ABSTRACT

The definition of the term ‘diaspora’ is both complex and subject to considerable debate in academic circles. Historically, diaspora has been associated with the dispersal of the Jewish people, who experienced its violence and collective exile. However, there is now recognition that many aspects of this experience are applicable as well to other groups of migrants including those from Africa, South Asia and the like. Gerard Chaliand and Jean-Pierre Rageau in The Penguin Atlas of Diasporas list four criteria for the diaspora condition:

the collective forced dispersion of a religious and/or ethnic group[;] . . . collective memory, which transmits both the historical facts that precipitated the dispersion and a cultural heritage[;] . . . the will to survive as a minority by transmitting a heritage[;] . . . [and] the time factor. Only time decides whether a minority that meets all or some of the criteria described above having insured its survival and adaptation, is a diaspora.