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Diaspora
Eliezer Ben-Rafael
Current Sociology 2013 61: 842 originally published online 5 April 2013
DOI: 10.1177/0011392113480371
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480371
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CS
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
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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
844
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
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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.
846
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.
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Ben-Rafael
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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
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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.
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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.
852
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.
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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
854
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.
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Ben-Rafael
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.
856
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
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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.
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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
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