ABSTRACT
If the twentieth century was proclaimed the century of genocide, the twenty-first century is poised to be the century of the globally displaced. According to the United Nations (UN), an estimated 244 million people were living outside their country of birth in 2015, of whom 65.3 million were forcibly displaced, including 21.3 million refugees. That estimate does not include the 10 million stateless people (UNHCR 2015). The numbers of refugees and of the largely unrecognized internally displaced are the highest since the Second World War (UN 2017). This global phenomenon underscores the intellectual and empirical importance of diaspora and the overarching concerns of place, memory and belonging as critical subjects of inquiry. With intensifying interests in migration and the need for more robust theorization, the concept of diaspora has been unmoored from the earlier privileging of the Jewish experience to include various migratory experiences and communities. The increased conceptual elasticity amplifies its explanatory power as it potentially dilutes it.
