Introduction

Transnational mobility and migration belong to ‘the key forces of social transformation in the contemporary world’ (Castles 2002: 1144). Population movements during the second half of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century have resulted in the formation of new diasporas (van Hear 1998, Cohen 2008), different in a number of ways from those of earlier decades and centuries, typically associated with forced displacement, persecution and enslavement. While migration, dispersal and resettlement are still charged with anxiety for migrating as well as receiving communities, the concept of diaspora has been significantly revalorised over recent decades. This is partly due to an almost inflationary use of the term, which is frequently loosely applied to expatriates, political refugees, alien residents and ethnic minorities (Cohen 2008: 1), and partly to technological advances in communications and transport, which have made exchanges between enduring transnational networks considerably faster and easier. Today’s diasporic communities are celebrated as ‘paragons of the transnational moment’ (Braziel and Mannur 2003: 6) and a diasporic subject position has become an asset rather than a liability, as can be seen with US President Barack Obama and other public figures who openly acknowledge and promote their ethnic ‘roots/routes’ or ‘dual heritage’.