ABSTRACT
Diasporas exist in three overlapping but distinct forms. First, they are actual social formations made up of individuals, extended families, small groups and the relations conducted between them, within a partially closed communal field that can be identified (e.g. ‘a Greek diaspora community’). This diaspora functions within the host society and state around it (e.g. ‘the Greek diaspora community in Germany’), but also within the larger framework of the transnational field in which this particular diaspora sustains connections with other Greek diaspora communities, the totality of ‘the Greek diaspora,’ and the homeland. Finally, the transnational frame is itself embedded in and shaped by the largest field of all, that of supranationalism and globalization.
