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.