Diaspora strategies: Actors, members, and spaces

Abstract

Recent years have seen a surge of interest in the engagement of migrant‐sending countries with their diaspora populations. Alternately referred to as diaspora strategies, diaspora engagement policies, diaspora policies, sending state strategies, or extraterritorial citizenship strategies, these systematic sets of policy initiatives were enthusiastically embraced by a broad range of southern and northern countries. The popularity of strategies as a policy tool has been accompanied by a proliferating social scientific literature. The current article reviews the quickly growing body of knowledge on diaspora strategies. Its primary objective is to underscore the distinct geographic contributions to the topic, including the territorial logic, which undergirds strategies, the scales and sites at which they are conceived and enacted, and the sociospatial boundaries, which they give rise to. The article identifies 4 main themes in the literature, namely, types and motivations, (dis)membering, states and other actors, and spatiotemporalities, discusses the salient contributions made within each, identifies their critical lacunas, and, where possible, makes constructive suggestions for a prospective research agenda.

Transnational linkages, power relations and the migration–development nexus: China and its diaspora

“…Third, diaspora communities from the same source are often not assignable to a homogeneous group, maintaining quite different types and degrees of connection with homeland and shaping development differently (Pasura, 2008). Communities in a diaspora may be united by a sense of homeland; but often they will be divided along class, ethnic, racial, religious and gender lines (Cohen, 2017) and socio-political backgrounds (e.g. moving for different reasons and at different historical periods) (Guarnizo, 2017).…”

Transnational Lived Citizenship – The Case of the Eritrean Diaspora

“…This trend has been particularly evident for developing countries that seek to benefit from remittances, investment potential, and the skills of their diasporic populations. An important element of these strategies is the extension of citizenship rights to their populations abroad in return for certain responsibilities and duties (Cohen, 2017; Collyer and King, 2015; Gamlen, 2008; Levitt and de la Dehesa, 2003). These dynamics are analysed in the rapidly expanding literature on diaspora members as political actors (Kleist, 2008; Müller-Funk and Krawatzek, forthcoming; Turner, 2013; Van Hear and Cohen, 2017; Wilcock, 2019).…”

“New Diaspora Philanthropy”? The Philanthropy of the UJA-Federation of New York Toward Israel

“…Another area of research is on the issue of “diaspora strategies” that create favorable environments for incentivizing diaspora philanthropy (Boyle, Kitchin, & Ancien, 2013). Diaspora strategies are aimed at engaging individuals with the homeland (Cohen, 2017) and include, for example, homeland tourism, such as the Birthright Israel program that brings Jewish youth to Israel, and diaspora bonds that serve as a catalyst for economic growth (Abramson, 2017).…”