Transnational Crossroads for Media and Diaspora: Three Challenges for Research

Abstract

The extension of diasporic life across cultural and political spaces has challenged a number of key conceptual and methodological trends in social sciences. The diversification of cultural and political affairs within and across countries, next to the vast growth of more varied media production and consumption, have significantly altered the roles and meanings of the nation, citizenship and media culture. Consequently, the study of diaspora, culture and the media broke off the boundaries of a particular sub-field, attracting attention among media and communications scholars, sociologists of race, ethnicity and migration, historians and international relations’ experts. When in the spring of 2006 Latinos took over the streets of American cities after mobilising action around community centres, minority media and blog calls for participation in a movement for recognition and citizenship, many American politicians and social scientists were taken by surprise. Before that, a much more sudden, widespread, and on-going interest in diaspora emerged in the post-9/11 political atmosphere of tension, conflict and blaming. Events such as the London 7/7 bombings and the revelation of a plot for attacks on a number of flights in the UK in summer 2006 gave a further push to public and academic debates about diversity and migration. In just a few years, diaspora has become a keyword used widely by academics, politicians and the media. Diasporic mobilisation and ability to network with consequences for representation and political action are now more than an affair for the actors directly involved in them.