Page 63 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

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34 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

Furthermore, Gilroy and some others do the twentieth century has produced new
not take into account the effects that ‘dias- possibilities for maintaining contact between
pora yearning and ambivalence’ can have on diasporas and homelands. The spatial/temporal
‘the homeland’. Mechanisms of identity shortcuts in communication between diaspo-
regulation, which have the symbolic meaning ras and homelands have intensified the level
of boundary reproduction for the members of of information, as well as the level of interac-
the diasporic communities in the countries tion, between the two. Maybe even more
where they live, can have serious effects importantly, they have offered people in the
on the continuation of national and ethnic diaspora, who were previously isolated from
conflicts in ‘the homeland’ (Anthias, 1998; each other, new possibilities for getting
Yuval-Davis, 1997a). Contributing funds to together, and for changed discourses of
various ‘causes’ and struggles in the home- belonging. These can be described as trans-
land can often be the easiest and least threat- national (Basch et al., 1994; Cohen and
ening way for members of the diaspora to Vertovec, 1999; Grewal, 1999) rather than
express their membership in and loyalty to diasporic. The nomadic way of life in which
the collectivity. Such acts of symbolic identi- people move back and forth between their
fication, which are part of contemporary country of origin and their diasporic location
identity politics (Safran, 1999; see also cannot be described, on a factual level, let
Yuval-Davis, 1997b), can, however, have alone in terms of the politics of belonging, as
very radical political and other effects in the taking place in one country or the other, nor
‘homeland’, a fact that might often be only of can these people’s lives.
marginal interest to the people of the dias- At the same time we should not forget that,
pora. As Benedict Anderson (1995) has running counter to the technical ease of
pointed out, diasporic politics is often communication, there is a growing strategy
reckless politics, without accountability and of fortification of borders and securitization
without due democratic process. At the same of migration. More and more obstacles are
time, as more and more ethnocracies piled up, and more and more rights are
develop, in Central and Eastern Europe as removed from those who travel from country
well as in the Third World, laws parallel to country, in an attempt to escape the devas-
to the Israeli and German ‘laws of return’ are tating effects, economic as well as political,
being developed, and states are constructed that ethnic and civil strife, as well as neo-
that see as their body of citizens all the mem- liberal economic restructuring, have had on
bers of their hegemonic ethnic collectivity all their lives. Paradoxically, refugees and
over the world, rather than all those, of what- asylum seekers, who have been recognized
ever ethnic origin, who are living in their by international laws as having a right to
territory. In states such as Lithuania – but escape danger and persecution from their
also Ireland – the presidents of the state have homelands, are now constructed as major
spent all or most of their lives outside the sources of threat to people in the countries
borders of the state until being called to fill where they seek refuge – as criminals and
the post. Diasporic communities can have terrorists. Moreover, with the ‘global war on
very important roles as political lobbies terrorism’, any resistance to any regime is
of superpower governments (for instance in easily constructed as terrorist activity, so the
the case of the Israeli lobby in the USA), as whole raison d’être of giving refuge to
well as constituting primary resources resisters, as happened during the Cold War,
for the homeland economy via the remittances has been undermined.
that are sent to the families that stay behind (as, And yet, as the report of the Commission
for example, is the case in the Philippines). on Human Security has commented (see also
The development of transport and commu- Yuval-Davis, 2005), refugees and asylum
nication technologies in the second half of seekers are still the only minority among the