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[66.249.64.20|162.248.224.4]
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CEU PU - Deutsch
Közép-európai Egyetem

The Diaspora Model for Human Migration

Transtext(e)s Transcultures 跨文本跨文化

Journal of Global Cultural Studies

Home Numéros 4 The Diaspora of the Term Diaspora...

The Diaspora of the Term Diaspora: A Working-Paper of a Definition

The quest for a definition of diaspora seems an impossible task because of the plurality of historical experiences, trajectories and agendas. One of the first approaches into this matter (Safran’s typology 1991) tried to build a definition based on the idea of trauma, exile and nostalgia. However, it became evident that producing a definition based on the memories of one diasporic community (the Jewish experience) and thus, turning it into a paradigm, could be less fruitful than one could imagine. New approaches then, explored through a more ethnographic approach different roots/routes (Clifford, 1997) pointing not only to the variety of the histories, but also to the wider politico-economic conditions that instigate transnational movements and also, the epistemological framework that tries to comprehend the latter with the re-launching of the term diasporas. This essay will focus on ethnographic experience in the Greek communities of Georgia and how they apprehend the term diaspora and when the latter becomes relevant to their lives and why. In other words, I will argue that the question of “when is diaspora”, instead of what and why, could be a more fruitful approach in examining the wider socio-political issues that urge for the re-emergence of diasporas.

1 In 2006 the Institute of Migration Policy organized a conference in Athens entitled “Migration in Greece: Experiences, Policies and Perspectives”. The conference attracted a surprisingly large number of participants working on different aspects of migration. I myself presented a paper concerning the connection between diaspora and migration, where I tried to critically discuss the traditional definition of diaspora in relation to national perceptions and ideologies. After the completion of the presentation, one of the participants, a political scientist, criticized my approach, because it questioned the fundamental definition of diasporas as communities cut off from a certain national body.

2 I started my paper with this brief story in order to illustrate that, despite the engagement of many different disciplines with diasporas, a definition of the term could still be a complex affair. Furthermore, it shows that any similar attempt should take into consideration historical perceptions of nationhood, ideologies of belonging, and disciplinary boundaries. On the other hand, the realization of this difficulty might function as common ground among diverse experiences often described as diasporas. In this context, a straightforward definition might be a chimera, but studying the conditions that produce diasporas as socio-political and academic categories might be a more fruitful approach.

1 The concept became central in the work of many postmodern thinkers because of its potential emanci (...)

3 Time and space are the most important ingredients in the formation, but also the evocation of diasporas. The two dimensions shape the horizon upon which diasporas conceive themselves as communities, emerge as alternative national Others and rise in everyday discourses as part of the ways people perceive their past and future. The discussion of the latter involves expectations and memories, desires and losses. It endows places with almost sacred or utopian dimensions and it turns others to real or symbolic prisons. Taking a closer look at the construction of these fears and desires would contribute to a “from below” understanding of Diaspora and will point out to the way these hopes and desires take part in the micro-politics of the post-national and global. 1 In this paper, I will start with a discussion of certain theoretical conceptualizations of diasporas and then, I will turn to my ethnographic experience illustrating how different perceptions of past and future correlate with wider spatio-temporal frameworks involving the notion of diasporas and various expressions of utopias.

Debating Diasporas: From Typologies to Postmodern Diasporas

2 James Clifford, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century , Massachussets, Harva (...)

4 There is an innate opposition embedded in the etymology of the term diaspora , of Greek origin, which reflects how double-edged the concept can be: dia- (a preposition which, when used in compound words, means division and dispersion) and –spiro (literally, to sow the seeds). This suggests, on the one hand, the idea of dispersion and on the other, that of stasis and stability (sowing seed, suggesting new life and new roots). In this part of my paper, I will concentrate on the dominant theoretical frameworks that attempted to offer a conceptualization of these contradictions. I will first look at Safran’s approach, often used to describe the historical diasporas and then, I will turn to the postmodern ideas of the concept, mainly following Clifford. 2

3 K. Toloyan, “The Nation and its Others” in Diaspora , 1 (1), 1997, pp. 3-7.

5 Since the 1990s with the disintegration of the former Soviet Union and the following upheavals in world politics, diasporas have been reinvented in academia as “exemplary communities of the transnational moment”. 3 One of the first attempts to manage the proliferation of the use of the term belongs to William Safran. Based on the study of the Jewish historical experience, Safran tried to set the criteria in order to build a typology, according to which a community could be, or not, categorized as such. His criteria underlined the attachment of diasporas to an initial place of origin which through their collective memory and mythology is defined as their Homeland. At the same time, these communities grow a feeling of rejection in their host country, which increases their desire for return to the homeland. This return becomes an almost metaphysical destiny and contributes to the development of personal or more official ties with the homeland. Let’s try to test this view in the Greek communities of Georgia.

4 Liisa H. Malkki, “National Geographic: The rooting of peoples and the territorialization of nationa (...)

6 Safran’s argument is constructed around the notion of an original center, the homeland, which is naturalized and fixed. The etymological analysis of “diaspora” revealed an embedded dual metaphor between roots/routes. Research has pointed out that this binary opposition becomes as natural as subjective and political. 4 For instance, the communities of Pontic-Greeks I have worked with and that originate from the Black Sea coast of Turkey (known in the Greek historiography with the name of Pontos) have always presented an ethnological and linguistic diversity well documented in historiography since ancient and Byzantine times.

7 The administration system of the Ottoman Empire (millet), which was based on the religion of the infidel communities permitted, at least to a certain extent, the perpetuation of cultural diversity, as long as the communities fulfilled their tax obligations. This way, local identities often weaved around various cultural and linguistic idioms were preserved, something that was supported by the inexistence of a Greek national center until the 19 th century. The decentred character of these communities strengthened their appreciation of these local cultures expressed in their traditions, idioms and community histories. This factor makes any strict outline of the homeland as the initial center rather difficult, if not unproductive. Safran’s approach in the above ethnographic context might result in the homogenization of these diverse experiences or memories of dislocation both internally (social and cultural organization of the group) and externally (in comparison to other groups with similar historical backgrounds). Furthermore, it will naturalize the center (metropolitan Greece) which became important much later, as I will illustrate.

5 Clifford, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century .

8 In contrast, there is another intake in the definition of diasporas that tries to be anti-essentialist, in the sense of not connecting diasporic communities to a center/nation-state or the feeling of loss and return. Clifford considers diasporas as a new form of consciousness, collectivity and solidarity in a period that fragmentation and deterritorialization are praised as dominant paradigms. 5 What is essential for the definition of diasporas, here, is their comparability. In other words, what is important is to compare diasporas with national histories, indigenous ideologies, policies of assimilation in order to understand how in this context, dispersion is often stigmatized and marginalized. Against these forces of homogeneity, diasporic groups often find recourse to a discourse of nostalgia praising difference. In this way, diasporas form a reaction to the described political and cultural hegemony. On the other hand, they often construct relations to transnational movements (political, cultural, religious) that try to overcome the obstacles of national boundaries and territoriality.

6 See Benedict Anderson, “The New World Disorder”, in J. Vincent, The Anthropology of Politics. A Re (...)

9 Although this approach to diasporas might seem less homogenizing, a closer look might raise questions. Clifford invests too much in the hybrid and deterritorial character of diasporas. As experience has shown diasporas - the Greek example examined here is illustrative - are not indifferent to nationalism. 6 Furthermore, the double consciousness (here and there) attributed to these communities is rather presented as a general characteristic that endows diasporas with an emancipatory force from the boundedness and other constraints of nation-states. However, double consciousness is not a common idiom of all diasporas, but a feeling of belonging to certain contexts or one of rejection from others. Furthermore, this feeling does not necessarily exclude homogeneity. For example, the Greek-Georgians in Batumi (western Georgia) compare and consider themselves “more Greeks” than other Greek communities in Georgia, based on their own linguistic competence, in comparison to the Turkish-speaking Greeks (Romioi) of Tsalka (central Georgia).

7 Brent Hayes Edwards, “The uses of Diaspora”, Social Text, 19: 1, 2001, pp. 45-74, and Brent Hayes E (...)

10 In this part, I examined two dominant approaches to diasporas. The former depicts diasporas as an indivisible part of national histories, whereas the latter apply the term to various communities taking into account their deterritorialization and non-essentialist identity running often the risk of succeeding the opposite. The examination of the wider social, cultural and economic context that leads to the formation or evocation of diasporas is a crucial part of the quest for a definition. Brent Hayes Edwards argues for a definition, which “forces us to articulate discourses of cultural and political linkage only through and across difference”. 7 Edwards associates diaspora with cultural and political linkages across communities that retain their differences and distinctiveness, but also, they move beyond. I think that this point on difference is crucial for the discussion of the emergence and use of diasporas since it avoids the essentialist discourses mentioned before, without though excluding the use of such discourses by the diasporic groups themselves. Difference is a constitutive element of representation and as a result it is context-bounded and empties the discourse of diasporas from risky generalizations.

Other Places: The Greeks in Batumi

8 Achara comprises the following ethnic groups 93,4 % Georgians, 2.3 Armenians, 0,6 Greeks, 0,4 Abkha (...)

11 In the previous part, I tried to briefly present some dominant questions that relate to the discussion of diasporas and their examination. Here, I will turn to my ethnography in order to depict how Greek-origin Georgians discuss diaspora issues. I arrived in Batumi in May 2004 on the same day that the new Georgian president visited the city after the removal of the local governor, who had been accused of dictatorial tendencies. The new Georgian flag adorned all the public buildings and many private houses. Batumi is the capital of Achara, in south-western Georgia, which belonged to the Ottomans for almost 300 years (16 th -19 th centuries). As a result, it includes a considerable Muslim Georgian population. 8

9 Achara had been an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Soviet Georgia since 1921 (ASSR). After (...)

12 Achara was granted autonomous status in the Soviet period; after independence the authorities saw this as the cause of many problems. 9 Tensions were intensified by the former governor of Achara, Aslan Abashidze, whose family ties to the region were particularly strong; his family played a vital role in the liberation of Achara from the Ottomans. The region, and especially Batumi, is wealthy because of the port – the biggest in Georgia – and the customs posts along the border with Turkey, which control most of the cross-border trade. I was meeting a representative of the Greek local association. Ania arrivedright on time. She was in her early forties, well-dressed in professional attire, though less elegant than the women of Tbilisi. We left the hotel to visit the community club, owned by the association in Batumi.

13 ‘You know, Achara is special in Georgia because there are so many minorities living together’, Ania told me as we are walking towards Argos. ‘Do these minorities that you mentioned still lead a good life in Achara?’ I asked. ‘We have become fewer as you can imagine. But there are still minorities, Armenians, Ukrainians, and Russians. The president of our association is also the president of the committee of all the diasporic communities in Achara and our office here is the headquarters of the entire organisation’. ‘Is there a big association?’ I asked. ‘It used to have more members, but still. Membership is not restricted to Greeks. We have Armenians, Russians, and a French person married to a Pontic-Greek in our “Greek-Georgian Friendship Club” as we call our association.’ ‘Was there any specific reason for selecting this name?’ Ania responded enthusiastically. ‘It’s because I think that expresses our mission better. With all these various peoples living together in Achara, we influence each other and in the end you get an amalgam. Like the Greek-Georgians that live in Greece. Because, you know, we are not Greeks like you. We are Greek-Georgians.”

10 Michel Bruneau, “Ē diaspora tou Pontiakou Ellēnismou ke I Ellēnes tēs prōēn ESSR, ē edafikē skhesē” (...)
11 Artemis Leontis, Topographies of Hellenism. Mapping to Hellenism, Ithaca/ London: Cornell Universit (...)

12 Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848 , London: Abacus, 2002.

14 Batumi is represented in the Greek history of the Black Sea as the cradle of the most affluent Pontic communities in Georgia in the 19 th century. Families of merchants migrated to the area of Batumi between 1878 and 1881. 10 Since the 1830s though, these migrations were parallel to the foundation of the Greek state and a gradually developed program of Hellenization. The ‘Hellenic’ was constructed in the western literary imagination long before Greece came into existence as a state. As Leontis argues, for the western imagination of the 18 th century Hellas was a place that existed in reality, but at the same time it seemed to belong to the realm of myth, imagined as the space of the mythical European origin, the birthplace of European values and spirit. 11 This perception inspired almost all the educated, merchant Greek families living dispersed in the Balkans and the Black Sea region, and who started to feel more connected to each other because of the gradual opening of the market and the increasing commercial opportunities that took place in the region in the 18 th century according to Hobsbawm. 12

13 In the Greek historiography, the Greek diaspora is divided into three periods: 1. Late 14th century (...)
14 Michael Herzfeld, Anthropology Through the Looking-Glass: Critical Ethnography in the Margins of E (...)

15 In the 19 th century, with nationalism rampant throughout the West, the common goal of independence transformed these Greek groups into a ‘Greek diaspora’. 13 When Greece was founded during the 1830s, the relation with its diasporas changed because the gradually empowered national center wanted to be recognized as the only legitimate center of Greekness, something that launched the question of authenticity among the various Greek groups. 14 A Hellenization project (schools, Greek language books, centralized curriculum, Greek priests and teachers, opening of consulates in the areas where Greek diasporic communities lived) started to be applied among various diasporic communities, those in the Black Sea and the Caucasus included. Because of the social and economic background of the community in Batumi, a high number of its members either attended Greek schools in Pontos or sponsored similar ones in Georgia. The result of this fact is registered in what I have heard in Tbilisi, “If you want to see real Greeks who speak real Greek you should go to Batumi” (my emphasis) – friends in Tbilisi told me. It also illustrates how the re-education of these diasporas in the past affected their hierarchization in the present. The different linguistic or cultural traditions did not disappear, but they were politicized living traces in today’s identity politics. For example, the comparison between the Greek and Turkish-speaking Greek communities of Georgia is a case that should be taken into account.

15 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space , Oxford: Blackwell, 1991 [1974].

16 In ancient Greek, the term was used in rhetoric to refer to a stock theme or expression that could (...)

17 Lefebvre, pp. 22-23.

18 Arjun Appadurai, “The production of locality”, in R. Fardon [ed.], Counterworks: Migration the div (...)

16 According to Lefebvre, our perception of space reflects the dialectics between practice, conception and imagination. 15 The Greek center was constructed through western imagination, contradictory ideas and traditions about Greekness and state policies, for example among the Pontic communities and metropolitan Greece. Following once more Lefebvre, we must also consider how social spaces generate different “topoi” 16 (in plural). 17 In other words, how space is transformed in a more personalized, historicized and localized experience and how people emplace themselves in it. As a consequence, we should consider how the community in Batumi formed their own social space and identity not only in relation, but also, against or through the Greek, national history. 18

19 Hayden White, “The Future of Utopia in History”, in Historein. A Review of the Past and Other Stor (...)

20 White, p. 11.

17 This im-placement is tied to history according to White. 19 He considers history as “a congeries of ‘places’ (topoi)”, 20 different placements in time and place, a process which becomes distinct and meaningful by systems of control, or, as Foucault would say, regimes of power and knowledge. In the dominant paradigm of Modernity, time is depicted as linear and progressive, in the same way that space is imagined as homogenous and continuous. Nevertheless, a closer look at the Greek imagination of the pre-revolutionary period seems to underline the role of the idealized past and the role of ancient Greece stressed within the Enlightenment project. At the same time, the hellenization project focused on the concentration of these fragmented and decentred diasporic communities around the Athenian center.

21 Foucault was interested in the institutionalized “sites” of power, categorized “counter-sites” into (...)
22 Edward W. Soja, “Heterotopologies: A Remembrance of Other Spaces in the Citadel-L.A.” in Strategie (...)

23 David Harvey, Spaces of Hope , Edinburgh: University Press of Edinburgh, 2000.

24 Michel Foucault, “Of Other Spaces” in Diacritics , Spring: 1, 1986, pp. 22-28.

18 In this framework, these communities exist in reality, but they are different for this emerging center of power. They are “counter-sites” 21 real spaces that nevertheless, contest all other spaces, which lack the illusion of utopias and they can be reached only “through a different way of seeing, a different interpretive analytics”. 22 These different lenses are not unrelated to issues of power. 23 However in his discussion of the distinction between these two topoi, Foucault (1986) uses reality in order to compare utopias and heterotopias. 24 Although this division, real/unreal, in the light of postmodernism could be considered as invalid, I think that Foucault points to a different time framework. Utopias are directed towards the future, whereas heterotopias are towards the present. This interpretation could help our discussion of how both (future/present) are connected and transformed into horizons of interpretations of memories and desires.

25 See Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope Vol. 3 , Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986, for a discussion (...)

19 These interpretations, I think, are central in the study of diasporas, because they fuse space and time blending together desire, latency and expectation, necessary ingredients of the so-called nostalgia of the diasporas. 25 In this framework, diasporas could emerge, at certain times, as categories of alternative being, living and feeling challenging the dominant one. This is important, because, as I have shown, the creation of the Greek nation-state fixed a legitimate center of Hellenism, based on imaginations of the past, which cultivate desires for the future regarding these other Greek places, such as the diasporic communities, as satellites of the center. These diasporic communities started to be considered as same but different, less authentic than the Greek center, but still Greek, and thus, they needed to be re-educated. Greece, that was conceived as European heterotopias, started to produce its own.

26 Partly this vision supported the ideology of expansion of Greece beyond its borders in early 20th (...)

20 During this processes “nation-state” became the almost metaphysical destination of diaspora, its destiny and an evangelized utopia. 26 The focus in the production of different conceptualization of time and space forces us to re-conceptualize the center as such, as well as its mechanisms to construct otherness. This examination also gives us the opportunity to consider how these other places, such as the aforementioned diasporic communities, might have alternative perceptions of Greekness that emerge from their particular historical experience, influenced by the central utopian project of the 20 th century: the formation of the Soviet Union. In the following part, I will examine how some of these perceptions that Ania mentioned above rise as a result of the Soviet engineering.

Alternative Realities

21 In the previous part, I discussed the impact of the creation of the Greek nation-state on the formation of a Greek diaspora. I argued that the engagements of various Greek-speaking communities in the project of ethnogenesis produced a Greek diasporic consciousness. At the same time, I pointed out that the formation of the Greek state transformed these diasporic communities to topoi of dispersion from the “original” center. Experiencing Otherness as well as different historical conditions contributed to the alternative ways that Ania and their people conceive themselves. In this part, I will illustrate how the wider socio-economic relations between West/East generated, and how other ideas and imageries regarding Nation/Diasporas among the Greeks in Batumi generate.

27 Following Marx’s ideas about nations, Lenin considered them in his early writings, as a pathogen of (...)
28 Fredric Jameson, “Introduction/Prospectus: To reconsider the relationship of Marxism and Utopian T (...)

22 Ania referred to symbiosis and amalgamation. She spoke of difference as resulting from the “special character” of her region. But what is this special character? The Greeks who lived in Georgia in the 1920s were far from a homogenous group, as I have discussed. After the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War that lasted until 1921, the reactions of the peoples of the former Russian Empire obliged Lenin to reconsider his stance on the idea of nations 27 . According to Jameson, Marxism offered two important aspects to the utopian thought of the 19 th century: presentism (the future is embedded in the present, firstly, in economic terms, for example industrialization as a way to accelerate the birth of a working class), and the social agent of change (the proletariat). 28 The history of the Soviet Union, especially in the first years was a struggle between the utopian ideas and the pragmatics of the political landscape of the country.

29 Eleni Sideri, “Cosmopolitanism in the Black Sea: from imperial Russia to the Stalinist deportation (...)

23 Lenin reconsidered his social engineering by stressing the instrumentality of nations as a form of creating solidarity, especially when the expression of these national feelings was oppressed by the Tsarist regime. In this framework, he shaped his project of national awareness and development launched in the 1920s in the Soviet Republics, as part of ‘ korenizatsiya ’ (rooting) in order to create a new social and political order. In this context, Greek language school started to function and a new generation of Greek language teachers was trained in Georgia. Respect to national sensitivities was eliminated after 1929 with the gradual enforcement of the Stalinist planning for the increase of the industrial production at the expense of the rural structures of the country. The political terror, that accompanied this program, was sealed for the Greeks of Western Georgia (Batumi and Sukhumi) with their deportations in 1949. 29

30 The Marxist tradition considers bourgeois ideology as a form of false consciousness, whereas social (...)
31 Fredric Jameson, I arkheologies tou mellontos. I epithymia pou legete outopia [Archaeologies of th (...)
32 Wallenstein, quoted from Ruth Levitas, “For Utopia: The (limits of the) utopian function in late c (...)
33 Susan Buck-Morris, Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The passage of mass Utopia in East and West , Cambri (...)

24 Stalinism increased the distance between the utopia and its daily bureaucratization and enforcement. Within this context, the utopian world that was evangelized in the time of the Revolution gradually became part of the Party’s rhetoric and an ideological idiom. 30 The economic and political centralization turned the initial vision of change into a nightmare, a dystopia, a term that emerged in 1950, according to Jameson 31 due to the totalitarianism of this period that strengthened the belief in the West that utopias are “breeders of illusions and therefore, inevitable, of disillusions”. 32 The post-war years are formative for the emergence of what would soon be called the other side of the Iron Gate. This period contributes to the construction of the total Other/Enemy, as Buck-Morris argued, which had an enormous impact on the coherence of the imaginary and was based, “on a politically imaginary of mutually exclusive, potentially hostile nation-states”. 33

25 Although Stalinism was traumatic for the Greek communities of western Georgia (they were deported in 1949), Ania seems to “forget” this part of her past, maybe as a way to underline her present needs and losses, as I will discuss. She chooses to shift her narrative to the idealized Soviet rhetoric regarding the co-existence of nationalities. As Khrushchev (1953-64) believed, the peoples living in the Soviet Union were destined to come closer dialectically through the blooming of their ethnic cultures until their final merging into the supranational category of the “Soviet People”. This natural, almost metaphysical merging would occur independently of the nationalities’ own will. Khrushchev failed to explain exactly what the utopian category of the Soviet People meant or to lay down a timetable for its establishment: his announcement thus expressed wishful thinking rather than a pragmatic political agenda. The various ethnic cultures did in fact flourish, but this did not lead to their gradual rapprochement. On the contrary, it strengthened the sense of living separately under an umbrella system intended to provide basic economic and social services to all, a general line that was followed with variations in rhetoric, by his successors. In this context, for Greeks like Ania, Greekness is detached from the territoriality of the Greek nation-state and becomes a political component of their “Sovietness”.

34 Eleni Sideri, “In quest of Eastern Europe: troubling encounters in the post-Cold War field” in Ant (...)

26 In the meanwhile, post-war Europe was about to produce another duality between Eastern/Western Europe. The Soviet Union as political space after World War II has constituted a social and political Other that acted as an important oppositional pole to ‘the West’. This role as the West’s Other became a key factor in the shaping of assumptions about ourselves and the others since the beginning of the Cold War. However, with the emergence of the latter in the case we are discussing, Nation and Diaspora are being separated in opposing ideological camps. For the official Greek state, and many Greeks without ties with these communities, the history Soviet Greeks, as they were known, was silenced for many years, until the late 1970s. During this period, diaspora seems to fall into disuse as social and political category of belonging. Many of the stereotypes regarding social regress that the Greeks from Georgia had to confront when they migrated to Greece since the 1990s, had their origin in that political division. 34

35 Ioanna Laliotou, “Timely Utopias: Notes on Utopian Thinking in the Twentieth Century”in Historein , (...)

27 The different experiences of this period contribute to the development of an alternative idea for the role diasporas have today. For Laliotou, the emergence of different potentialities of reality is embedded in the discussion of utopias whose return today has not been irrelevant to the political changes of the 1990s. 35 During this period, “diaspora” is been re-coined as a prominent analytical category. In this period, diaspora is seen as an important potential expression of collective identity constructed through different understandings and readings of the Nation and its history. Nevertheless, the concept of diaspora emerging in Ania’s narrative could be developed into a new vision regarding what the diaspora should be as a category of socio-political belonging.

36 See: Renee Hirschon, Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe. The Social life of Asia Minor Refugees in Pir (...)

28 Ania’s last statement expresses these differences about who should belong to the Greek diaspora. Ania used the hyphenated term “Greek-Georgian” to express her identity and to distinguish herself from me, trying to underline the special nature of her identity in comparison to mine. This was the only time I heard someone refer to such a designation in Georgia. Ania’s visit to Greece must have influenced her terminology. Anthropological works examining various aspects of the lives of the refugees who left Asia Minor and Pontos in 1922 and moved to Greece reveal their gradual integration into the present and past of the Greek nation-state through the creation of hyphenated identities. 36 However, Ania seems to understand this hyphenation in a different way.

29 Within these umbrella designations referring to broad areas of origin, where the refugees had lived the hyphenation does not refer to the linguistic form in Greek, but to the social value of these identities, which could be established only in relation to the dominant Greek identity. Greekness acted as the legitimate framework within which local cultures were expressed. These local identities representedthe cultural diversity and richness of Greekness, but raised no claims to political rights beyond this formal category. In this sense, political belonging to the Greek imagined community meant inclusion through subordination to a homogenous Greek identity that claimed to consist of the best of the subordinate local cultures.

30 Since the 1990s, globalization has questioned the meaning of “nation-state” and has been calling out for new, post-national forms of membership. In this framework, reimagining the past in the light of present conditions (migration from the former Soviet Union to Greece) and the future (repositioning of Greece in world politics) has become extremely important. For example, the political changes forced the Greek state to find new ways to approach old and new diasporas. The emerging vision of this global Hellenism was expressed institutionally with the creation of the Council of Greeks Abroad (SAE) in 1995. SAE is a non-governmental organization, whose mission statement emphasises:

The re-unification of the Hellenistic world and promotion of Hellenism in order to bolster lobbying power;

Economic, social and political strengthening of the Greeks abroad, especially the more vulnerable ones;

37 From the SAE official website: http://www.sae.gr/?id=12382&tag=ΣΑΕ%20Όραμα%20&%20Στόχοι.

Motivating all Greeks abroad to contribute to and participate in the SAE. 37

38 The Greek Nationality Law pays special attention to these factors.

31 Furthermore, in the revision of the Greek Constitution in 1999, article 108 clearly states: ‘The State provides for the maintenance of Hellenism Abroad and the preservation of its ties to the motherland’. It is obvious from its structure and mission statement that SAE is greatly concerned with the political agendas of the Greek state. Yet this global Hellenism is defined through the old vocabulary of the nation (common language, history, religion, culture). 38 In other words, it is global, but still to great extent centred.

39 William Safran, “Diasporas in modern societies: myths of homeland and return” in Diaspora , 1(1), 1 (...)

32 Once more, diaspora is considered as a subdivision of the Hellenic culture produced and defined by the national center, although this relation is seen through a transnational –but not completely decentred- organization. However this view of diasporas does not seem to remain unchallenged, as Ania’s interpretation of diaspora illustrates. Her hyphenation with the term Greek-Georgians encourages equality in her membership into two or more heritages and historical backgrounds. These contradictory considerations of the role of diaspora allude to different experiences of the past, different present needs and different aspirations for the future. Sargent suggests that the construction of national identity - and will add that of diasporic identity as well - is not unrelated to utopias of any form (heterotopias, dystopias or eutopias). 39 The study of how these specific forms are imagined and in what ways they relate to the idea of nation/diaspora might be rewarding in opening new paths to the discussion of new forms of political belonging.

The Definition as a New Quest

33 In this paper, I tried to examine the possibility of a valid definition of the term diaspora. I started with the discussion of two main approaches (Safran’s and Clifford’s) pointing out that, although both of them seem contradictory, they, nevertheless, lead to the same impasse. Then, I turned to my ethnography in Georgia (Batumi). I have shown that the polarization and politicization of Nation/Diaspora was a product of the European modernity. Then, I examined the different experiences and ideals of political membership between Greece and the Greek diasporic communities in Soviet Georgia. Finally, I drew my attention to the re-emergence of diasporas in the 1990s and the different desires from the Greek state and the Greek diasporas.

34 I argued that concentrating on the difficulty of inventing a definition regarding diaspora forces us to examine the historical context within which diaspora rises as a conceptual framework, but also how the latter is understood within and against human perceptions of time and space. Drawing from that point, I discussed the questions of topoi and I turned my attention to the conditions that generate various forms of utopias. By examining the historical factors that contributed to the creation of a Greek diaspora, I pointed to the imageries and practices that formed the context of its rise: the Enlightenment ideas, the political and economic exigencies of modernity that cultivated the European nationalisms, national state-building. However, diaspora history is not constructed only in connection, but also, in opposition to the national one. Thus, the examination of the diaspora in Batumi has shown the way that different socio-political experiences could lead to other demands and alternative visions of both past and future.

40 Difficulties in obtaining visas and the often traumatic experiences from migrations increased the i (...)
41 Antonis Liakos, "Utopian and thistorical thinking: interplays and transferences", p.47, in Histore (...)

35 Both these dimensions are encountered in the feeling of nostalgia that seeks to map new life trajectories. Ania by “forgetting” deportations focused in her narrative on the Soviet ideal of full and equal participation to civil rights. Although this remained a dream for many of the Soviet citizens, the ideal is alive for people like Ania who feel that they are deprived today from what they consider their rights. 40 In this way, Ania negotiated her community’s experiences and memories in the light of today’s problems and losses. This negotiation might generate nostalgia, but not in Safran’s sense (pain for the loss of the homeland). Instead, as Liakos puts it, nostalgia is the means to envisage “the future in a different way from what has been realized, and re-enacting the possibilities of the past in juxtaposition to the present”. 41 This re-enactment involves strategies of remembering or forgetting, claiming authenticity and superiority, disenchanting the anti-essentialism of post-modern diasporas found in Clifford’s definition.

42 Jameson, I arkheologies tou mellontos , p.20.

43 See Zygmunt Bauman, Life in Fragments. Essays in Postmodern Morality , Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, (...)
44 Peter G. Stillman, “’Nothing is, but what is not': Utopias as Practical Political Philosophy”, p. (...)

36 Jameson argued that unsuccessful utopias might be the more effective since they leave behind a vacuum that could be satiated with desires and daydreams. 42 The fall of the Soviet Union was characterised as the end of History, which was translated as triumph of capitalism. However, hopes were soon disillusioned by the discontents of globalization. 43 In this context, the re-emergence of utopias not as systematic projects, but more as “critical impulses” or comment on the social life becomes prominent. 44 The question is how the latter could be translated into such ways both in terms of content as well as of form in order to become meaningful. In this framework, diasporas have re-emerged in socio-political and academic vocabulary trying to map new political contingencies with nation, but also move beyond, embracing the transnational prerequisites of the economic landscape. However, a fixed definition of diaspora or one resulting only in relation to the nation is hardly satisfactory. In today’s context, where the discussion for equality and more open forms of political membership is more acute than ever, diaspora re-emerges as an identity with use-value, but contradictory understandings for Ania and her people, as well as the Greek foreign policy. However, as Edwards postulated, the examination of the meaning of diaspora becomes meaningful only “though and across difference”. In this way, the embedded contradictions and ambiguities could be revealing wider meanings, potentialities and expectations expressed through the concept in different periods, and this may help us comprehend the dialectics of desire and power.

1 The concept became central in the work of many postmodern thinkers because of its potential emancipatory force against the social-political structures of capitalism and inspired the agenda of micro-politics, see Gilles Deleuze, Anti-Oedipus , Minneapolis, University of Minessota Press, 1983 and Jean-François Lyotard, The P ostmodern C ondition , Minneapolis, University of Minessota Press, 1984. However, the abstractness and the appraisal of the deterritorialized individual, which are embedded in these approaches, have rather weakened this project from its social and political force.

2 James Clifford, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century , Massachussets, Harvard University Press, 1997. William Safran, “Diasporas in modern societies: myths of homeland and return” in Diaspora , 1 (1), 1997, pp. 83-99. Here, I present only two works in order to sketch how different approaches tried to define the human experience labeled as diaspora because of their influence and almost exemplary status. There are, of course, many other that criticize the aforementioned models and tried to move beyond.

4 Liisa H. Malkki, “National Geographic: The rooting of peoples and the territorialization of national identity among scholars and refugee” in Cultural Anthropology, 7 (1), 1992, pp. 24-44.

6 See Benedict Anderson, “The New World Disorder”, in J. Vincent, The Anthropology of Politics. A Reader in Ethnography, Theory and Critique , Oxford: Blackwell, 2002, pp. 261-270.

7 Brent Hayes Edwards, “The uses of Diaspora”, Social Text, 19: 1, 2001, pp. 45-74, and Brent Hayes Edwards, The P ractice of Diaspora: Literature, Transition and the Rise of Black Internationalism , Cambridge Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2003, p. 13.

8 Achara comprises the following ethnic groups 93,4 % Georgians, 2.3 Armenians, 0,6 Greeks, 0,4 Abkhazians, 0,2 Ukrainians, 0,2 others (Wikipedia, 2002) . See also T. Sakhokia, Mogzaurobani. Guria, Achara, Samur Zaqano, Apkhazeti [Travel writings. Guria, Achara, Samur Zaqano, Aphazi],Batumi: Sabch’ot‘a Ach’ara, 1998.

9 Achara had been an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Soviet Georgia since 1921 (ASSR). After Georgia’s independence, it kept its autonomy.

10 Michel Bruneau, “Ē diaspora tou Pontiakou Ellēnismou ke I Ellēnes tēs prōēn ESSR, ē edafikē skhesē” [The diaspora of the Pontic Hellenism and the Greeks of the former USSR, the territorial realtion] in Michel Bruneau [ed.], I diaspora tou Pontiakou Ellinismou , Thessaloniki: Herodotos, 2001.

11 Artemis Leontis, Topographies of Hellenism. Mapping to Hellenism, Ithaca/ London: Cornell University Press, 1995.

13 In the Greek historiography, the Greek diaspora is divided into three periods: 1. Late 14th century-19th century, featuring migration of the Greek population from the Byzantine center – Constantinople – to the West, 2. 1830s (foundation of the Greek state) to World War II, featuring migration from Greece to southern Russia, the Caucasus and North and South America and 3. Mid-1940s to 1970s, featuring migration from Greece to the Americas, Australia and Western Europe (West Germany). The temporal and geographical span shows the complexity and diversity of the communities labelled and homogenised as Greek Diaspora. See Iannis K. Hassiotis, Episkopisē tēs istorias tēs neoellēnikēs diasporas [Review of the history of the modern Greek diaspora] , Athens: Vanias, 1993; and Michel Bruneau, “Ē diaspora tou Pontiakou Ellēnismou ke I Ellēnes tēs prōēn ESSR, ē edafikē skhesē” [The diaspora of the Pontic Hellenism and the Greeks of the former USSR, the territorial realtion] in Michel Bruneau [ed.], I diaspora tou Pontiakou Ellinismou , Thessaloniki: Herodotos, 2001.

14 Michael Herzfeld, Anthropology Through the Looking-Glass: Critical Ethnography in the Margins of Europe , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

16 In ancient Greek, the term was used in rhetoric to refer to a stock theme or expression that could impress the audience. In Modern Greek it means “place”. This double meaning illustrates Lefebvre’s point that space is “used” and “written”.

18 Arjun Appadurai, “The production of locality”, in R. Fardon [ed.], Counterworks: Migration the diversity of Knoweledge, London: Routledge, 1995, pp. 204-225.

19 Hayden White, “The Future of Utopia in History”, in Historein. A Review of the Past and Other Stories , vol. 7, 2007, pp. 11-20.

21 Foucault was interested in the institutionalized “sites” of power, categorized “counter-sites” into six major functional categories that ultimately risk being overly general and restrictive. However, as Harvey underlines, Foucault’s attempt to turn our attention to the heterogeneity of perceptions of discourse remained uncompleted since the French philosopher does not proceed to the construction of an alternative reading that could result to various forms of emancipation and resistance avoiding essentialism.

22 Edward W. Soja, “Heterotopologies: A Remembrance of Other Spaces in the Citadel-L.A.” in Strategies 3, 1990, pp. 6-39, p. 8.

25 See Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope Vol. 3 , Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986, for a discussion of various cultural forms permeated with hope of organizing life in the West.

26 Partly this vision supported the ideology of expansion of Greece beyond its borders in early 20th century.

27 Following Marx’s ideas about nations, Lenin considered them in his early writings, as a pathogen of the bourgeois societies used to control the means of production and obstruct the working class alliances. In 1913, Stalin in his “Marxism and the National Question” ( Works, Vol. 4, 1917-1920 , Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1953, pp.300-382), expressed the official Bolshevik line on the issue arguing that the nation was a historical formation whose existence should not be denied but which was far less important than class.

28 Fredric Jameson, “Introduction/Prospectus: To reconsider the relationship of Marxism and Utopian Thought”, pp. 362-363, in Michael Hardt and Kathi Weeks, The Jameson Reader , Oxford: Blackwell, 2004, pp. 361-368.

29 Eleni Sideri, “Cosmopolitanism in the Black Sea: from imperial Russia to the Stalinist deportations and the post-Soviet diasporas”, Association of Social Anthropologists (ASA)-UK, 6, 2006, pp. 10-14.

30 The Marxist tradition considers bourgeois ideology as a form of false consciousness, whereas socialist ideology might hide emancipatory and revolutionary possibilities. Bloch, however, believes that there are deceptive and emancipatory qualities in both ideologies and utopias (Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope Vol. 3 ).

31 Fredric Jameson, I arkheologies tou mellontos. I epithymia pou legete outopia [Archaeologies of the future. The desire called utopia and other science fictions.], Vol. 1 , Athens: Topos, 2008.

32 Wallenstein, quoted from Ruth Levitas, “For Utopia: The (limits of the) utopian function in late capitalism society” in B. Goodwirn [ed.], The Philosophy of Utopia , London: Franc Cass, 2001, pp. 21-44

33 Susan Buck-Morris, Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The passage of mass Utopia in East and West , Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000, p. 13.

34 Eleni Sideri, “In quest of Eastern Europe: troubling encounters in the post-Cold War field” in Anthropology Matters , 8:1, 2006. Available online at: http://www.anthropologymatters.com/journal/2006-1/ sideri_2006_inuest.pdf.

35 Ioanna Laliotou, “Timely Utopias: Notes on Utopian Thinking in the Twentieth Century”in Historein , 7, 2007, pp. 58-71.

36 See: Renee Hirschon, Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe. The Social life of Asia Minor Refugees in Pireus , New York/Oxford: Bergham Books, 1989; Patricia Fann, “The Pontic Myth of Homeland: Cultural Expressions of Nationalism and Ethnicism in Pontos and Greece 1870-1990”, Journal of Refugee Studies , 1991, Vol. 4(4), pp. 340-357; Maria Vergeti, Apo ton Ponto stēn Ellada. Diadikasies diamorfōssēs mias ethnotopikis taftotētas [From Pontos to Greece. Processes of formation of an ethno-regional identity] , Thessaloniki: Afi Kyriakidi, 1994; Anastasia N. Karakasidou, Fields of wheat, hills of blood: Passage to nationhood in Greek-Macedonia 1870-1900 , Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2000.

39 William Safran, “Diasporas in modern societies: myths of homeland and return” in Diaspora , 1(1), 1991 pp. 83-99.

40 Difficulties in obtaining visas and the often traumatic experiences from migrations increased the intensity of this feeling.

41 Antonis Liakos, "Utopian and thistorical thinking: interplays and transferences", p.47, in Historein , 7, 2007, pp. 20-58.

43 See Zygmunt Bauman, Life in Fragments. Essays in Postmodern Morality , Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1995, and Postmodernity and its Discontents , New York: New York University Press, 1997.

44 Peter G. Stillman, “’Nothing is, but what is not': Utopias as Practical Political Philosophy”, p. 19, in B. Goodwin [ed.], The Philosophy of Utopia , London: Frank Cass, pp. 9-25.

Bibliographical reference

Eleni Sideri , “The Diaspora of the Term Diaspora: A Working-Paper of a Definition” , Transtext(e)s Transcultures 跨文本跨文化 , 4 | 2008, 32-47.

Electronic reference

Eleni Sideri , “The Diaspora of the Term Diaspora: A Working-Paper of a Definition” , Transtext(e)s Transcultures 跨文本跨文化 [Online], 4 | 2008, Online since 14 October 2009 , connection on 25 May 2024 . URL : http://journals.openedition.org/transtexts/247; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/transtexts.247

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Eleni sideri.

Associate Professor, School of Oriental and African Studies (London)

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Indian diaspora in Ghana: cultural and family heritage of tourists' travel preference

PurposeThe literature has acknowledged the importance of diaspora studies because of the influx of funds into the local economy, including the tourism and hospitality sector. However, little empirical research appears to be known about the subject matter, principally within the developing country perspective. This study aims to respond to research calls by investigating the impact of diasporic cultural heritage, family heritage on travel preference of West African Indian migrant visitors to their homeland.Design/methodology/approachThis research is guided by the theory of acculturation. A quantitative data were gathered from a sample of 312 diasporas, and the regression analysis was used to analyze the data.FindingsThe study finds that cultural heritage and family heritage have positive and significant impact on travel preference of migrant visitors to their homeland. Further analysis of the independent sample t-test reveals a significant difference between Indian Ghanaians and Ghanaian Indians in their thought of cultural heritage. However, no significant differences were found in the Indian Ghanaian and Ghanaian Indian’s family heritage and travel preference to their homeland.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is destination-specific of Indian migrant visitors. The application of the study’s outcome to other diaspora would demand a larger sample size for generalization to be made. The study offers compelling insights on cultural heritage, family heritage and travel preference to marketing a diaspora tourism site.Originality/valueThe study expands the application of the theory of acculturation within the diaspora literature and establishes that integration and separation strategies of the theory explain the positive interests of the migrant visitors’ traveling preference to their homeland.

DIASPORA IDENTITY: CASE STUDY OF NAIPAUL’S FICTION IN A FREE STATE

The literature produced at global level by dispersed community that has common ancestral homeland is known as the literature of Indian diaspora. Indian communities are spread all over the major countries of the world. The total population of Indian diaspora in the world is near about twenty million. People from India settle abroad and maintain a strong bond with motherland. The diaspora literature have certain important features, that separate their writing from the mainstream of contemporary writers. The Indian writer have brought diaspora literature at world wide recognition. Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul was famous writer of Indian origin had he has great contribution in diaspora literature. KEYWORDS: Diaspora, Homeland, Dispersed, Indentured, Expatriate, Exile, Migration.

Առած-ասացվածքների լեզվաոճական առանձնահատկությունները Նշան Պեշիկթաշլյանի երգիծավեպերում

Armenian satirical literature has rich traditions and deep roots. The genre of satire reached its apogee in the 19th – 20th centuries, particularly in the works of such Western Armenian writers as Hagob Paronian and Yervand Otian. Being one of the most brilliant satirists in the Diaspora literature, Nshan Peshiktashlian followed the legacy of the Western Armenian writers.

Utilizing the Chinese Diaspora by Russian Firms: Capabilities and Legitimacy Implications

ABSTRACT This article examines the impact of foreign diasporas on host country firms. It contributes to diaspora research by focusing on the context of emerging market host countries and the specific case of Chinese diaspora in Russia. Drawing on the concepts of organizational capabilities and organizational legitimacy, we explain how the Chinese diaspora can be beneficial for the competitiveness of Russian firms, and how Russian firms can uniquely leverage these potential benefits through engagement with individual Chinese diasporans and diaspora institutions. Our article adds to the diaspora literature in several ways. First, unlike the majority of past research, which tends to focus on the benefits for the diaspora's home country, we highlight the potential impact on host country firms, specifically their capabilities and legitimacy at home and abroad. Second, our model can be viewed as a direct response to the many calls in the literature to study the microfoundations of firms’ capabilities. Third, we add to the legitimacy literature by proposing that engagement with a foreign diaspora can help host country firms establish and maintain their legitimacy both at home and on a global scale. Although our framework is informed by the Chinese diaspora in Russia, we discuss its generalizability to other contexts.

Contours of Resistance: The Postcolonial Female Subject and the Diaspora in the Punjabi Short Story

Diaspora literature and theory offer significant critiques of traditional ideas regarding nation-states, identities and dominant cultures. While it is true that the literature of the diaspora has been receiving increasing attention as of late, it is worth noting that works written in the diasporans’ native languages are generally not included in wider discussions about the more complex issues related to the diaspora. As an initial corrective for this deficiency, this article explores selected stories in Punjabi, paying special attention to issues relevant to the lives and experiences of women in diaspora. Diasporic conditions, as most of these stories seem to assert, can be painful for women, but even while negotiating within a diverse system of values, many of them eventually discover possibilities for independence and growth. Such personal improvements are attainable due to their newfound economic liberation, but hard-won economic independence comes with a price. The inclusivity implied by identitary hyphens (i.e. Chinese-American; Mexican-American, etc.), so celebrated in diaspora writings in English, are almost as a rule missing in the fictional accounts studied here. In these accounts, an essential feature of diasporic subjectivity is the double sense of “Otherness” strongly felt by people who, having extricated themselves from the cultural demands of their original group, are not unchallenged members of the dominant culture.

Delphine Fongang, ed. The Postcolonial Subject in Transit: Migration, Borders, and Subjectivity in Contemporary African Diaspora Literature. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018). pp. 176.

Diaspora tamils and their creative efforts in historical perspective.

Humans usually migrate from their native at different times and under different natural and artificial conditions. Meanwhile, they intend on to record the tragedies, sufferings and crises that they underwent in the time of their diaspora. Such records create some new literary genre in a particular language. They are included foreign literature, refuge literature, diaspora literature etc. In that respect, this respect, this research examines the tamils – eelam tamils in diaspora and their creative efforts. On the other hand, this research brings out the scenario of not only the eelam tamils but also about the diasporas humans in various places of the world.

“Take Me Back to My Homeland Dead or Alive!”: The Myth of Return Among London’s Turkish-Speaking Community

In classical diaspora literature, the “myth of return” has major significance. It is believed that the “myth of return” is embedded in the minds of immigrants from their arrival. This paper examines post-migration mobilities of the Turkish-speaking community in North London as well as the shift in narratives of homeland among diaspora communities; from the “myth of return” to ritual-like visits or mundane pilgrimages. My ethnographic study analyses the post-migration homeland visiting patterns of the Turkish-speaking community into four categories. I discuss how narratives of episodic homeland visits and the desire to be buried in the homeland have replaced the myth of return.

Is there room for diaspora literature in the internet age?

History in the attic: search for roots in ramabai espinet’s the swinging bridge.

In most of diaspora literature there is an attempt to retrieve the past. This makes one measure time in many ways, different calendars, change of seasons, past encounters narrated through wars, defeats, encounters and disasters. It is remembered through family history, ancestral heritage, nostalgia, memory and even through national disasters. This interaction portrays the immigrants caught in flight of memories, relationships and images. The relocation has its disgust for one thing or the other. The author has to live in the reminiscences, a collective memory representing a symbolic relationship between past and present. The Swinging Bridge by Ramabai Espinet chronicles the multiple exiles that are part of the Indian experience in the Caribbean and Canada through two figures one from the past- great grandmother Gainder and the other from the present - Mona, the protagonist. The novel commemorates the maternal roots and routes of Indo-Caribbean history by establishing the subjectivity of widows and young girls from India who crossed the Kala Pani (Black waters of the Atlantic) in search of new beginnings in Trinidad and the great-grand-daughter who engages in an existential quest for selfhood in Canada. Grief motivates a flood of personal memories as Mona begins to remember intimate details of family life that had been repressed under the cover of migration. Bits and pieces of the past, fragments scattered in various places, childhood memories, overheard conversations, prayer songs, all come together in the attic. She explores the secret songs, photographs and letters giving her a powerful voice for her culture, her family, her fellow women and for herself. Mona’s drive to document history enables her to reveal the family’s carefully guarded secrets- domestic violence, drunken rampages, sexual abuse, illegitimate children, and even AIDS. This paper seeks to analyse the novel’s diasporic contents and find out whether this attempt at retrieval of the past brings about a change in the perception of today’s generation. The author brings to light the problems of a plural society calling for need for relationships and need for mutual respect- all to avoid conflict situations through this effective tracing of history in the novel.

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Exploring Diasporic Identity in Adichie's Americanah

Taking Bhabha's concept of hybridity as an analytical tool, the present study aims to explore the process and problems of diasporic identity, its process, and problems through the protagonists' diasporic experiences in Chimamanda's Americanah through inductive approach by using textual analysis. The newness and attractiveness of a host land and the rootedness of a homeland problematize life for Ifemelu, the protagonist. She struggles hard to cope with the diasporic situation; however, the dominant narrative of identity and belonging of a host country does not assimilate her who live in an "in-between" space. As a result, she is torn between two cultures without any stable base for her genuine identity and is in continuous struggle for constructing, deconstructing, and reconstructing her genuine identity.

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This paper analyses various recurring themes among diasporic writing and life itself. It attempts to trace the reminiscences of a romanticized/ un-romanticized homeland that migrated individuals live-with in a new land. The central idea of the paper is to bring to light the psychological alienation that diasporic individuals feel even after living for a considerable period of time in a new place and that too having been moved semi-voluntarily. With a study of different characters and events from the novel, The Namesake, it tries to implore Robin Cohen’s idea that not all the migrated population could by default be classified as diasporic. Also, role of memory in daily discourse and in overall functioning of life for this community is discussed (as dealt by Aisha Khan in her essay.) A part of it would also be focusing upon Dibyesh Anand’s proposal of diaspora as a moving concept; linking it with Aisha khan’s views about how memorialization takes different forms over generations.

Research Guru: Online Journal of Multidisciplinary Subjects (Peer Reviewed)

Dr. Jaydeepsingh G Rao

Displacement from the motherland, nostalgia, craving for acceptance, and establishment in foreign land are characteristics of a diasporic dilemma. Migration from one place to another, from one land to another is always unpleasant situation and nostalgic. If harassment persists there on the new soil, the immigrant becomes nostalgic and craves for the homeland. Migration may be due to economic necessities, geographical hardships, and socio-political reasons. In the present context, it has become very common for people to settle on the new soil. On account of the issues like homeland, identity and race have become topic for discussion. Literature truly mirrors the change in the society because of immigrant and identity crisis. The Indian women novelists of nineties have depicted the change in migration and mobility. Women writers like Shobha De, Githa Hariharan, Manju Kapur and others have delineated the theme of immigration and identity crises in their novels. Shahi Despandey primarily focuses on the struggle of women to search their identity in the context of Indian Society. Manju Kapur`s „The Immigrant‟ about migration the complications arise in setting on the new soil. The novelist depicts the sense of drift and identity crisis during her stay in Canada.

Subrata Kumar Das

Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine Professor Awarded Prestigious Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship

By Bryan Luhn — 713-743-0954

Student, Faculty and Staff Success
Health and Medicine

Dr. Omolola Adepoju, health services researcher and clinical associate professor at the University of Houston’s Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine, has been awarded a prestigious Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship to support high-caliber scholarly research and education projects at the University of Ghana Medical School.

Adepoju, who was recently named director of the Humana Integrated Health System Sciences Institute at UH, will spend three weeks in Ghana this summer.

“I chose Ghana because I have deep connections there,” Adepoju said. “This opportunity is truly humbling as it allows me to return to my roots in an academic role in the same country where my father was born and the same institution where he graduated.”

Among the projects Adepoju will work on during her visit is the development of an inter-institutional medical rotation program that will give students at the Fertitta Family College of Medicine a new and unique educational experience.

“Being a Carnegie Fellow shows the University’s commitment to global health initiatives and will help me better prepare our students to join an increasingly diverse workforce,” Adepoju said. “Exposing them to different healthcare systems, cultural practices and diseases that are prevalent in these regions is invaluable for producing well-rounded and culturally competent primary care physicians.”

Adepoju is a world-renowned scholar and innovative researcher whose groundbreaking work focuses on health care inequities and outcomes in underserved communities and the non-medical drivers of health. She sees this fellowship as a golden opportunity to highlight the College of Medicine’s mission on the world’s stage.

“Houston is the fourth largest and most diverse city in the U.S.,” Adepoju said. “Building partnerships like this will enable us to collaborate on research, create joint academic programs and exchange faculty which will only raise our profile globally.”

The Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program is designed to strengthen capacity at the host institutions and develop long-term, mutually beneficial collaborations between universities in Africa, the United States, and Canada. It is funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and managed by the Institute of International Education (IIE) in collaboration with the Association of African Universities. Since the program’s inception in 2013, nearly 650 African Diaspora Fellowships have been awarded for scholars to travel to African countries.

With $5M NASA Grant, University of Houston to Open Aerospace Engineering Research Center

With a multi-million-dollar grant from NASA, the University of Houston will open an aerospace engineering research center to extend human presence on the moon and Mars for sustainable, long-term space exploration, development and utilization.

Science, Energy and Innovation

May 10, 2024

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The University of Houston System Board of Regents will soon welcome a new student voice to the table. UH graduate student Tomas Bryan was announced as its student regent and will be formally sworn in at a future board meeting.

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Published: 14 May 2024

2023 summer warmth unparalleled over the past 2,000 years

Jan Esper ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3919-014X 1 , 2 ,
Max Torbenson ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2720-2238 1 &
Ulf Büntgen 2 , 3 , 4

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Including an exceptionally warm Northern Hemisphere (NH) summer 1 ,2 , 2023 has been reported as the hottest year on record 3-5 . Contextualizing recent anthropogenic warming against past natural variability is nontrivial, however, because the sparse 19 th century meteorological records tend to be too warm 6 . Here, we combine observed and reconstructed June-August (JJA) surface air temperatures to show that 2023 was the warmest NH extra-tropical summer over the past 2000 years exceeding the 95% confidence range of natural climate variability by more than half a degree Celsius. Comparison of the 2023 JJA warming against the coldest reconstructed summer in 536 CE reveals a maximum range of pre-Anthropocene-to-2023 temperatures of 3.93°C. Although 2023 is consistent with a greenhouse gases-induced warming trend 7 that is amplified by an unfolding El Niño event 8 , this extreme emphasizes the urgency to implement international agreements for carbon emission reduction.

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Jan Esper & Max Torbenson

Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic

Jan Esper & Ulf Büntgen

Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

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Esper, J., Torbenson, M. & Büntgen, U. 2023 summer warmth unparalleled over the past 2,000 years. Nature (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07512-y

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Forgotten Spaces: Ecocriticism Social Justice, and the U.S. South (Collection of Essays)

The U.S. South is often a forgotten space within ecocritical discussions, yet it provides fruitful ground for thinking about environmental issues. In 2019, in the first edited collection of essays on the topic, Zachary Vernon notes that focusing attention on this bioregion might help “provide a way out of the limitations of thinking too locally or too globally,” and it might inspire a group of stakeholders to come to the table as well (7). One problem with ecocritical approaches is the long history of representing the U.S. South as an “internal other in the national imagination: colonized, subordinate, primitive, developmentally arrested, or even regressive” (Watson 254). Another issue is that both the environmental humanities and Southern studies have frequently been white spaces. This proposed anthology convenes a conversation about the U.S. South and environmental issues with an eye towards social justice. We seek theoretically-sophisticated essays attentive to intersections between race, class, gender, and sexuality within the U.S. South to round out our proposed collection. Interdisciplinary environmental research from a variety of frameworks and disciplines is welcome, including literature, film, art, history, popular culture, public memory, sociology, political science, and geography.

Questions to consider:

Why does the U.S. South seem like a forgotten space within ecocritical discussions?
How do we reach across entrenched divides and academic silos to engage in cross-disciplinary engagement with ecocritical concerns about the South?
What entanglements might we find between race, environment, gender, sexuality, class, and social justice?
How have artists, writers, activists, and cultural workers of color engaged with representing the environment, and what might their creative labor contribute to wider discussions beyond the academy?
How are rural and urban environments represented in the U.S. South? How are they represented from outside?
What constitutes the commons in the South? Was there ever really a Southern commons?
How are public parks, museums, and recreation areas curated in the South, and what might we learn about entanglements between race and the environment through attending to these spaces?
What is the history of traveling southward or leaving the South? What kinds of cultural constructions represent the region as a place to return to or escape from?
How might we interrogate Donna Haraway’s phrase “the plantationocene” to consider the vexed history of work, nature, and captivity in Southern spaces?
How might we consider Settler colonialism, genocide, and Indian Removal within an ecocritical framework? How has a legacy of Settler colonialist violence in the South impacted the environment?
Can indigenous practices, beliefs, and cultural production be mobilized towards a Southern ecocriticism?
What are the many varieties of experience within different souths?

Diaspora engagement: a scoping review of diaspora involvement with strengthening health systems of their origin country

Editt n. taslakian.

a Division of Plastic Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle, WA, USA

Kent Garber

b Department of Surgery, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Shant Shekherdimian

c Division of Pediatric Surgery, Department of Surgery, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Diaspora communities are a growing source of external aid and resources to address unmet needs of health systems of their homelands. Although numerous articles have been published, these endeavors as a whole have not been systematically assessed.

Examine the available literature to assess activities through which diasporas engage with the health system in their origin country and what barriers they face in their interventions.

This is a scoping review from 1990–2018 using the PRISMA-Scr framework to examine both peer-reviewed and gray literature on (1) specific activities through which diasporas contribute to the health system in their origin country; (2) major health needs diasporas have tried to address; and (3) barriers faced by diaspora healthcare efforts.

The initial search identified 119 articles, of which 45 were eligible after excluding non-relevant studies. These were case studies of diaspora contributions to health systems in their origin country (13), interviews (13), literature reviews (9), general articles on the topic (4), and correspondences or presentations (6). The healthcare needs diasporas have sought to address include health workforce emigration (‘brain drain’) (10), capacity building for research and training (10), inadequate infrastructure (5), and finances (4). Specific activities included short-term missions (11), establishing partnerships (9), emigration back to country of origin (8), specific research and training programs (8), and financial remittances (5). Specific barriers identified were most commonly financial need within the origin country (8), lack of sustainability (6), communication issues (6), lack of intention to return to the origin country (5), infrastructure (4), and political concerns (3).

Further research on how to expand the scope of and reduce barriers to diaspora engagement is needed to optimize the effectiveness of diaspora contributions to their origin countries. Metrics and standards should be developed for assessing impact of diaspora engagement and interventions.

Diaspora communities refer to populations from within a given territorial, national, or ethnic origin living abroad and having ties and exchanges of various types with the communities both in the origin country and destination country [ 1 ]. Over the past quarter-century, diaspora populations have grown significantly, reflecting the unprecedented levels of migration and forced displacement around the world [ 2 ].

Diaspora communities can be a powerful source of external development aid to their origin countries. Their contributions take many forms, including remittances (money transfers between individuals), charitable donations, partnerships, skill transfers, policy advising, and other forms of assistance [ 3 ]. In 2018, remittance flows of general aid to low and middle-income countries (LMICs) reached a record-high of $529 billion and are projected to become the leading source of external development aid globally within a few years [ 4 , 5 ]. Moreover, diaspora communities in many cases can relate more easily to the culture and practices of the homeland populations and thus can develop long-lasting and effective collaborations [ 6 , 7 ]. Over the past several years, the contributions of diaspora communities to the sustainable development in their origin countries have been acknowledged by global initiatives, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, and the Summits of the Global Forum on Migration and Development [ 8 ]. Major development agencies, bilateral aid organizations, and various NGOs have commissioned numerous studies and initiatives seeking to better harness diaspora development potential for economic growth [ 9 ]. Meanwhile, the growth of social media and other information technologies have helped diasporas organize and increase their visibility and discourse with their home communities [ 10 ].

In the health sector, although some articles regarding individual diaspora contributions have been published, these articles have not been systematically assessed. Household surveys in LMICs have demonstrated that a small but substantial percentage of remittances are spent on healthcare needs [ 11 ], and diaspora contributions to emergency humanitarian disaster responses are well-known [ 12 ]. However, diaspora contributions to healthcare appear to extend well beyond direct payments to individuals and disaster relief. A recent inventory of medical diaspora organizations based in four high-income countries found 89 such groups focusing on health service provisions and training in origin countries, professional networking, and supporting healthcare for displaced persons in host countries. Some of their activities focused on short-term humanitarian needs, but others had longer time frames and health system priorities. That study also found 68 LMICs that had set up diaspora offices to help coordinate or manage diaspora contributions [ 13 ].

These findings point to the growing interest from both diaspora organizations and policymakers to capitalize upon and streamline diaspora resources. However, no formal analysis of the priority, scope, and barriers relating to these efforts, based upon published literature, exists. As described by Aguinas, the effectiveness and impact of diaspora-centered institutions are historically difficult to assess; evaluations rarely exist, nor are they publicly available [ 14 ]. However, an analysis of the existing literature could provide insight into what is known about healthcare-related diaspora efforts thus far, and identify challenges and opportunities for supporting such efforts in the future. This scoping review seeks to examine the available literature regarding the following: (1) the specific activities through which diaspora communities contribute to the health system of their origin country; (2) the major health needs identified as problems that diasporas have tried to address; and (3) the barriers commonly faced by diaspora healthcare efforts in their countries of origin.

This study was designed as a scoping review using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist. Our goals were to map the available literature regarding diaspora contributions to the health system in their origin countries and the specific activities performed, needs identified, and barriers encountered in these efforts. As the literature on this topic is diverse, from peer-reviewed articles to gray literature, we cannot compare articles to one another as would be done in a systematic review. However, we can identify the types of available evidence on this subject.

We conducted a systematic search of the literature published in the English language from 1990–2018 to capture diaspora activities over the past quarter-century. The databases searched for peer-reviewed publications included PubMed, Google Scholar, Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid Embase, Business Source Premiere, and ERIC databases. The initial search terms were as follows: (‘diaspora’) AND (‘health’ or ‘healthcare’ or ‘medicine’ or ‘health system’) AND (‘contribution’ or ‘assistance’ or ‘aid’ or ‘training’). Search terms were entered as specific keywords rather than Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms as the latter produced an unacceptably broad set of search returns that were not specific to diaspora-related activities. Additionally, the gray literature was searched for non-peer-reviewed articles, using the same terms as above as well as additional terms sometimes used to describe characteristics of diaspora communities, including ‘expatriate,’ ‘migrant,’ ‘foreign-born,’ and ‘returnee.’ This search included archives of major development agencies such as the World Bank, World Health Organization, U.S. Agency for International Development, the Department for International Development, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zisammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Asian Development Bank, and Migration Policy Institute. Any additional citations from the supplemental review of reference lists from the search were also screened by the authors.

Articles were excluded if they were published prior to 1990, or if upon reading the abstract or text they were found to be not directly related to diaspora contributions to the health system of their origin countries. For example, articles regarding medical tourism, non-health related diaspora contributions to the country of origin (for example business-related, financial, other skills development, etc.), or health workforce emigration (also known as ‘brain drain’) without the involvement of diaspora activities were excluded.

Data was extracted with the following elements: author, publication year, type of study or article, diaspora origin country, diaspora destination country, the targeted need of origin country, type of intervention, evidence of impact (if any), evidence of sustainability (if any), and challenges or barriers identified to the activity. Data were charted independently by two authors (ET, KG) using a pre-developed spreadsheet containing separate columns for the above-specified elements. Results were compared and differences in data extraction or interpretation were discussed and, when necessary, reconciled by the third author (SS).

The search of peer-reviewed and gray literature available initially yielded one hundred and nineteen articles. Of these, ninety-seven were selected for full-text review after preliminary screening of titles and abstracts. Following the review, forty-five were eligible for the purposes of this scoping review ( Figure 1 ).

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is ZGHA_A_2009165_F0001_B.jpg

PRISMA flow diagram of scoping review articles [ 60 ]

In terms of article types, thirteen were case studies of specific diaspora contributions to health systems in their origin countries [ 15–27 ]; thirteen were studies involving interviews of health workers and key stakeholders [ 28–40 ]; nine were literature or systematic reviews of specific topics within the realm of diaspora healthcare aid to the origin country, for example HIV/AIDS financing in sub-Saharan Africa, disease control efforts, health system reviews of the origin country including aid from the diaspora, and reviews of institutions maintaining relationships with diaspora communities [ 12 , 14 , 41–47 ]; four were general articles on the topic [ 48–51 ]; and six were miscellaneous articles or correspondences regarding the topic [ 6 , 52–56 ].

Geographically, seventeen articles focused on diaspora contributions in sub-Saharan African countries, twelve in Eurasian countries, six in the Middle East/North Africa region, two in Southeast Asia, and six articles were global in scope or covered multiple regions (see Table 1 ). Specific countries with the highest number of articles were South Africa, India, Nepal, Somalia, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia. No studies were found from Central or South American geographical regions in the English language. Most of the articles (84%) were written in the last 10 years.

Geographic distribution of studies on diaspora healthcare contributions

Of the healthcare needs diaspora organizations have sought to address, health workforce emigration (ten articles) and limited capacity for medical research and quality training (ten articles) were most commonly discussed, followed by inadequate infrastructure (five articles) and finances (four articles) for various disease control efforts and quality improvements ( Table 2 ). Discussions of reversing health workforce emigration, also known as brain drain, tended to focus on the need for better quality in physician and healthcare training, rather than recruitment of any specialty-specific physicians, although one article discussed the lack of quality surgery-specific care [ 6 ]. Of the articles that focused on capacity building for research and quality, the most commonly identified needs were lack of international collaborations and networking opportunities, disease screening and primary prevention (such as for HIV), and lack of academic career development opportunities in national universities. Infrastructure problems that were cited included understaffed facilities, lack of financial commitments by the state to complete large projects, lack of nutrition resources (regarding maternal and child health in particular), and lack of data to set priorities [ 56 ]. For example, Poppe et al. conducted interviews with 27 sub-Saharan African health workers in Belgium and Australia and found that institutional and structural crises in their source countries, in combination with the positive living conditions in Europe, played a major role in their lack of intention to return, including concerns over health system infrastructure as well as the quality of education and security [ 30 ]. Fourteen articles discussed specific mechanisms or processes by which needs were identified, including surveys of expatriates and key stakeholders, formal needs assessments, and interviews of key informants.

Needs identified, activities undertaken, and barriers encountered by diaspora medical organizations

Specific activities undertaken by diaspora organizations were varied, including short-term mission trips and humanitarian or disaster aid (eleven articles) [ 12 , 17 , 23 , 24 , 29 , 30 , 39 , 40 , 42 , 49 , 54 ], establishing partnerships for knowledge and skill transfer with the diaspora (nine articles) [ 14 , 15 , 18 , 31 , 34 , 45 , 46 , 50 , 52 ], emigration back to country of origin (eight articles) [ 16 , 19 , 21 , 28 , 30 , 32 , 33 , 47 ], improving research and training programs within the country itself (eight articles) [ 18 , 20 , 22 , 25 , 27 , 48 , 51 , 53 ], and providing financial remittances (five articles) [ 21 , 41 , 43 , 44 , 55 ] to the country of origin ( Table 2 ). For studies that cited partnerships or training programs, these efforts commonly occurred between diaspora organizations and local health facilities or academic institutions. Several articles cited the UN Transfer of Knowledge through Expatriate Nationals (TOKTEN) program, which started in the late 1970s to recruit diaspora individuals to volunteer for short periods of time in their origin countries to provide mentoring or technical advising to the professionals in the origin country. Only one study cited unique partnerships or relationships between the diaspora organization and a government entity such as the ministry of health [ 14 ], including examples from Haiti, Bangladesh, Benin, Dominica, Georgia, India, Armenia, Lebanon, Mali, Serbia, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Yemen, and Syria within which there is a focus from government ministries to develop stronger links with the diaspora. Of those studies reporting return-country emigration, factors appearing to influence such decisions included poor work environment, insufficient pay, unsecured accommodation, political instability, poor education for children, and fear for personal safety.

Many barriers to effective diaspora engagement were cited, most commonly financial need of the origin country (eight articles) [ 12 , 28 , 30 , 32 , 40 , 41 , 44 , 51 ], followed by lack of sustainable follow-through by either the programs or the origin country (six articles) [ 19 , 23 , 37 , 39 , 48 , 56 ], lack of structured and regular communication among the partner organizations and the origin country (six articles) [ 15 , 16 , 27 , 31 , 34 , 56 ], lack of general intention to return to the origin country (five articles) [ 21 , 26 , 30 , 31 , 35 ], poor infrastructure (four articles) [ 17 , 37 , 40 , 48 ], and concerns of political instability (three articles) [ 30 , 36 , 51 ] ( Table 2 ). When authors cited ‘financial need of the origin country’ as a barrier, they typically meant that diaspora organization efforts were too small or under-resourced to effectively impact the scale of the identified problem. Reasons for poor follow-through and lack of sustainability included lack of commitment from government agencies [ 12 ], lack of overall resources [ 15 , 48 ], lack of appropriate organization and ongoing supervision of interventions [ 40 ], lack of indicators to regularly assess levels of engagement [ 39 ], and lack of structured communication between partners [ 15 ]. The most commonly suggested option for overcoming these barriers included increasing levels of support for diaspora activities by government agencies and local partners. Of the studies included in this review, none had specific objective metrics for measuring the effectiveness of interventions or activities to overcome barriers.

To our knowledge, this is the first study to review the existing literature on the topic of diaspora contributions to the health systems of their origin countries. There are inherent limitations to this study, as scoping reviews are intended to map the available literature rather than to provide higher quality assessment or extensive data analysis of the content found [ 57 ]. There is an overall lack of available literature published since 1990 regarding the topic of diaspora contributions to the health systems of their countries of origin. Much of the literature cited in this study lack objective measures of the outcomes of the programs or efforts described. In this regard, these studies cannot be compared side-by-side as they differ greatly in style and scope. There is ample opportunity to improve the available evidence base of these efforts should diaspora organizations choose to publish high-quality, peer-reviewed literature regarding their efforts and outcomes.

Limited as they may be, the overall findings of this scoping review suggest that diaspora communities have most frequently sought to address health workforce emigration and capacity-building needs for research and training for quality improvement. To address health workforce emigration, suggestions have included short-term return and facilitation of more permanent return through stakeholder collaboration [ 40 ], as well as scholarship schemes for training new doctors and nurses [ 17 ], telemedicine, and educational webinars [ 50 ]. The literature suggests that the most common activities that diaspora organizations have used to address the needs of their countries of origin have been through short-term medical missions and partnerships with the government or local organizations. However, long-term success in the sustainability of such programs has been hindered by financial issues within the origin country and lack of structured communication and follow-through, as well as a lack of general intention to return to the origin country, poor infrastructure, and political instability. One partnership that has shown success against this barrier is the Alumni Diaspora Fellowship Program between the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa) and Vanderbilt University Medical Center (USA) as described by Kramer and Zent in 2019, serving as a more recent example of a collaboration that is well-funded, allowing both the diaspora alumni to return to their country of origin for the partnership and also fund Wits researchers to visit the alumni in the USA, creating a two-way interaction and knowledge exchange [ 7 ].

Importantly, only a handful of the studies make explicit mention of how intervention priorities were selected. In the development sector, large organizations typically conduct formal needs assessments, stakeholder interviews, or surveys to identify priorities for investment or assistance, as well as to identify actors in the health space (e.g. NGOs, government, development agencies) that may be doing similar work. These types of formal assessments help ensure that interventions are appropriately tailored to local needs, avoid duplicating work that others may already be doing, prevent parallel systems from being set up, and establish a baseline against which impact can be assessed. From the studies reviewed in this analysis, it does not appear that these types of formal assessments are routinely done by diaspora health organizations, or at least they are not published in the literature if they do. This raises a critical challenge for optimizing diaspora contributions.

Several of the studies reviewed offered suggestions for how diaspora contributions might be more effectively leveraged, and how existing barriers could be overcome. These suggestions included encouraging diaspora healthcare professionals to return (short- or long-term) and teach at academic centers in the origin country as a means of ‘brain exchange,’ government recognition and support of medical diaspora organization activities, pooled funding models among organizations for larger investments, the establishment of Ministry-level institutions for diaspora engagement, telemedicine, and more.

It is evident that some barriers are more easily addressed than others. For example, government corruption has been cited as a deterrent to investment for certain diaspora communities. In those contexts, diasporas might be inclined to seek sustainable partnerships with more trustworthy partners, such as local academic or clinical institutions. At the same time, more needs to be understood about the effectiveness of government diaspora agencies in engaging diaspora stakeholders in policy discussions. These offices, which now exist in dozens of LMICs, could theoretically help to harmonize the efforts of diaspora organizations as well as other influential stakeholders, including development banks, NGOs, etc., towards tackling major problems within the origin country’s health system. However, little is known about what these offices have achieved, and how diaspora organizations view and interact with them. Ahmed et al. describe how in the current era of globalization, governments must better capitalize on their diaspora as an underutilized resource to reduce inequalities in care in their countries of origin [ 6 ]. Anand et al. in 2009 describe how diaspora scientists in the USA feel personally accountable to both the U.S. and their origin country institutions, which can help with research and training collaborations among the two for capacity building [ 48 ]. Frehywot et al. in 2019 published an inventory of low- and middle-income countries’ medical diaspora organizations from the USA, the UK, Canada, and Australia, showing a trend in three focuses of these organizations: providing healthcare services, training, and humanitarian aid when needed to their origin country; creating professional networks of migrant physicians; and supplying improved and culturally sensitive healthcare to the migrant population within the host country [ 13 ]. The lack of available data on diaspora organizations, however, remains a limitation in the identification and analysis of these efforts. There is an overall scarcity of articles available in the literature to discuss the role of diasporas and their activities. Similarly, there is a lack of guidance or standards for guiding diaspora engagement, such as a quality checklist for needs assessments, interviews, and the like in the initial determination of diaspora activities. There are toolkits to help start research partnerships, such as from the Canadian Coalition of Global Health Research (CCGHR) Principles for Global Health Research [ 58 ] and the UK Collaborative on Development Research (UKCDR) [ 59 , 60 ] available online, however, there are currently no formal guidelines specific for diaspora organizations to use to develop and measure the effectiveness of contributions to their origin countries. Such resources are paramount to the successful and meaningful bridging of diaspora aid and origin country needs. Government agencies involved with diaspora engagement can spearhead needs assessments of the healthcare sector within their countries by interviewing key stakeholders and organizations and then communicating these perceived needs to diaspora organizations that are interested in providing aid. Further assessments of how to expand the scope of and reduce barriers to diaspora engagement are also needed to optimize the effectiveness of diaspora contributions to their origin countries.

The establishment of a set of basic tools and indicators would be of great value for guiding diaspora activities and assessing the impact of diaspora interventions. For example, surveys could be created and validated to assess the diaspora perception of efforts and allow comparisons to the origin country organizations’ perceptions of the same efforts; these activities could help assess outcomes and barriers and guide future directions for ongoing partnership work. It is also important to note that engaging diaspora communities may not always have a positive outcome, and literature about failed partnerships or negative viewpoints regarding diaspora engagement may be rare. For example, Parekh et al’s article from 2016 discusses Malawian impressions of expatriate physicians as negative due to lack of understanding of culture-specific issues, poor adaptation to low resource settings, communication issues with patients, and self-serving or exploitative intentions [ 31 ]. This was the only study in our scoping review that directly focused on this topic. More formal assessments of the perceptions towards and impact of diaspora projects by the local communities they affect are needed to objectively characterize the impact.

Limitations of this study include inherent barriers with scoping reviews, such as a broad initial search with multiple structured iterations and hand-searching the literature. Inconsistencies are possible in the generalizations and grouping of articles as there was no consistent metric common among the articles for comparison. Many of the articles were found in the gray literature, which may be a weaker source of evidence compared to peer-reviewed articles. Our search included only English-language papers and thus we did not capture articles in other languages that might otherwise contribute to this review. Furthermore, our study was not designed to capture the work of diaspora individuals or groups involved with their origin countries who did not explicitly mention in their publications that they were members of a diaspora community. Our results and conclusions may be biased by the fact that much of the work done by diasporas is not published and is therefore under-reported, particularly if the efforts are not considered a success and not documented in the literature. As our study is based on published reports, we are likely capturing only the tip of the iceberg regarding diaspora contributions to health systems in their origin country, and there is an overall lack of metrics or other data to compare or track outcomes over time in a standard fashion.

Conclusions

The available literature suggests the most prominent areas of healthcare engagement by diaspora communities with their origin countries include addressing health workforce emigration and building capacity for research and training. Diaspora contributions to healthcare in their origin countries have largely focused on short-term missions and developing partnerships, however, sustainability of the programs and finances have been a common barrier to successful long-term engagement. More attention should be given toward sustainable responses that integrate into the origin country’s health system, such as performing needs assessments for better preparation and allocation of resources. In addition, metrics and standards should be developed for assessing the impact of diaspora engagement and interventions, as, despite many ongoing organizations and activities worldwide, such resources do not exist. As the current literature on the topic of diaspora engagement with the health system of their country of origin is limited, further and more formal assessments of these activities will be paramount to understanding and ultimately optimizing the efforts of diasporas in improving the quality of the health system in their origin countries.

All authors are responsible for the reported research. All authors have participated in the concept and design of the study, analysis and interpretation of the data, and drafting or revising of the manuscript. All authors have approved the manuscript as submitted.

Funding Statement

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Responsible Editor Stig Wall

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Paper context

The efforts of diasporas as a growing source of aid to address the needs of healthcare systems of their origin countries have not been systematically assessed. Our scoping review examines the literature about how diasporas contribute to healthcare in their home country and the barriers faced. Further research on how to expand the scope of and reduce barriers to diaspora engagement is needed, and standards should be developed for assessing the impact of diaspora interventions.

When Protectionism Kills Talent

We examine the repercussions of protectionist policies implemented in the United States since 2018 on the composition of workforce and career choices within the semiconductor industry. We find that the shift towards protectionism, aimed at reviving domestic manufacturing and employment, paradoxically resulted in a significant drop in hiring domestic talent. The effect is stronger for entry-level and junior positions, indicating a disproportionate impact on newcomers to the workforce. Additionally, we trace the trajectories of undergraduate and graduate cohorts possessing chip-related skills over time, and document significant shifts away from the chip industry.

We are grateful to Alex Butler, John Griffin, Ahmet Gulek, Tom Meling, Jungu Myung, René Stulz, Yufeng Wu, Alminas Zaldokas, and seminar participants at the Pennsylvania State University for helpful feedback. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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15th Annual Feldstein Lecture, Mario Draghi, "The Next Flight of the Bumblebee: The Path to Common Fiscal Policy in the Eurozone cover slide

How Much Research Is Being Written by Large Language Models?

New studies show a marked spike in LLM usage in academia, especially in computer science. What does this mean for researchers and reviewers?

research papers scroll out of a computer

In March of this year, a tweet about an academic paper went viral for all the wrong reasons. The introduction section of the paper, published in Elsevier’s Surfaces and Interfaces , began with this line: Certainly, here is a possible introduction for your topic.

Look familiar?

It should, if you are a user of ChatGPT and have applied its talents for the purpose of content generation. LLMs are being increasingly used to assist with writing tasks, but examples like this in academia are largely anecdotal and had not been quantified before now.

“While this is an egregious example,” says James Zou , associate professor of biomedical data science and, by courtesy, of computer science and of electrical engineering at Stanford, “in many cases, it’s less obvious, and that’s why we need to develop more granular and robust statistical methods to estimate the frequency and magnitude of LLM usage. At this particular moment, people want to know what content around us is written by AI. This is especially important in the context of research, for the papers we author and read and the reviews we get on our papers. That’s why we wanted to study how much of those have been written with the help of AI.”

In two papers looking at LLM use in scientific publishings, Zou and his team* found that 17.5% of computer science papers and 16.9% of peer review text had at least some content drafted by AI. The paper on LLM usage in peer reviews will be presented at the International Conference on Machine Learning.

Read Mapping the Increasing Use of LLMs in Scientific Papers and Monitoring AI-Modified Content at Scale: A Case Study on the Impact of ChatGPT on AI Conference Peer Reviews

Here Zou discusses the findings and implications of this work, which was supported through a Stanford HAI Hoffman Yee Research Grant .

How did you determine whether AI wrote sections of a paper or a review?

We first saw that there are these specific worlds – like commendable, innovative, meticulous, pivotal, intricate, realm, and showcasing – whose frequency in reviews sharply spiked, coinciding with the release of ChatGPT. Additionally, we know that these words are much more likely to be used by LLMs than by humans. The reason we know this is that we actually did an experiment where we took many papers, used LLMs to write reviews of them, and compared those reviews to reviews written by human reviewers on the same papers. Then we quantified which words are more likely to be used by LLMs vs. humans, and those are exactly the words listed. The fact that they are more likely to be used by an LLM and that they have also seen a sharp spike coinciding with the release of LLMs is strong evidence.

Charts showing significant shift in the frequency of certain adjectives in research journals.

Some journals permit the use of LLMs in academic writing, as long as it’s noted, while others, including Science and the ICML conference, prohibit it. How are the ethics perceived in academia?

This is an important and timely topic because the policies of various journals are changing very quickly. For example, Science said in the beginning that they would not allow authors to use language models in their submissions, but they later changed their policy and said that people could use language models, but authors have to explicitly note where the language model is being used. All the journals are struggling with how to define this and what’s the right way going forward.

You observed an increase in usage of LLMs in academic writing, particularly in computer science papers (up to 17.5%). Math and Nature family papers, meanwhile, used AI text about 6.3% of the time. What do you think accounts for the discrepancy between these disciplines?

Artificial intelligence and computer science disciplines have seen an explosion in the number of papers submitted to conferences like ICLR and NeurIPS. And I think that’s really caused a strong burden, in many ways, to reviewers and to authors. So now it’s increasingly difficult to find qualified reviewers who have time to review all these papers. And some authors may feel more competition that they need to keep up and keep writing more and faster.

You analyzed close to a million papers on arXiv, bioRxiv, and Nature from January 2020 to February 2024. Do any of these journals include humanities papers or anything in the social sciences?

We mostly wanted to focus more on CS and engineering and biomedical areas and interdisciplinary areas, like Nature family journals, which also publish some social science papers. Availability mattered in this case. So, it’s relatively easy for us to get data from arXiv, bioRxiv, and Nature . A lot of AI conferences also make reviews publicly available. That’s not the case for humanities journals.

Did any results surprise you?

A few months after ChatGPT’s launch, we started to see a rapid, linear increase in the usage pattern in academic writing. This tells us how quickly these LLM technologies diffuse into the community and become adopted by researchers. The most surprising finding is the magnitude and speed of the increase in language model usage. Nearly a fifth of papers and peer review text use LLM modification. We also found that peer reviews submitted closer to the deadline and those less likely to engage with author rebuttal were more likely to use LLMs.

This suggests a couple of things. Perhaps some of these reviewers are not as engaged with reviewing these papers, and that’s why they are offloading some of the work to AI to help. This could be problematic if reviewers are not fully involved. As one of the pillars of the scientific process, it is still necessary to have human experts providing objective and rigorous evaluations. If this is being diluted, that’s not great for the scientific community.

What do your findings mean for the broader research community?

LLMs are transforming how we do research. It’s clear from our work that many papers we read are written with the help of LLMs. There needs to be more transparency, and people should state explicitly how LLMs are used and if they are used substantially. I don’t think it’s always a bad thing for people to use LLMs. In many areas, this can be very useful. For someone who is not a native English speaker, having the model polish their writing can be helpful. There are constructive ways for people to use LLMs in the research process; for example, in earlier stages of their draft. You could get useful feedback from a LLM in real time instead of waiting weeks or months to get external feedback.

But I think it’s still very important for the human researchers to be accountable for everything that is submitted and presented. They should be able to say, “Yes, I will stand behind the statements that are written in this paper.”

*Collaborators include: Weixin Liang , Yaohui Zhang , Zhengxuan Wu , Haley Lepp , Wenlong Ji , Xuandong Zhao , Hancheng Cao , Sheng Liu , Siyu He , Zhi Huang , Diyi Yang , Christopher Potts , Christopher D. Manning , Zachary Izzo , Yaohui Zhang , Lingjiao Chen , Haotian Ye , and Daniel A. McFarland .

Stanford HAI’s mission is to advance AI research, education, policy and practice to improve the human condition. Learn more .

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Forgotten Spaces: Ecocriticism Social Justice, and the U.S. South (Collection of Essays)

Diaspora engagement: a scoping review of diaspora involvement with strengthening health systems of their origin country

Kent Garber

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When Protectionism Kills Talent

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