9.

Diaspora.

When I first saw this word, all that was happening in my head was massive question marks floating around everywhere. But then I did my research and realised that my family’s history relates greatly to the meaning of this word.

Diaspora: used to “describe practically any population which is considered ‘deterritorialised’ or ‘transnational’ -- that is, which has originated in a land other than which it currently resides, and whose social, economic and political networks cross the borders of nation-states or, indeed, span the globe.” Steven Vertovec

My grandparents were forced to migrate to Australia back in 60’s from Italy because conditions were so poor that they couldn’t raise their family. My Grandfather was forced to leave his family for a good year to move to Australia, to earn a sufficient amount of money in order to move the rest of his family here.

They fortunately located to an area in Australia where a minority of Italians formed however they struggled to ease into the Australian culture and mingle with fellow Australians because the Australian’s weren’t accepting of their foreign culture and race.

It brings into question, if being evenly dispersed into a new culture, are they better off as they will find it easier to fit in, as they aren’t holding onto their homeland ties?

After reading Colin Palmer’s article ‘Defining and Studying the Modern African Diaspora’, I was able to understand that nowadays as most cultures have a variety of cultures in it, that we are more welcoming to foreigners, especially in Australia as a large proportion of our citizens are immigrants or have family members who have migrated to Australia.

References:

http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/1998/9809/9809VIE2.CFM

http://www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk/working%20papers/diaspora.pdf