The Non-ethnic Trans-national Formations

A comprehensive, but tightly focused, collective portrait of contemporary ethno-national diasporas, emphasizing their roles at the various levels in the political arena, is needed, for two reasons. First, as noted in Chapter 2, since the middle of the nineteenth century the ethno-national diaspora phenomenon has expanded and undergone some major transformations, as have other aspects of ethnicity and nationalism. Certainly the historical diasporas have not lost their enduring characteristics, but because of significant changes in domestic, regional, and global political and social conditions most contemporary diasporic entities have acquired new features beyond those of the diasporas that were established in antiquity and during the Middle Ages. Therefore, to accurately understand contemporary ethno-national diasporas, these new features must be clearly delineated and analyzed. The second reason that we need a comprehensive portrait is related to the existence of other types of trans-national formations that usually are lumped together with ethno-national diasporas. As noted in Chapter 1, at the least there are four categories of such entities that have been termed “diasporas.” The nature of those entities and their relationships to ethno-national diasporas will be briefly reviewed here.

Global Religions

It is particularly difficult to distinguish between global religions and ethnic diasporas. The main reason is that in many instances active members of ethno-national diasporas espouse religious beliefs that are intimately intertwined with, and partly overlap, the ethnic elements of their identities.