Bloody Diaspora Theory for the Twenty-First Century: African and Asian Heritage Migrants Return

Abstract

First, I begin by interrogating why blood as kinship, ethnicity, nationality, identity, etc., has been so clinically removed from so much Humanities-oriented poststructuralist and postcolonial diaspora theory, rendering it both bloodless and hostile towards the notion of a return to an ethnic homeland. Second, I analyze policies based on the “migration-development nexus” promoted by organizations like the World Bank with its reliance on a conception of bloody roots and an enduring ethnic homeland that is both essentialist and static. To point out the limitations of these theories, I examine some recent frontier heritage migrations in which Asian and African diasporic elites raised in Euro-America are “returning” to their ethnic homelands. Finally, I attempt to lay out some of the parameters of a more fluid, supple theory of diaspora for the twenty-first century that explores blood as an analytic tool that takes into account not only mobile yet bloody identities but also mutable places, dynamic economic change, and new forms of spatiotemporality. In other words, returning to the homeland is not what it used to be, hence new constructions of blood identification are now possible.

‘You betrayed us’: Ethnic celebrity gossip in diasporic women’s online communities

“…However, not much study has been undertaken yet to explore relations between ethnic celebrities and diasporic communities. Such relations are worthy of study considering the high use of homeland media among diasporic women (Lee, C. 2019) and the unique function of diasporas as stand-ins for kinship, where evidence of similar background, including language and nationality, reassures faith in the ‘same bloody root’ among diasporic people and serves as a circuit to forge and share a(n) (imagined) sense of belonging (Anderson, 1983; Myambo, 2019). In this light, the case of Korean diasporic women community’s gossip around celebrity Seo allows us to discuss issues around ethnic bonding and conflicts in identity construction among Korean diasporic women, in particular tied migration contexts.…”

Introduction: Thirty Years of Borders Since Berlin

“…Hence, the last three decades have marked a new era in India's history as a migrant-sending country. India is now receiving migrants, some of whom are its own diaspora, many of them middle-class professionals who are going "home" as "return" or even "heritage" migrants (Myambo 2017b(Myambo , 2019c.…”