ABSTRACT
In recent years it has become increasingly clear that diasporic phenomena are both a theoretical and a methodological challenge to the field of ethnographic representation, especially with regard to the culture concept of the discipline. Lately, the idea of closed cultures localized in bounded territories has become obsolete due to processes of globalization as well as the constantly increasing volume and velocity of the global transmission of information. The awareness of a growing dispersion, decentring, interpenetration, and general complexity of globalized and transnational communities is reflected in anthropology as a rising concern with ‘identity’ rather than with ‘culture’. Such identities escape in part from the familiar either-or classifications and become defined more by a logic of ‘both-and’, implying not cultural wholeness anymore, but partial and overlapping identities instead (Kearney 1995: 558). Moreover, the concomitants of the global condition call for the expansion of the traditional ethnographer’s field into several fields of research. Transnational migration crosses boundaries and diaspora communities maintain multiple relationships, which is why it has been suggested that the ethnographer should conduct multi-sited research by following either people, things or ideas (Marcus 1995).
