In this article by DIASCON Project Member Bruno Lefort, the reproduction of antagonist relationships between diasporic populations is envisioned through an inverted lens.

Contrary to conflict transportation theories, which tend to focus on societal and transnational contexts, the study reintroduces the complexity of people’s daily experiences to propose a more nuanced understanding of what identities and potential tensions between them can actually emerge in everyday situations.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among young people of the Lebanese diasporas in Montreal, it becomes possible to shed light on the ways people at the same time adhere, transform, and take their distance from certain conceptions of their identity to carve out a place for themselves in the society where they live. Following this idea, the article demonstrates that life trajectories as well as social hierarchies and exclusion practices manifested in everyday encounters play a critical role to grasp how young diasporans make sense of identity categories, inspiring them to continuously renegotiate and reinvent what being Lebanese in Montreal can mean in their existence.

[The full article is available here]

In the contribution to the Ethnopolitics special issue on “Sri Lankan Diasporas between Participation and Conflict: Intergroup Dynamics in Italy”, Anna Quattrone investigates how Sinhalese and Tamil diasporas in Italy perceive themselves and forge their relationship with the homeland conflict.

Building on interviews and an extensive analysis of secondary sources, the paper aims to explore what configurations, events and policies activate or prevent conflict transportation and/or autonomisation in diaspora settings. With a focus on the processes of identification and mobilisation of Sinhalese and Tamil diasporas in Italy, the paper investigates whether the features that characterised conflictual dynamics in Sri Lanka have been transported to Italy and how they have been configured here (reproduction versus autonomisation).

The paper shows that in Italy the transported conflict has taken different configurations as compared to Sri Lanka, in fact both conflict autonomisation and conflict neutralisation are present in the new context of settlement. Moreover, new forms and purposes of political mobilisation have emerged, depending on the diasporic generation and the peculiarities of the new context. Finally, the paper argues that, in a globalised world, diasporas and other transnational actors can effectively mobilise to pursue their goals in a deterritorialised political space, as the Sri Lankan case demonstrates.

[The full article is available here.]

The first article in the Ethnopolitics special issue is called “Pathways to Conflict Transportation and Autonomisation: The Armenian Diaspora and the Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh”. In this article, DIASCON project members Dr. Élise Féron and Dr. Bahar Baser explore the Armenian diaspora mobilisation in the USA, France and Russia with regards to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.  

The case of Nagorno-Karabakh demonstrates that multiple factors influence how, and to what extent, conflicts are transported in diaspora settings. It also sheds light on processes of conflict autonomisation, whereby transported conflicts focus on different issues, and involve different actors, than conflicts occurring in home countries. Diasporic narratives reflect the political, social and cultural context in countries of residence, notably because they frame issues in ways that are most likely to attract sympathy and support. Other factors, such as the respective sizes and weight of the relevant diasporas, as well as histories of diaspora formation, influence conflict autonomisation patterns. 

The article also shows that collective traumas play a significant role in transportation of conflict narratives and their autonomisation. But what the study of this case specifically demonstrates is that diasporic mobilisation is directly impacted by the diasporas’ exclusion or inclusion from political processes back home, and by diaspora engagement policies implemented by their home countries. 

The article is available here.

In the introduction to the Ethnopolitics special issue on “Diasporas and Transportation of Homeland Conflicts: Inter-group Dynamics and Host Country Responses”, Dr. Élise Féron and Dr. Bahar Baser present and discuss the existing literature on diasporas and conflict transportation. They explain why this has become an extremely important issue at the academic and policy levels during the past decades, and outline the main contributions of the special issue to these debates. 

The articles in the special issue notably show that most ‘transported conflicts’ are in fact the result of a series of entangled conflicts between and within diaspora groups, countries of origin and countries of residence. In addition, the articles put the stress on the need to pay more attentio to the various interconnected temporalities that expound conflict transportation patterns. Finally, they demonstrate that patterns, shapes and even occurrence of conflict transportation vary according to scale and space.

The contributions included in the special issue call for nuancing our approach of the links between diasporas and conflicts, in order to avoid falling into the essentialisation trap. They also open up avenues for future research, notably underscoring the so far mostly untapped potential of everyday peace or intersectional approaches in diaspora studies.

The article is Open Access and full text is available here.

The article, “Autonomising conflict: Conflict transportation in online activity among Kurdish and Turkish diasporas in Denmark” investigates how conflict transportation can play out in online spaces. Through looking at diasporic associations on Facebook, the study finds that while conflict transportation occurs in online spaces, it is shaped and influenced by the country of residence, transnational networks and other diasporic communities and actors. This suggests a plurality of consciousness rather than the duality of ‘homeland’-‘host-country’ attachments often attributed to diasporas. In this sense, the dynamic and chaotic nature of online activity accentuates the need for complexity when understanding diaspora mobilisation in relation to conflict transportation and autonomisation.

The article is Open Access and full text is available here.

We are excited to share that the article co-authored by DIASCON members Bahar Baser and Élise Féron published in Global Networks has become a top cited paper and generated immediate impact in our wider community. 

The article examines Turkey’s diaspora engagement initiatives in European countries and focuses on host states’ reactions to these extraterritorial activities. The authors argue that diaspora engagement has limits, and its scope is determined by the foreign and domestic political processes of the host states and their concern over their sovereignty and security.

You can access the full article here. 

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