Diaspora can be defined by trauma, choice, or pure invention

Evidence

Throughout Europe, we see various types of transfrontier networks developing, which are in many ways comparable to a diaspora. The archetype - which is that of the Jewish diaspora - has itself undergone considerable changes since World War II. In some cases, the diaspora corresponds to a founding event, a major trauma (genocide, civil war, expulsion), a particularly severe form of continuous repression, forcing a population into partial or total exile. In other cases, the point of departure is the outcome of a choice, and the diaspora is a set of attitudes in which, even after several generations, the migrants maintain close economic, cultural, personal, and family links with the home country and with other communities of the same origin settled in countries other than their own. The Chinese experience is the best example here. Finally, as Paul Gilroy has shown with reference to the Black Atlantic (1993), the diaspora can be a production, an invention, without any particular reference to a founding point in time, nor to any specific historical and territorial origin, which is in a way the case for blacks, who, from the Caribbean to the United Kingdom, including possibly the United States, have developed innovative cultural practices in the artistic sphere and that of corporal expression but also construct economic networks. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3176 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Diasporas form through trauma, choice, or creative invention without a founding origin. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3176; Second-generation diaspora identity is forged through ironic performance of authentic practices — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian…, 508; Diaspora identities are positional political choices, not primordial ascriptions — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 332

Broader Connections

• Diasporas form through trauma, choice, or creative invention without a founding origin. #expands (0.97) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3176