Routledge Handbook of Diaspora Studies

The word ‘diaspora’ has leapt from its previously confined use – mainly concerned with the dispersion of Jews, Greeks, Armenians and Africans away from their natal homelands – to cover the cases of many other ethnic groups, nationalities and religions. But this ‘horizontal’ scattering of the word to cover the mobility of many groups to many destinations, has been paralleled also by ‘vertical’ leaps, with the word diaspora being deployed to cover more and more phenomena and serve more and more objectives of different actors. With sections on ‘debating the concept’, ‘complexity’, ‘home and home-making’, ‘connections’ and ‘critiques’, the Routledge Handbook of Diaspora Studies is likely to remain an authoritative reference for some time. Each contribution includes a targeted list of references for further reading. The editors have carefully blended established scholars of diaspora with younger scholars looking at how diasporas are constructed ‘from below’. The adoption of a variety of conceptual perspectives allows for generalization, contrasts and comparisons between cases. In this exciting and authoritative collection over 40 scholars from many countries have explored the evolving use of the concept of diaspora, its possibilities as well as its limitations. This Handbook will be indispensable for students undertaking essays, debates and dissertations in the field.

Table of Contents:
Diaspora studies: an introduction PART I: EXPLORING AND DEBATING DIASPORA 1. Diaspora before it became a concept 2. Diaspora studies: past, present and promise 3. Key methodological tools for diaspora studies: combining the transnational and intersectional approaches 4. The social construction of diasporas: conceptual development and the Rwandan case 5. Diasporas as social movements? 6. Performing diaspora 7. Embodying belonging: diaspora’s racialization and cultural citizenship 8. Music, dance and diaspora 9. Diasporic filmmaking in Europe 10. Writing in Diaspora PART II: COMPLEX DIASPORAS 11. Making and ‘faking’ a diasporic heritage 12. Translanguaging and diasporic imagination 13. Multi-religious diasporas: rethinking the relationship between religion and diaspora 14. Homelessness and statelessness: possibilities and perils 15. Diaspora and class, class and diaspora 16. Working-class cosmopolitans and diaspora 17. Transversal crossings and diasporic intersections 18. Intersectionalizing diaspora studies 19. Bridging the mobility–sedentarism and agency–structure dichotomies in diasporic return migration PART III: HOME AND HOME-MAKING 20. Unravelling the conceptual link between transnationalism and diaspora: hometown networks 21. Deportees as ‘reverse diasporas’ 22. Diasporicity: relative embeddedness in transnational and co-ethnic networks 23. Moral comforts of remaining in exile: snapshots from conflict-generated Indonesian diasporas 24. Islamic schooling and the second generation: a diaspora perspective 25. Diaspora and home: interrogating embodied precarity in an era of forced displacement 26. Diasporas and political obligation PART IV: CONNECTING DIASPORA 27. Diaspora and religion: connecting and disconnecting 28. Digital diasporas 29. Diaspora politics and political remittances: a conceptual reflection 30. Diasporas building peace: reflections from the experience of Middle Eastern diasporas 31. Postcolonial states, nation-building and the (un)making of diasporas 32. The plasticity of diasporic identities in super-diverse cities 33. Displaced imaginations, bodies and things: materiality and subjectivity of forced migration PART V: CRITIQUES AND APPLIED DIASPORA STUDIES 34. Preserving or discarding diaspora 35. Disconnecting from home: contesting the salience of the diaspora 36. Why engage diasporas? 37. Diaspora mobilizations for conflict: beyond amplification and reduction 38. Diasporas and development 39. Diasporas and the politics of memory and commemoration 40. At home in diaspora: the Babylonian Talmud as diasporist manifesto