In a perceptive and arresting analysis, Robin Cohen introduces his distinctive approach to the study of the world’s diasporas. This book investigates the changing meanings of the concept and the contemporary diasporic condition, including case studies of Jewish, Armenian, African, Chinese, British, Indian, Lebanese and Caribbean people. The first edition of this book had a major impact on diaspora studies and was the foundational text in an emerging research and teaching field. This second edition extends and clarifies Robin Cohen’s argument, addresses some critiques and outlines new perspectives for the study of diasporas. It has also been made more student-friendly with illustrations, guided readings and suggested essay questions.

In a perceptive and arresting analysis, Robin Cohen introduces his distinctive approach to the study of the world’s diasporas. This book investigates the changing meanings of the concept and the contemporary diasporic condition, including case studies of Jewish, Armenian, African, Chinese, British, Indian, Lebanese and Caribbean people. The first edition of this book had a major impact on diaspora studies and was the foundational text in an emerging research and teaching field. This second edition extends and clarifies Robin Cohen’s argument, addresses some critiques and outlines new perspectives for the study of diasporas. It has also been made more student-friendly with illustrations, guided readings and suggested essay questions.

Italy's residents are a migratory people. Since 1800 well over 27 million left home, but over half also returned home again. As cosmopolitans, exiles, and 'workers of the world' they transformed their homeland and many of the countries where they worked or settled abroad. But did they form a diaspora? Migrants maintained firm ties to native villages, cities and families. Few felt much loyalty to a larger nation of Italians. Rather than form a 'nation unbound,' the transnational lives of Italy's migrants kept alive international regional cultures that challenged the hegemony of national states around the world. This ambitious and theoretically innovative overview examines the social, cultural and economic integration of Italian migrants. It explores their complex yet distinctive identity and their relationship with their homeland taking a comprehensive approach.

A concise and compelling survey of Chinese migration in global history centered on Chinese migrants and their families.

Facsimiles of 16 essays published from the 1970s to the 1990s offer a variety of scholarly views on migration since World War II. Among them are transnational migration as a small window on the diminished autonomy of the modern democratic state, the function of labor immigration in western European capitalism, non-white minority access to the political agenda in Britain, immigration and refugee policy in the US, immigration and changes in the French party system, and an aggregate data analysis of the National Front vote in the 1977 Greater London Council elections. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Global Indian Diasporas discusses the relationship between South Asian emigrants and their homeland, the reproduction of Indian culture abroad, and the role of the Indian state in reconnecting emigrants to India. Focusing on the limits of the diaspora concept, rather than its possibilities, this volume presents new historical and anthropological research on South Asian emigrants worldwide. From a comparative perspective, examples of South Asian emigrants in Suriname, Mauritius, East Africa, Canada, and the United Kingdom are deployed in order to show that in each of these regions there are South Asian emigrants who do not fit into the Indian diaspora concept—raising questions about the effectiveness of the diaspora as an academic and sociological index, and presenting new and controversial insights in diaspora issues.

This anthology presents a new study of the worldwide African diaspora by bringing together diverse, multidisciplinary scholarship to address the connectedness of Black subject identities, experiences, issues, themes, and topics, applying them dynamically to diverse locations of the Blackworld—Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the United States. The book underscores three dimensions of African diaspora study. First is a global approach to the African diaspora, showing how globalism underscores the distinctive role that Africa plays in contributing to world history. Second is the extension of African diaspora study in a geographical scope to more robust inclusions of not only the African continent but also to uncharted paths and discoveries of lesser-known diaspora experiences and identities in Latin America and the Caribbean. Third is the illustration of universal unwritten cultural representations of humanities in the African diasporas that show the distinctive humanities’ disciplinary representations of Black diaspora imaginaries and subjectivities. The contributing authors inductively apply these themes to focus the reader’s attention on contemporary localized issues and historical arenas of the African diaspora. They engage their findings to critically analyze the broader norms and dimensions that characterize a given set of interrelated criteria that have come to establish parameters that increasingly standardize African diaspora studies.