DIASPORAS -DONE- DEFINING. : PRECIS COMPREHENSION

 

'' Making it as migrants : It is useful to make distinctions about the world's scattered communities.

The classical diasporas, such as Armenian, Greek and Jewish, tend to have multi-generational distinct identities and loose networks of transnational ties among themselves.

More recent emigre communities tend to be economic migrants. Colonisers and their descendants, or the enslaved and their descendants, may or may not characterise themselves as diasporas.

Is Joe Biden part of the Irish diaspora? Is Barack Obama a member of the African diaspora?

'' Irish '' and ''African '' can have a variety of meanings in marking identity.

So it is with Indian and Chinese communities around the world. Many are recent economic migrants. Within both, there are various subnational, ethnic, religious, socioeconomic and other distinctions. 

To speak of a single Indian diaspora or Chinese diaspora, and to consider their relationships with the governments in Delhi or Beijing in monolithic terms, would be wrong.

Complicated relationships with homeland governments result in a more nuanced discourse. 

The waves of people who have left Russia since the spring of 2022 may be referred to by others as migrants., emigres, or diaspora. But many use a different term to describe themselves, relokanty.

They are not necessarily dispersed or emigrated, but have relocated. For now.

The World Students Society thanks Nareg Seferian, Fairfax, Virginia.