Diaspora mobilisation for conflict and post-conflict reconstruction: contextual and comparative dimensions

Abstract

This special issue seeks to move the scholarly conversation beyond notions of conflict-generated diasporas as simply agents of conflict or peace. The field is ripe to unpack the notion of context for diaspora mobilisation in International Relations, the focus and novelty of this special issue. Theorising in this volume goes beyond current prevalent thinking that contexts are host-states in which diasporas live, and original home-states to which they are transnationally connected. The emphasis here is that diasporas have linkages to different contexts, and that their embeddedness in these contexts -simultaneously or sequentially in time -either shapes their mobilizations or is shaped by them. The volume theorises about spatialities and temporalities of diaspora engagement: it emphasises spatial notions such as multi-sited embeddedness, positionality, and translocalism on the one side, and temporal notions such as critical junctures, transformative events, simultaneity, crises, and durability of conflicts on the other. This collection further adds new thematic areas to current scholarly inquiry, opening the discussion beyond interest in diaspora remittances, economic development, and extraterritorial voting. The authors take little-explored paths to examine diasporas as agents in transitional justice processes, contested sovereignty, and fragile and de facto states, as well as in civic and ethnic-based activism.

Suppressing transnationalism: bringing constraints into the study of transnational political action

“…An abundance of scholarship shows that immigrants and diaspora groups engage in homeland politics and civic engagement in a variety of ways, from supporting home-country political parties to fueling insurgencies and separatist movements (e.g., Adamson, 2012;Bada, 2014;Escobar, Arana, & McCann, 2015;Koinova, 2018;Martiniello & Lafleur, 2008;Portes, Escobar, & Arana, 2008;Portes & Fernández-Kelly, 2015;Smith, 2005). Yet, varied forms of TPA are often separated in the literature as if different actors and actions represent empirically delimited and distinct phenomena.…”

Migrant transnationalism in violent democracies

“…Recent research demands that we move 'beyond notions of conflict-generated diasporas as simply agents of conflict or peace' (Koinova 2018(Koinova , 1251, that we conceptualise postconflict states as involved in multi-pronged, contingent processes rather than as heading unidirectionally and rationalistically toward a consolidated and just peace (Carment and Calleja 2018;Van Houte 2014), and that we explore variation in diasporas' transnational activities (Østergaard-Nielsen 2006). The approach shows that diasporas contribute to conflict emergence, escalation, serious violence, conflict termination, and post-conflict reconstruction (Berkovitch 2007).…”

Diaspora Identity and a New Generation: Armenian Diaspora Youth on the Genocide and the Karabakh War

“…Mavroudi (2018) defines diaspora mobilization as helping the homeland in material ways (for example, through activism or acts of charity); however, multiple layers of diaspora identity and mobilization need to be recognized (Redclift 2017). Diaspora mobilization is often connected to narratives of (in)security and crises in the homeland; although not all such crises automatically lead to diaspora mobilization, which is often hampered by uncertainty over how to mobilize and issues of trust and corruption in the homeland (Koinova 2018;Mavroudi 2018). Pattie (1999) suggests that the memory of the genocide continues to create a sense of responsibility to the Armenian community and therefore unites it through shared experience of loss made meaningful in the present.…”