the social, cultural, and

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

846

Current Sociology Review 61(5-6)

political insertion of new groups. Heckmann and Schnapper (2003) have discussed the
different possible strategies that authorities apply. In particular, they stress the French
so-called republican aspiration to sociocultural homogeneity requiring that nonautochthonous elements should relegate their cultural singularity to the private sphere.
Newcomers, accordingly, should endorse in public the prevalent social and cultural
modes of behavior. This approach contrasts with the moderate form of multiculturalism
applied in the UK and the Netherlands. Schnapper (2005) also analyzes the German
approach that has long tended to exclude all people who were not German-born from
adhesion to the German folk (see also Brubaker, 1992). In a more political perspective,
Waldinger (2011) focuses on the state and its interests in terms of domination which
assumedly account for the ways imposed on groups to insert themselves in society. A
similar emphasis on political aspects is found in Skefelds (2006) work, which, however, focuses mainly on the transnational diaspora in a social-mobilization perspective.
Other scholars insist more on diasporics aspirations, and point out that immigrants
and their offspring are today showing a tendency to resist abandoning their identities for
the sake of the national tokens that they acquire in their new homelands (Glick Schiller
etal., 1992, 1995; Levitt, 2001; Levitt and Glick Schiller, 2008; Morawska, 2003).
More radically, some scholars associated with the postmodernist trend have attacked
on ideological grounds the very assumption that diasporas, ethnicity, or race are legitimate topics for study in their own right. For Anderson (1991), ethnicity and related
categories belong to what he calls imagined communities. For Paul Gilroy (2004),
these notions distort democracy and reduce people to symbols; he champions a cosmopolitan humanist outlook on society. Homi Bhabha (2004), echoing Fanon (1965), sets
as an ideal to be a man among other men. Identity is but a means of exploitation and
oppression, and he criticizes Taylors (1994) praise of multiculturalism grounded in
recognition of the diversity of identities found in society. From a different perspective,
but still with a critical tone vis-a-vis the West, James Clifford (2003) asserts that present-day diasporic discourses by diasporics are to be understood as a search for nonwestern models. Rather similarly, Arjun Appadurai (1996) analyzes the diasporic
phenomenon in the context of what he sees as a present-day neo-imperialist relationship
between the West and the Rest.
These critics attract the reactions of more positivist scholars who may be divided
into those emphasizing the roles of contingencies, and those focusing on cultural and
identity aspects. In the first group, Covers and Vermeulen and their colleagues (Covers
and Vermeulen, 1997) describe cases where diasporic identities can be interpreted as
molded by economic, class, and power interests. Tsing (2000) and Anthias (1998) deny,
from this perspective, that our world has entered a new era. The striking recent developments, they contend, have failed to produce a single new logic of transformation.
Diaspora communities, like many other groups, are instances of social mobilization.
Hollinger (1995), who focuses on the USA, sees ethnicity as transient and aspires to a
post-multicultural society.
Stuart Halls (1996) approach is close to this outlook. While he acknowledges the singular dynamism of ethnic and diasporic phenomena, his understanding of identity is not
essentialist but strategic and positional. Identity, in his view, does not signal the core of the
self but only a fragmented, fractured, and politicized token referring to a given collective.

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

847

Ben-Rafael

Other conceptualizations go further and underline the concept of shared identity as a

significant element of its own (Cohen, 1994; Safran, 1991; Tllyan, 1996). Whatever
the importance of circumstances, they believe, there can be no diasporic community
without a consciousness of diaspora. This outlook, though, does not presuppose consensual formulations among individual members and it rejects neither the mobilization
dimension, nor the assumption of fluidity of collective boundaries. What it does reject is
the necessarily a priori primacy of the contingency-first hypothesis. It accords with
Webers (1977) classic assessment that a sense of belonging forged by religion, history,
or a language may be a major component of community formation.
William Safran (2004) adopts this perspective up to reversing the contingencyidentity
relation. He acknowledges that a diaspora often illustrates deracination, oppression, and
painful adjustment, but also emphasizes that diasporics develop institutions and symbols
via incentives rooted in their own cultural values. Tllyan (1996) adds on this point that
global processes of deterritorialization and migration are bound to a decline of locality as a
reference for collective identities as core aspects of the diaspora experience. To these considerations Sheffer (2003) adds the impact of that experiences institutionalization, and its
organizational and political structures which give expression to its enduringness.
Whatever the terms and concepts utilized, the issue of identity remains a crucial
aspect of the diasporic endeavor. Defining a collective identity, however, is by no means
easy either for researchers, or for the individuals concerned (Alexander etal., 2004). Its
formulation may greatly vary among members of the same community, as well as in different places or times. And in parallel, the basic elements that compose identities also
vary, from one case of diaspora to another. Our own suggestion (Ben-Rafael, 2002) is to
bypass these difficulties by drawing on the structuralist approach (Levi-Strauss, 1961,
1977) and allowing major theoretical difficulties to be overcome as well above all, the
longstanding argument between circumstantialists and essentialists.
This approach endorses the principle that diverse formulations of the same identity
may be generated within the same collective as the outcome of different circumstances
interacting with the same original legacy. More specifically, it is our premise that wherever one can speak of collective-identity building, it means that: (1) in one way or
another, individuals feel committed to people whom they see as fellow-members of their
group; (2) they perceive that group as conveying some cultural or social singularity; and
(3) they tend, to some extent and in certain respects, to distance themselves from others
whom they consider as non-members (Ben-Rafael, 2001). This notion focuses on the
awareness of individuals and describes an essentially subjective phenomenon as such,
it can never be seen as acquired permanently. It may involve dilemmas alongside unambiguous assertions; it may be phrased in different (possibly even contradictory) terms,
diachronically or synchronically (among different circles). What keeps such formulations connected to each other as elements of the same identity space, and prevents splits
into different groups, is conditioned on peoples commitment to, and particularistic solidarity with, more or less the same group of individuals (a we somehow distinct from
they), and their drawing symbols however divergent their interpretations from the
same reservoir singularizing the collective as a whole.
This latter aspect elicits the additional issue of how others see ethnics/diasporics
and identify them. This act of identifying may be appreciative, disparaging, or neutral.

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

848

Current Sociology Review 61(5-6)

It is frequently negative and loaded with prejudices and stereotypes. These others are
other ethnics or diasporics and non-ethnic natives/authentic nationals and acts of
identifying may repeat themselves with each particular group along the lines of societys multicultural segmentation (see also Glazer, 1997). In this light, it is clear that
identifying is a distinct aspect of the discourse about ethnicity (including about diaspora), not to be confused with the notion of identity. Identity, we saw, refers to the
tenets of a groups perceptions of collective identity; while identifying designates
through what prisms people or institutions refer to individuals as members of a given
group. Identifying may be based on errors of discernment or a priori beliefs, eventually
influencing individuals in one way or another. However, identifying per se does not
assess identity, which is a subjective attribute of the individuals concerned themselves:
that someone perceives another person as a Turk or a Jew does not in itself make
him or her a Turk or a Jew. This does not belie that being repeatedly identified with a
given label may have subjective consequences especially when the identifier possesses power over the identified.
The third dimension of the discourse about ethnicity, which is also often confused
with the notion of identity, asks how much importance individuals ascribe to their collective identity at all. This question concerns the issue of identification. Like identity, identification is likely to vary greatly among fellow-ethnics. Ethnic or diasporic identification
is at its highest when individuals see their ethnic identity as their principal, if not only,
collective identity; it is at its lowest when they see it as a strictly personal attribute like
hair color, height, or weight. Identity and identification are never completely independent from each other, since variations in identification may also command alterations in
how individuals formulate their identity, while the nature of the contents of identity
especially if it concerns religious allegiance should influence the strength of identification. Identification is also influenced by other circumstances, however. As Gold (2007)
has shown, collective identification is stronger where populations are clearly differentiated by unequal participation in resources. The configuration of power in society and the
availability of opportunities for building a constituency are also likely to influence collective identification. Moreover, the influence of the sense of power is not without ambiguity: a constituency that enjoys great bargaining power may feel encouraged to see
itself an integral part of society; though at the same time, where power brings benefits it
may well be an incentive to remain politically mobilized and to continue raising conflictual particularistic claims (Bernstein, 2005; Covers and Vermeulen, 1997). Which is what
identity politics is about.

Twofold multiculturalization
The background to the formation of TDs is the experience of migration (Banton, 2008;
Van den Berghe, 1970), and as a rule, once settled in the new environment, they demonstrate an irresistible tendency to grow similar to mainstream society (Brubaker, 2001).
This, however, does not signify that collective boundaries become completely blurred
(Alba and Nee, 2003, 2007). Researchers suggest the concept of segmented assimilation to label a bicultural syndrome when extensive acculturation and partial social assimilation are combined, for a large part of the group, with persistent retention of parochial

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

849

Ben-Rafael

markers and ongoing contact with former homelanders and fellow diasporics settled
elsewhere (Vermeulen, 2010).
The narratives circulating and admired in the diasporas require locals to retain their
distinctiveness, based on legacies originating elsewhere. That elsewhere demarcates
what a transnational orientation stands for. It places actors evolving within different borders in direct and solidaristic relations, without the need for buffering by national
institutions unlike international bodies. In other words, a transnational orientation
concretizes here and now a principle of dual homeness: diasporics insert themselves
in their present setting while simultaneously retaining some degree of loyalty to a culture
and origin from elsewhere.
This particular TD endeavor is clearly shown by its linguistic dimension. One of the
aspects of the divide between diasporics and homelanders as well as among diasporics
in different countries is the loss of linguistic competence in the original language, that
continues to be the homelands vernacular. At best, this vernacular is retained with a
restricted register and a handful of tokens; these elements still assert the multicultural
character of TDs settings but hardly serve the purpose of efficient communication
between TD members, and with homelanders. Hence, it is often the case that English, the
worlds primary lingua franca, becomes the only language that members of diasporas
from different countries and homelanders can use to understand each other. An understanding, however, that must still overcome the fact that members of each community
eventually speak the kind of English practiced in their present-day setting.
However, even then and this is effectively the general rule those elements of
diasporics languages that are still retained as formulae of greeting, names of typical
food, or designations of rituals, find new usages as markers of identities warranting some
symbolic cohesion. This by no means counterbalances the loss of the languages
themselves deplored by many a sociolinguist who studies the decline and disappearance of minorities languages over one or two generations after migration (see Edwards,
2010). In the second and ensuing generations, hardly any salient trait remains besides the
persistence of some markers of the original code inserted in the official language
(Dustman etal., 2010). Such elements may still impel some diasporics to acquire a better
knowledge of their language of origin, in the present context of the vitality of diasporic
ethnicity, multiculturalism, and the search for roots. Eventually, with the encouragement
of leaders and educators, community educational institutions may offer appropriate programs of language acquisition for youngsters.
This atmosphere is favorable for the multiplicity of cultural influences throughout
society and the propagation of phenomena of hybridization (Thelen, 2009). Cultural
hybridization, as elaborated by Jan Nederveen Pieterse (2009), means the borrowing
by a given culture of patterns of behavior and values upheld by another. It may arise
in the transformation of traditional patterns or religious practices (see, as regards the
African diaspora, Clarke, 1998; Clark Hine and McLeod, 1999). This notion finds its
utility in its accounting for new cultural developments discernible in this multicultural era. Hybridization brings about innovations and mixings of sources, and invites
actors of all kinds to question, redefine, and argue about their identities. And, indeed,
endless debates in this vein have become typical of contemporary intellectual
endeavors.

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

850

Current Sociology Review 61(5-6)

In brief, TD communities contribute to the multiculturalization of both society and the

transnational diasporas. While the singularity that they still represent vis-a-vis their environment enhances the latters sociocultural diversity, by becoming somehow different
from those who remained in the original homeland or settled elsewhere, they also make
their TD itself a multicultural entity. This twofold process leads to an ever greater fluidity
of collective boundaries that come to resemble dotted lines rather than clearly traced
traits. Individuals who then wish to slip out have it easier now than in the past and may,
eventually, get closer to other diasporic groups, or locate themselves in non-ethnic
milieus.

Transnational diasporas and old countries

The increase of TDs across the world also involves the issue of their relations to the
old countries and their significance for further developments in relations between the
original and new homelands. While for emigrants, leaving their country is first a matter
of individual choice, for the latter, movements of people to the outside raise both practical and principled considerations. In some countries, like Japan or Israel, dominant
attitudes until recently depicted out-migration as treason or desertion. In other
cases, homelands have been quicker to compromise with, and react with moderation
to, the fact that a given percentage of their nationals leave them for other places. Still
other countries see out-migration as offering additional sources of financial income,
thanks to the support migrants grant their relatives who stay behind (Oh, 2007). Some
states are thus eager to grant migrants the right to retain full-fledged citizenship, to
vote in general elections, and even to enjoy special privileges if and when they return
for reinsertion.
At the institutional level, and once the very existence of a diaspora is recognized by
the establishment of the original homeland, one finds four different models of diaspora
homeland relations (see Baubck [2010] for a general discussion, Cheran [2004] for the
case of Sri Lanka, and Ghosh-Schellhorn [2006] for Anglophone Indians):
1. The nationalist perspective assesses the ultimate importance of the original
homeland as the only center of the diaspora. This, it is argued, is the only country
where the culture and daily experience of collective membership is expressed to
the full. It is only here that the TD identity is the individuals primary identity.
2. The bifocal model requests the original homeland to cooperate with its TD settings despite the eventual difficulties caused by rivalry over prominence, or
divergent understanding of collective challenges.
3. The diasporic model considers TDs culture as primarily attached to the more
advanced diaspora condition from where it can project its legacy as a pole of
cultural influence on world civilizations. The homeland is then looked down on,
as provincial or narrow-minded.
4. The opposed outlook is the nativistic attitude that radicalizes the differentiation
of diasporahomeland perspectives from the latters point of view. It sees diasporics as growing foreign to their original culture and identity, and encourages
breaking links with them.

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

851

Ben-Rafael

These different models clearly appear in the common world frameworks where representatives of original homelands and diasporic organizations sit together (see Goldring
[2002] for the Mexican example). They show that dilemmas and tensions are endemic to
diasporahomeland relations. In the JewishIsrael case, for instance, the quest for leadership over world Jewry regularly creates conflict between the Israeli leadership that
emphasizes Israels embodying Jewish sovereignty and American Jewry, that insists on
its own valuable experience as a numerically significant community. People of Frenchspeaking Quebec, on the one hand, and the authorities in France, on the other, perceive
themselves beyond their reciprocal allegiance as centers of world francophonies. A
website called Centre des francophonies des Amriques is based in Quebec, while in
Paris, a special ministry deals with francophone affairs outside France.
Beyond these aspects, moreover, by expanding a protective role over their migrs
overseas, governments are also willing to turn them into political pressure groups that
could support their interests with their present-day authorities (see Ostergaard-Nielsen
[2001] for the cases of Turks and Kurds in Germany and the Netherlands). This consideration shifts attention to the new homelands where diasporics create new demographic
and political realities.

Empowerment in new homelands

Most countries that are currently attracting migrants are veteran democracies where the
maturation of democratic processes enables a profusion of political actors. Democracy is
grounded in the competition of parties and leaders for social and political support. Its
basic rule is the courting of constituencies, including diasporic communities, by rival
factions. Because they are wooed, these groups are able to bargain their backing in return
for responsiveness to their own claims, and thus become political actors (Soysal, 1994,
2000). Hence, a democratic regime is a fertile ground for militants to build up a constituency, and especially for ethnic leaders to articulate identity politics and achieve political
significance whether through coalitions with other pressure groups or as independent
forces (Calhoun, 1994). This game grants public acknowledgment and legitimacy to
community interests, institutionalizes de facto first and de jure later the presence of
TDs, and thereby fuels societal multiculturalization. In this context, when diasporic
transnational interests are brought to the fore they enjoy full legitimacy and may become
items on the national agenda. Among such interests, claims can emerge concerning the
states relations with original homelands, and those claims have the potential to widen
the space and nature of inter-state relations (Laguerre, 2006).
Such developments should, quite obviously, enhance the insertion into the political
process of diasporic communities and their identification with the society that they are
now able to influence and in which they fully participate. In other words, this very
process partly on behalf of external interests is expected to reduce diasporics alienation
if such existed a priori. At the same time, as mentioned, it is plausible if not probable
that whenever politics provides a source of profit for a constituency that very fact should
also encourage leaders to maintain and even intensify political mobilization. Hence, as a
group increases its share in society, it may be willing to see its tactics as profitable and
drive it to more politicization as a distinct component of this society.

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

852

Current Sociology Review 61(5-6)

Later on, empowered diasporic actors may also be tempted to achieve response not
only to their specific demands but also their aspirations regarding what they consider
as a desirable society (Huntington, 2005). These aspirations may clash with some of
the mainstream cultures prevalent premises and incite a new focus of tension that
could, in turn, eventually lead to questioning cultural, or even religious, longstanding
principles and symbols of the social order. A social conflict along these lines would
illustrate a simplified version of what Huntington (1996) calls a clash of civilizations,
or according to Eisenstadt (2001), a kind of encounter and confrontation between
multiple modernities. What is commonly referred to as the right to difference might
thus be the starting-point of bitter conflicts over the validity of longstanding societal
codes that would eventually find defenders in authentic local and nativistic factions
(Schrag, 2010).
In this, multiculturalism comes to exemplify what Beck (1992) calls a risk society: a
multicultural society is basically faced with the dilemma of the limits of multiculturalism. More specifically, what should be left to the domain of communities singularities?
And what belongs to the public domain, and should be regulated by symbols and values
that are endorsed by all?
Here we are tackling another relevant issue discussed by researchers, titled decivilization (see Camus, 2011). This notion signals an alteration in attitudes propagated
throughout society, in the sense of disengagement from normative obligations. Authors
who elaborate on this concept have in mind the growth of urban violence and the insecurity that tends to prevail in more than a few big cities. Without entering the vast set of
issues implied by this topic, we should underline here that multiculturalization and the
increase of TDs are actually contributing to some degree to the slackening of the rigor
of duties associated with civility. The diffusion of a dual-homeness state of mind characteristic of diasporics implies that neither transnational allegiances nor national identification encompass the total commitment of individuals to their settings respective agendas
and general concerns. In either respect, commitment is somehow narrowed by actors
interest in the other. This degree of freedom vis-a-vis each such commitment, and especially vis-a-vis society, on the part of some diasporics may in turn leave imprints on how
non-diasporic citizens feel about their societal obligations whether by taking an example from the non-compliant diasporics, or by reacting negatively towards their lack of
conformity. Either way, one can speak of new problmatiques permeating multicultural
societies that account, among other forms, for the ways transnationalism drives general
societal change.

The drive belt notion: Directions for future research

In conclusion, transnationalism and multiculturalism are now definitely part of the daily
life and social order of many contemporary societies. Their phenomena are clearly visible in the linguistic landscape of every metropolis London, New York, Paris, or Berlin
where from one block of houses to another, different temples, cultural centers, ethnic
restaurants, charities, or businesses mark the areas special character through the use of
different linguistic signs and markers used together with in some cases, in place of
national languages (Ben-Rafael and Ben-Rafael, 2009; see also Laguerre, 2003). These

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

853

Ben-Rafael

signs indicate Little Italy, Chinatown, or Jerusalem and illustrate the nature of dualhomeness i.e. at first, the extent which the longstanding aspiration to sociocultural
unity challenges the boundaries of western cultures. Not that long ago, western powers
were still diffusing their languages and social models throughout the world via colonization, colonialism, and commercial expansion. Today, numberless languages and cultures
originating from the Rest have emerged in the actual territory of the West, carried by
diasporic migrants. These new communities impose their public presence through the
social and political facilities of their new societies. Democracies cannot but compromise
with the anchorage of those foreign cultures in their domains by the settling of groups
whose ancestors can by no means be included among what the French long liked to
repeat: nos anctres les Gaulois taient grands et blonds.
TDs, though, differ from each other with respect to when they arrived in their new
societies, and where they came from. Muslims settled in Europe mostly after the withdrawal of France from North Africa (Roy, 2006); the majority of Latin Americans
(Hispanics or Latinos) migrated to the nearby USA (Odem and Lacy, 2009); the Chinese
spread throughout Asia before reaching Europe and the Americas (Gomez and HsinHuang, 2004; Lo and Wang, 1997; Tan, 2003); Sub-Saharan Africans are mostly the
remote offspring of ancestors who arrived in the New World as slaves (Matsuoka and
Sorenson, 2001). Many features particular to each population are accounted for by such
circumstances. Moreover, discrimination and weak human capital assets widely explain
the concentration of many Muslims (Bowen, 2004), Africans (Green, 1997; Skinner,
1993), and Hispanics/Latinos in lower strata (Yeoman, 2000) in their new societies.
Stronger human assets explain why Chinese migrants (Louie, 2000; Nagata, 2005) climb
the social ladder more easily, although some milieus are frequently reluctant to integrate
them. Moreover, not every diaspora aspires to lose its singularity (Mnz, 2002): cultural
and religious influences widely explain the differences exhibited by Muslims and
Hispanics, Africans and Chinese. Each group also sets up different kinds of community
structures and engages in identity politics in its own way. In the same vein, one also finds
differences in how these diasporas develop cross-national networks, found their own
media, and produce symbols indicative of both their legacies, their current reality, and,
above all, their allegiance to external fatherlands (Laguerre, 2009).
At this point we may introduce another notion that throws light on the significance of
TD as a factor of societal, and even global change. TDs, one can contend, actually serve
as drive belts between original and new homelands. This implies that TDs not only serve
as bridges between those homelands but do so through the practice of daily life, as
aspects of humdrum social endeavors, and above all as an endemic constituent of normalcy. In this, TDs assert the reality of a kind of family affinity across national borders,
encompassing the scattered diasporics of the same origin, as well as the citizens of the
old country. If not as one nation everyone has his or her own national identity at
least as one people, or even one world, and in other words as one privileged space
of interconnectedness. To be sure, dispersion over the globe erodes the shared cultural
idiosyncrasies of diasporas but the singularities they retain, each in its own way, guarantee connectedness despite the versatility of their inescapable hybridization.
These developments, that require us to examine our societal and global realities
through new prisms, seem to accord with the perspectives offered by the notion of chaos

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

854

Current Sociology Review 61(5-6)

that has recently gained popularity in the social sciences. Chaos typically refers to situations dominated by unpredictability (Gleick, 1987). The antithesis of law and order, it
designates unrestrictiveness both creative and destructive. Chaotic realities, to be sure,
can hardly be objects of systematic analysis since the principle of chaos implies permanent, overall, and uncontrolled lack of cohesion (Urry, 2002, 2005). However, where
chaos designates inconsistent situations that still exhibit some stability, that notion does
not necessarily mean orderlessness at the level of perceptions. Once a chaotic picture
becomes recurrent and is regularly seen, it becomes familiar to actors. The perception of
disorder leaves room for a notion of configuration structured by the respective positioning of each object vis-a-vis the others. Their diverse and intrinsically incoherent contributions to the totality may then be viewed by actors as one whole, that is, a gestalt
(configuration in German) notwithstanding the possibility that the individual elements of that gestalt find themselves there, independent from each other (Ben-Rafael and
Sternberg, 2009). What is more, as gestalt theory contends (Scholl, 2001), that sort of
configuration may even be viewed as illustrating, as such, structural properties that pertain to none of its individual constituents, but to the set as a whole.
In this vein, and with respect to both actual homelands and transnational allegiances,
the present-day multiplicity of diasporic communities may be viewed as generating
social incoherence and cultural discontinuity. Yet in both respects they can also be analyzed as gestalt for the very fact that they are reproduced recurrently, and belong to the
overall images that actors crystallize of the societal reality, on the one hand, and of their
respective transnational entity, on the other.
In this context, there is also room here to pinpoint that the coexistence of communities
in the frame of the same diasporic world, and of various diaspora communities evolving
in the same societal space, eventually create different lines of what Wittgenstein
(Schatzki, 1996) called family resemblance, i.e. the principle of unequal participation
of actors with a number of common features. Coexistence in the same society, exposure
to the mainstream culture, and to the influence of groups rubbing shoulders with them,
cannot leave diasporic communities and individuals indifferent, and should receive
expression in the ways they express their adherence to their original legacies. Above all,
diasporics of any origin who share the same society inevitably come to share a common
national identity and general commitments, most probably downgrading their transnational allegiances to secondary importance.
On the other hand, societal identification and commitment cannot be total at a time
when it is not exclusive, and communities also belong to another world through their
close contact with their original homeland and fellow-diasporics living elsewhere. In this
aspect, they evaluate how different they have become over time, though the very encounter also contributes to an awareness of what they have in common in terms of their
diasporic identity and identification.
These lines of family affinity influence each other and tend to attenuate the chaotic
character of contemporary societies as well as of diasporas, increasing the permeability
of social and national boundaries. In so doing, they multiply both the opportunities for
inter-group contact, adjustments, and coexistence, as well as, most probably, some good
reasons for conflict. Primarily, they demonstrate how far their study and investigation
relates to the transformations of todays global social reality.

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

855

Ben-Rafael
Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.

Annotated further reading

Ben-Rafael E and Sternberg Y (eds) (2009) Transnationalism: Diasporas and the Advent of a New
(Dis)order. Leyden and Boston: Brill. This book presents in Part I a set of major perspectives
on contemporary diasporas. Parts II and III discuss empirical case studies Part II discusses
the paradigmatic case of the Jews, Part III a range of cases in different countries and stemming
from different backgrounds. Part IV compares major global diasporic entities and draws out a
few theoretical conclusions and assessments.
Cohen R (1997) Global Diasporas: An Introduction. London: UCL Press. Robin Cohen points
out the changing meanings of diaspora and elaborates on the typical features of contemporary
cases. He outlines the diversity of notions of diaspora and, more particularly, what he calls victim diasporas, trading, labor, and business diasporas. He also focuses on the eventual relations
that bind identity and belonging to diasporic politics. Most interestingly, Cohen elaborates on
diasporas as characteristic of a late modern condition.
Dufoix S (2008) Diasporas. Berkeley: University of California Press. This book discusses successively the nature of diasporas, the condition of dispersion which is endemic to it, the ways
communities are able to maintain connections with lands of origin and fellow-diasporans settled elsewhere, and how the distance might be managed. Of particular interest is the first chapter, which starts with the discussion of the history of the concept and proposes a synthetic
analytical framework that is proposed for given aspects of cases such as Jews, Armenians,
Africans, or Chinese.
Glick Schiller N (ed.) (1998) Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class,
Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered. New York: Annals of the New York Academy of
Sciences. This book elaborates on present-day immigrants relation to original homelands,
and their experience of social life across borders through continuous contact with theirs left
far away. These contacts in the areas of family, business, or social result in the retention
of genuine involvement in those societies. This, however, does not preclude diasporics also
fully involving themselves in their new environments. The contributors to this volume delve
into the diverse implications of this phenomenon and discuss the construction of migrants
transnational identity and their relation to the nation-state and nationalism.
Huntington SP (2005) Who Are We? New York: Free Press. Huntington analyses Americas multiculturalization stemming from the massive immigration of Mexicans. He considers that demographic explosion as causing a Clash of Civilizations within the US borders that alters the
identity of the society. It jeopardizes the US identity, which, in his view, is given shape by
the Anglo-Protestant culture, the English language, the rule of law, work ethic, education, and
upward mobility. Up to recently, immigrants adopted this culture as a means to thrive within
American society. However, says Huntington, Mexicans are different due to the proximity of
the original homeland, regional concentration, historical presence, a religious faith that is not
Protestantism, and a language that is itself a world language.
Laguerre MS (2006) Diaspora, Politics and Globalization. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Laguerre takes an innovative approach to the analysis of migration studies by focusing on
the understanding of the relationships among migrants, their specific localities in their home
countries, and their everyday practices in the receiving societies. This approach transcends
current views in migration studies. He speaks of a radial relationship with the home country
where migrants communicate among themselves and with the home country simultaneously.

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

856

Current Sociology Review 61(5-6)

In viewing the diaspora from a global perspective, the author reveals a new theory of interconnectedness in migration, which questions the relevance of the notion of transnationalism.
Taylor C (1994) Multiculturalism (expanded paperback edition), ed. Gutmann, A with commentary
by KA Appiah, J Habermas, SC Rockefeller, M Walzer and S Wolf. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press. This new edition of Multiculturalism and The Politics of Recognition
brings together a range of prominent philosophers and social scientists to debate the essentials
of contemporary multiculturalism. Charles Taylors original question to which he answered
positively asked about the capacity of liberal democratic regimes to endorse the recognition
of different legacies. This debate is joined, in this volume, by Habermas, Appiah, and others
who question the tensions implied by multiculturalism for institutions and collective identities
as well as for religious, gender, ethnic, and other social categories.

References
Alba R and Nee V (2003) Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary
Immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Alba R and Nee V (2007) Assimilation. In: Ritzer J (ed.) Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology.
Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Alexander JC, Eyerman R, Giesen B etal. (2004) Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Anderson B (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
rev. edn. London: Verso.
Anthias F (1998) Evaluating diaspora beyond ethnicity. Sociology 32(3): 557580.
Appadurai A (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Bade KJ and Oltmer J (eds) (1999) Aussiedler: deutsche Einwanderer aus Osteuropa. IMISSchriften, Bd. 8. Osnabrck: V& R Unipress.
Banton M (2008) The sociology of ethnic relations. Ethnic and Racial Studies 31(7): 12671285.
Barth F (ed.) (1969) Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture
Difference. Boston: Little, Brown and Co.
Baubock R (1994) Transnational Citizenship. Aldershot: Edward Elgar.
Baubock R (1998) The crossing and blurring of boundaries in international migration: Challenges
for social and political theory. In: Baubock R and Rundell JF (eds) Blurred Boundaries:
Migration, Ethnicity, Citzenship. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 1752.
Baubck R (2010) Cold constellations and hot identities: Political theory questions about transnationalism and diaspora. In: Baubck R and Faist T (eds) Diaspora and Transnationalism:
Concepts, Theories and Methods. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp. 295321.
Bauman Z (2000) Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bayar M (2009) Reconsidering primordialism: An alternative approach to the study of ethnicity.
Ethnic and Racial Studies 32(9): 16391657.
Beck U (1992) Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.
Ben-Rafael E (2001) Ethnicity, sociology of. International Encyclopedia of the Social and
Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 7. London: Elsevier, pp. 48384842.
Ben-Rafael E (2002) Jewish Identities: Fifty Intellectuals Answer Ben-Gurion. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
Ben-Rafael E (2003) Multiculturalism and multilingualism in Israel. In: Hary BH (ed.) Corpus
Linguistic and Modern Hebrew. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, The Chaim Rosenberg School
of Jewish Studies, pp. 3960.
Ben-Rafael M and Ben-Rafael E (2009) The linguistic landscape of transnationalism: The divided
heart of Europe. In: Ben-Rafael E and Sternberg Y (eds) Transnationalism: Diasporas and the
Advent of a New (Dis)order. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 399416.

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

857

Ben-Rafael

Ben-Rafael E and Sternberg Y (2009) Epilogue: Chaos and gestalt. In: Ben-Rafael E and Sternberg Y
(eds) Transnationalism: Diasporas and the Advent of a New (Dis)order. Leiden and Boston:
Brill, pp. 687692.
Bernstein M (2005) Identity politics. Annual Review of Sociology 31: 4774.
Bhabha HK (2004) The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
Bowen JR (2004) Beyond migration: Islam as a transnational public space. Journal of Ethnic and
Migration Studies 30(5): 879894.
Brubaker R (1992) Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Brubaker R (2001) The return of assimilation? Changing perspectives on immigration and its
sequels in France, Germany, and the United States. Ethnic and Racial Studies 24(4): 531548.
Brubaker R (2009) Accidental diasporas and external homelands in Central and Eastern Europe:
Past and present. In: Ben-Rafael E and Sternberg Y (eds) Transnationalism: Diasporas and
the Advent of a New (Dis)order. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 461482.
Calhoun C (ed.) (1994) Social Theory and the Politics of Identity. Oxford: Blackwell.
Camus R (2011) Decivilisation. Paris: Fayard.
Cavalli-Sforza LL, Menozzi P and Piazza A (1994) The History and Geography of Human Genes.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Cheran R (2004) Diaspora circulation and transnationalism as agents for change in the post conflict zones of Sri Lanka. Berlin Berghof Foundation for Conflict Management
Cheung GCK (2004) Chinese diaspora as a virtual nation: Interactive roles between economic and
social capital. Political Studies 52: 664684.
Clark Hine D and McLeod J (eds) (1999) Crossing Boundaries: Comparative History of Black
People in Diaspora. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Clarke PB (ed.) (1998) New Trends and Developments in African Religions. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press.
Clifford J (2003) On the Edges of Anthropology. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.
Cohen R (1994) Frontiers of Identity: The British and the Others. London: Longman.
Cohen R (1997) Global Diasporas. An Introduction. London: UCL Press.
Cohen R (2001) Diaspora. In: Smelser NJ and Baltes PB (eds) International Encyclopedia of the
Social and Behavioral Sciences. Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 36423645.
Cohen R (2007) Solid, ductile and liquid: Changing notions of homeland and home in diaspora
studies. QEH Working Paper Series No. 156
Constable N (1999) At home but not at home: Filipina narratives of ambivalent returns. Cultural
Anthropology 14(2): 203228.
Covers C and Vermeulen H (eds) (1997) The Politics of Ethnic Consciousness. New York: St
Martins Press.
Dufoix S (2008) Diasporas. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Dustmann C, Frattini T and Theodoropoulos N (2010) Ethnicity and second generation immigrants in Britain. CReAM Discussion Paper Series 1004, Centre for Research and Analysis of
Migration (CReAM), Department of Economics, University College London.
Edwards JR (2010) Minority Languages and Group Identity: Cases and Categories. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins
Eisenstadt SN (2001) The vision of modern and contemporary society. In: Ben-Rafael E with
Sternberg Y (eds) Identity, Culture and Globalization. Leiden: Brill, pp. 2547.
Eriksen TH (1993) Ethnicity and Nationalism. London: Pluto Press.
Fanon F (1965) The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Weidenfeld.
Franklin HJ and Moss A (2001) From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans. New
York: McGraw-Hill.

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

858

Current Sociology Review 61(5-6)

Fraser A (1995) The Gypsies (The Peoples of Europe), 2nd edn. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
Fung C (1999) Some thoughts on the state of Chinese diaspora studies. In: Pan L (ed.) The
Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Geertz C (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.
Ghosh-Schellhorn M (2006) Anglophone India and its Diasporas. Berlin: LIT Verlag.
Giddens A (1991) Modernity and Self Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Gilroy P (2004) Between Camps: Nations, Cultures and the Allure of Race. London: Routledge.
Glazer N (1997) We Are All Multiculturalists Now. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gleick J (1987) Chaos: Making a New Science. London: Cardinal.
Glick Schiller N, Basch L and Blanc-Szanton C (1992) Towards a Transnational Perspective
on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity and Nationalism Reconsidered. New York: New York
Academy of Sciences.
Glick Schiller N, Basch L and Blanc-Szanton C (1995) From immigrant to transmigrant:
Theorizing transnational migration. Anthropological Quarterly 68(1): 4368.
Gold SJ (2007) Race and ethnic consciousness. In: Ritzer J (ed.) Blackwell Encyclopedia of
Sociology. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Goldring L (2002) The Mexican state and transmigrant organizations: Negotiating the boundaries
of membership and participation. Latin American Research Review 37: 5599.
Gomez ET and Hsin-Huang MH (eds) (2004) Chinese Enterprise, Transnationalism, and Identity.
London: Routledge Curzon.
Green C (ed.) (1997) Globalization and Survival in the Black Diaspora: The New Urban Challenge.
Albany: State University of New York Press.
Hall S (1990) Cultural identity and diaspora. In: Rutherford J (ed.) Identity, Community, Culture,
Difference. London. Lawrence and Wishart, pp. 222237.
Heckmann F and Schnapper D (2003) Introduction. In: Heckmann F and Schnapper D (eds)
The Integration of Immigrants in European Societies: National Differences and Trends of
Convergence. Stuttgart: Lucius and Lucius/The European Forum for Migration Studies, pp.
914.
Hollinger DA (1995) Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism. New York: Basic Books.
Hossein-Zadeh I (2005) The Muslim world and the West: The roots of conflict. Arab Studies
Quarterly (ASQ) 27(3): 112.
Huntington SP (1996) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York:
Simon and Schuster.
Huntington SP (2005) Who Are We? New York: Free Press.
Jenkins R (2007) Ethnicity. In: Ritzer J (ed.) Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Malden, MA:
Blackwell.
Laguerre MS (2003) Urban Multiculturalism and Globalization in New York City: An Analysis of
Diasporic Temporalities. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Laguerre MS (2006) Diaspora, Politics and Globalization. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Laguerre MS (2009) The transnational network nation: Diaspora, homeland, and hostland. In:
Ben-Rafael E and Sternberg Y (eds) Transnationalism: Diasporas and the Advent of a New
(Dis)order. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 195210.
Levi-Strauss C (1961) Race et histoire. Paris: Gonthier.
Levi-Strauss C (1977) Anthropologie structurale. Paris: Plon.
Levitt P (2001) The Transnational Villagers. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Levitt P and Glick Schiller N (2008) Concpetualizing simultaneity: A transnational social field
perspective on society. In: Kahgram S and Levitt P (eds) The Transnational Studies Reader.
New York: Routledge, pp. 284298.

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

859

Ben-Rafael

Lo L and Wang S (1997) Settlement patterns of Torontos Chinese immigrants: Convergence or

divergence? Canadian Journal of Regional Science 20(12): 4972.
Louie A (2000) Re-territorializing transnationalism: Chinese Americans and the Chinese motherland. American Ethnologist 27(3): 645669.
Ma L and Cartier C (eds) (2004) The Chinese Diaspora: Space, Place, Mobility and Identity.
Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Matsuoka A and Sorenson J (2001) Ghosts and Shadows: Construction of Identity and Community
in an African Diaspora, 2nd edn. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Morawska E (2003) Immigrant transnationalism and assimilation: A variety of combinations and
the analytic strategy it suggests. In: Joppke C and Morawska E (eds) Toward Assimilation
and Citizenship: Immigrants in Liberal Nation-states. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
pp. 133176.
Mnz R (2002) Ethnos or demos? Migration and citizenship in Germany. In: Levy D and Weiss Y
(eds) Challenging Ethnic Citizenship: German and Israeli Perspectives on Immigration. New
York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 1535
Nagata J (2005) Christianity among transnational Chinese: Religious versus (sub)ethnic affiliation. International Migration 43(3): 99128.
Odem ME and Lacy E (eds) (2009) Latino Immigrants and the Transformation of the U.S. South.
Athens: University of Georgia Press.
Oh CJ (2007) Role of homeland in preserving diaspora identity: The case of Korea and Turkeys
engagements with the Korean and Ahiska Turkish diasporas in Central Asia. Journal of
Central Asian and Caucasian Studies (JCACS) 2(4): 156172.
Ostergaard-Nielsen EK (2001) Transnational political practices and the receiving state: Turks and
Kurds in Germany and the Netherlands. Global Networks 1(3): 261281.
Nederveen Pieterse J (2009) Globalization and Culture: Global Mlange. Lanham, MD: Rowman
and Littlefield.
Ratcliffe P (2010) Ethnic group. Available at: Sociopedia.isa
Roy O (2006) Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah. CERI Series in Comparative
Politics and International Studies. New York: Columbia University Press.
Safran W (1991) Diasporas in modern societies: Myths of homeland and return. Diaspora 1(1): 8399.
Safran W (2004) Deconstructing and comparing diasporas. In: Kokot W, Tllyan K and Alfonso C
(eds) Diaspora, Identity and Religion. London: Routledge, pp. 929.
Schatzki TR (1996) Social Practices: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Human Activity and the
Social. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schnapper D (2005) Ethnic revival and religious revival in providential democracies. In:
Ben-Rafael E and Sternberg Y (eds) Comparing Modernities. Leiden and Boston: Brill,
pp. 205221.
Scholl BJ (2001) Objects and attention: The state of the art. Cognition 80(12): 146.
Schrag P (2010) Not Fit for Our Society: Immigration and Nativism in America. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Sheffer G (2003) Diaspora Politics: At Home Abroad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shils E (1957) Primordial, personal, sacred and civil ties: Some particular observations on the
relationships of sociological research and theory. British Journal of Sociology 8(2): 130145.
Skinner EP (1993) The dialectic between diasporas and homelands. In: Harris JE (ed.) Global
Dimensions of the African Diaspora. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, pp. 1140.
Smith AD (1992) Chosen peoples: Why ethnic groups survive. Ethnic and Racial Studies
15(3): 440449.
Smith AD (1996) Memory and modernity: Reflections on Ernest Gellners theory of nationalism.
Nations and Nationalism 2(3): 371383.

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

860

Current Sociology Review 61(5-6)

Skefeld M (2006) Mobilizing in transnational space: A social movement approach to the formation of diaspora. Global Networks: A Journal of Transnational Affairs 6(3): 265284.
Sommers UK (1991) Inventing Latinismo the creation of Hispanic panethnicity in the United
States. Journal of American Folklore 104(411): 3253.
Soysal YN (1994) Limits of Citizenship: Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Soysal YN (2000) Citizenship and identity: Living in diasporas in post-war Europe? Ethnic and
Racial Studies 23(1): 115.
Spencer S (2006) Race and Ethnicity: Culture, Identity and Representation. London and New
York: Routledge.
Stone J and Dennis R (eds) (2003) Race and Ethnicity: Comparative and Theoretical Approaches.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Tan C (2003) Living with difference: Growing up Chinese in white Australia. Journal of
Australian Studies 27(77): 101112.
Taylor C (1994) Multiculturalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Thelen D (2009) Rethinking history from transnational perspectives. In: Ben-Rafael E and
Sternberg Y (eds) Transnationalism: Diasporas and the Advent of a New (Dis)order. Leyden
and Boston: Brill, pp. 169180.
Tllyan K (1996) The Armenian diaspora. Unpublished paper.
Tsing A (2000) The global situation. Cultural Anthropology 15(3): 327360.
Tsuda T (2003) Strangers in the Ethnic Homeland: Japanese Brazilian Return Migration in
Transnational Perspective. New York: Columbia University Press.
Urry J (2002) The global complexities of September 11th. Theory, Culture and Society 19(4):
5769.
Urry J (2005) The complexity turn. Theory, Culture and Society 22(5): 114.
Van der Berghe P (1970) Race and Ethnicity. New York: Basic Books.
Vermeulen H (2010) Segmented assimilation and cross-national comparative research on the
integration of immigrants and their children. Ethnic and Racial Studies 33(7): 12141230.
Vertovec S (1997) Three meanings of diasporas. Diaspora 6(3): 277297.
Waldinger R (2011) Immigrant transnationalism. Sociopedia.isa.
Weber M (1977) Economy and Society, ed. Roth G and Wittish C. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Wimmer A (2008) Elementary strategies of ethnic boundary making. Ethnic and Racial Studies
31(6): 10251055.
Yeoman B (2000) Hispanic diaspora. Mother Jones July/August.
Young G (2011) The Communist Experience in the Twentieth Century: A Global History through
Sources. New York: Oxford University Press.

Author biography
Eliezer Ben-Rafael is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Tel-Aviv University and past president of
the International Institute of Sociology. His recent works include Jewish Identities (2001) and Is
Israel One? (2005). His edited works include The Communal Idea in the 21st Century (2012),
Transnationalism: The Advent of a New (Dis)order (2009), Comparing Modernities (2005),
Sociology and Ideology (2003), and Identity, Culture and Globalization (2001).

Rsum
Les tudes des diasporas contemporaines adoptent un grand nombre de perspectives
diffrentes. Lune de leurs caractristiques la plus largement reconnue est leur capacit

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013

861

Ben-Rafael

adopter la double rsidence et concurrencer laspiration des cultures nationales

lunit socioculturelle. Linsertion des communauts diasporiques dans les socits
modernes a tendance aujourdhui roder leur singularit mais les symboles quelles
maintiennent ou continuent de crer peuvent encore justifier la reproduction culturelle
des entits transnationales. La distinction conceptuelle entre identit collective,
identification et procs didentification est utile lorsque lon considre que les diasporas
sont devenues un facteur de multiculturalisation des socits actuelles, tout en devenant
elles-mmes des entits multiculturelles, sous linfluence de cultures dominantes des
diffrents milieux o se sont installes ces communauts disperses. Les incohrentes,
voire chaotiques, ralits produites par ces contradictions aux yeux des observateurs ne
sont pas ncessairement perues en ces termes par leurs acteurs. Leur prsence au sein
des socits daccueil, leur impact sur les populations non diasporiques, les nouvelles
relations quelle crent entre les territoires ancestraux et les pays daccueil et leur efforts
pour promouvoir des espaces transnationales interconnects reprsentent de nouveaux
dveloppements qui contribuent faire avancer la socit vers une nouvelle re.
Mots-cls
diaspora, double rsidence, mondialisation, identit, multiculturalisme, transnationalisme,
espace interconnect, chaos
Resumen
Las disporas contemporneas han sido estudiadas desde muy diferentes perspectivas.
Un aspecto ampliamente reconocido es su capacidad de ilustrar cmo la doble residencia
desafa la aspiracin de unidad sociocultural de las culturas nacionales. La integracin en
nuevas sociedades hoy tiende a erosionar la singularidad de las comunidades de dispora,
aunque los smbolos que conservan o crean garantizaran su reproduccin cultural
como entidades transnacionales. La distincin conceptual entre identidad colectiva,
identificacin y proceso de identificacin es til cuando consideramos cmo las disporas
se han convertido en un factor de la pluralidad cultural de las sociedades contemporneas,
mientras que ellas mismas se vuelven entidades multiculturales a travs de la influencia de
las culturas prevalecientes en los diversos ambientes de sus comunidades dispersas. Las
realidades incoherentes hasta caticas que estas tendencias contradictorias generan
para el analista no son necesariamente percibidas en estos trminos por los actores. Su
presencia en las sociedades, su impacto en las poblaciones no-diaspricas, las nuevas
relaciones que se crean entre la patria originaria y la nueva y, sobre todo, su esfuerzo
como espacios transnacionales interconectados, representan desarrollos que contribuyen
para el camino de la sociedad hacia una nueva era.
Palabras clave
dispora, doble residencia, globalizacin, identidad, multiculturalismo, transnacionalismo,
espacio interconectado, caos

Downloaded from csi.sagepub.com by guest on September 12, 2013