Diasporas: General Perspectives and Overview

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Diasporas General Perspectives and Overview

• Kee Pookong
• Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University
• kee_at_apu.ac.jp
• 5th DIVERSITY MATTERS
• a Commonwealth forum on cultural diversity
• Diasporas in the Commonwealth
• Monash Malaysia
• 19 20 November 2008

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Outline
Conceptualizing Diasporas
Importance of Diasporas
Chinese and Indian Diasporas
Challenges and Issues
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Evolution of the Concept

• Dia speiro (Greek) to scatter seed
• Greek colonial expansion 800 - 600 BC
• Jewish history forced exile, victimization,
  myth of return
• 586 BC through Holocaust (1938-1944),
• Israel state (1948) and Present
• African Diasporas
• 1960s -Forced dispersion, homelands
• Recent liberal usages of the term
• Any form of real or imagined community

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Some Essential Characteristics

• Dispersal in two or more countries
• Memory of original homeland
• Alienation, marginalisation or exclusion in host
  land
• Relationship with kin in other diasporic
  communities
• Preserve ethnic boundaries
• Ongoing relationship with ancestral land
• Idealization or discourse of return

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Diasporas Typologies
Displacement by causes (Robin Cohen, 1997)

• Victim Diasporas
• Jews, African?Armenian
• Migratory Diasporas Labor, Traders, Refugees
• Chinese, Indian, Palestinian, Italian, Greek,
  Japanese
• Ideological (Religious) Diasporas
• Islam, Hindu, Sikhs
• Imperial Diasporas
• British, German

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Importance of Diasporas

• An analytical concept
• History of human experience dispersion,
  identity, longing, and return
• A practical concept
• Of interest to states political, economic, or
  cultural mobilization
• International organizations development
• International relations

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Special relevance in a globalized world
Compression of time and space

• Transmitters of funds and ideas
• Global production networks
• Production, distribution, consumption, RD
• Role in an Information Age
• Information vs. Knowledge and Understanding
• Mass migration (200 million migrants)
• Size, direction, characteristics and timing

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The Chinese Diaspora(s)Long History of Chinese
Migration
Columbuss St Maria
Admiral Zheng He Cheng Ho 1405-1433
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1834 Abolition of slavery Indentured labor
1842 Treaty of Nanjing Forced opening
of Chinese ports

Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882, USA
White Australia Policy, 1901
Chinese Immigration Act, 1923, Canada
Source Adam McKeown, 2004, Global Chinese
Migration, 1850-1940
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The Chinese Diaspora(s)

• Overseas Chinese or Chinese Overseas?
• Chinese Categorization
• Zhong Guo Ren (Chinese nationals)
• 0verseas Chinese (Hua Qiao Chinese Sojourners)
• Chinese nationality
• Huaren (Ethnic Chinese)
• Chinese identity
• Hua yi (People of Chinese Descent)
• Assimilated, Inter-married

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Percentage of Direct Foreign Investments in China
by Sources, 1994
Source State Statistical Bureau, China, 1995
(see Encyclopedia of Chinese Overseas, 1998, Page
111)
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1995
1996
1998
1997
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1995
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Distribution () of Chinese Overseas in
Selected Countries, 2003Estimated Total
37,500,000
Source The Almanac of Overseas Chinese Economy,
Taipei (in Chinese) various years
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Chinese Diaspora Number and Percentage in
Selected Countries, 2003
New Zealand 127,000 (2.67)
Source The Almanac of Overseas Chinese Economy,
Taipei (in Chinese) various years
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Chinese Diaspora Population Distribution
(), 2003 Number 37.5 Million
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Indians Diasporas

• Mass migration started with the colonial era in
  the 19th century
• some 28 million Indians emigrated , 1846-1932
• some 4.5 million settled in Malaya and Burma
  between 1882 and 1937
• Mostly working class coolie migration
  (plantation workers, labourers)
• Post-Independence migration to Britain
• Since 1970s highly skilled migrants to the USA,
  Canada and Australia

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Policy Development

• High Level Committee on Indian Diasporas Report,
  2001
• Indian Diaspora Day Pravasi Bharatiya Divas,
  January 9th
• Overseas Citizenship of India Act, December 2005
  dual citizenship to PIOs (Persons of Indian
  Origin)

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Indian Diaspora Distribution () in Selected
Countries, 2001Total Estimate 16,943,580
Source The Indian Diaspora, High Level
Committee on Indian Diaspora, New Delhi,
2001 http//indiandiaspora.nic.in/contents.htm,
2001
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Indian Diaspora Number and Percentage in
Selected Countries, 2001
Malaysia 1,665,000 (7.27)
Source http//indiandiaspora.nic.in/contents.htm
, 2001
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Indian Diaspora Population Distribution (),
2001Number 16.9 Million (20 million?)
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Chinese and Indian Diaspora Compared

• 20 million
• Wider scatter, including Africa, Caribbean,
  Middle East
• Historically, majority were plantation worker
  sand labourers
• Less predominantly male (under British regulated
  indentured system) arranged marriages larger
  numbers Hindu religion caste

• 37 million
• 80 in Southeast Asia (Nanyang South Seas)
• Historically more varied merchants, traders,
  and labourers
• Greater degree of Chinese integration and
  assimilation Christianity, intermarriage forced
  assimilation

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• Greater diversity
• Aryan Dravidian
• Religion (Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, Muslim, Buddhist)
• Language (Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi, Telugu)
• Caste
• Regional identities

• Relative homogeneity
• Buddhist, Ancestor Worship, secularization
• Common written language
• Regional (Dialect) identities

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Popular Cultures

• Chinese Cultural Centre, Semi-Periphery,
  Periphery
• Centre China
• Secondary Centres Taiwan, Hong Kong
• Tertiary Centres (sub-cultures) Singapore, San
  Francisco, Sydney-Melbourne

• Bollywood Bombay
• Kollywood - Kodambakkam, Madras (Tamil)
• Indo-Caribbean Diaspora Literature

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Day
Night
Deng Xiaoping ??? 1904-1997
Deng Lijun ??? 1953-1995
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les than 5 of the Chinese counterparts Less
active
Chinese Overseas investment (FDI) in
China Active global diasporic
meetings/conferences of clan, dialect , and
business groups World Chinese Entrepreneurs
Conventions (since 1991) Hakka, Teochew and
other dialect group conferences
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Convergence in Chinese and Indian Diaspora
Experience

• Migration and the highly skilled, professional
  and entrepreneurial especially to the USA,
  Canada, Australia (and Singapore)
• Two-stage or multi-stage migration re-migration
• Return migration and circular migration (brain
  circulation)

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1998
2006
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RE-MIGRATION Estimates of Overseas Chinese
Population in Selected South-East Asian Countries
(Various Years) and Proportions of Chinese Among
Immigrants to Australia from these Sources (2001
Census)
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Challenges and Issues

• Conceptual
• Semantic - Analytical Rigor
• Proper Noun quasi-Proper Noun common
  noun
• Oxymoronic definitions (Dufoix2003)
• Queer diaspora, Soccer diaspora, etc

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State Responses to Ethno-cultural and Religious
Diversity

• Destination country
• Extermination
• Assimilation
• Selective Inclusion
• Multicultural
• Global or Local

• Source country
• Encourage integration to local community
• Diaspora mobilization for political party or
  national interest
• Extraterritoriality

International Relations Identity Politics
Diasporas as Non-State Global Actors
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Jus Sanguinis, Jus Solis, or?

1. Jus Sanguinis Birthrights by descent (blood)
2. Jus Solis Birthrights by place of
   birth
3. Dual Nationality
4. Individual Choice?

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The Three Ds of Migration

• The Migrant Experience on-going
• Dirty, Demanding, Dangerous
• Continued proletarianisation of diaspora
  members in the South North vs.
  professionalisation in the North (Bhikhu Parekh
  et al, 2003)
• The Main Causes of Migration
• Demography, Development,Democracy
• Diasporas as a democratization, development,
  and demographic change agents

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Rabindranath Tagore, 1861-1941
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