Digital Diaspora: Definition, Evaluation and Policy Recommendations
Onur Unutulmaz | Director of Digital Diaspora Study Group ŠYeniDiplomasi.com | July 2012
Contents Executive Summary.............................................................................................. 2 Introduction............................................................................................................ 5 Background: Contemporary Diasporas and the Growing Interest in Diaspora Resources ..................................................................................................................................... 6 i. The Concept of Diaspora and Diasporic Communities.......................... 6 ii. The Race to Engage Diasporas...................................................................... 7 Definition: Digital Diaspora............................................................................... 8 Evaluation: Positive and Negative Implications of Digital Diasporas...9 i. Implications for Diasporic Communities.................................................... 10 ii. Implications for Sending Countries............................................................. 11 iii. Implications for Receiving Countries........................................................ 13 Conclusion: Prospects and Policy Recommendations ............................. 16 Bibliography............................................................................................................ 18
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Digital Diaspora: Definition, Evaluation and Policy Recommendations Executive Summary • Diasporas have emerged as significant international players with precious economic, political and social resources. Today, the race is almost universal for countries around the globe to reach out to and mobilise various diasporic communities in the service of political objectives concerning economic development, integration of minorities or effective lobbying for national interests. • Digital diaspora is a recently emerging concept that refers to the diasporic communities that utilize the extensive range of possibilities provided by the advanced Information Technologies to (i) mobilize around a common diasporic identity and form communities; (ii) express that identity publicly and negotiate the terms of it; (iii) provide solidary and material benefits to its members; and (iv) engage in political, economic, socio-cultural activities transnationally. • The Internet, providing interactive features and anonymity, is particularly appealing for the geographically dispersed and sometimes traumatized communities to communicate, organize and mobilize transnationally and globally. The extensive use of IT resources and the Internet provide digital diasporas with several material benefits; identity and solidary benefits; and integration benefits that would shield them from social exclusion. • The formation of digital diasporas also create several implications for the sending countries. They constitute low-cost, continuous channels of communication between the diasporic communities and their home countries which could be utilized at times of need to mobilize diaspora resources in the service of national interests. These include diplomatic advantages in bilateral relations as the diaspora communities could function as significant lobbying and pressure groups. The benefits also include political leverage particularly at election times and when diaspora communities constitute a potentially significant voting bloc. • The implications of digital diasporas for the receiving countries are no less significant. Most importantly, digital diasporas constitute easily accessible migrant and minority communities the integration of whom is a vital political concern. If the receiving countries come to terms with the realities of irreversible cultural diversity, the advanced IT resources and the multiplicity/hybridity of identities; they could engage digital diasporas to ensure effective integration. Receiving countries could also engage digital diasporas to prevent various fundamentalist and terrorist
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organisations that use the Internet to do their propaganda and to recruit members from marginalized segments of the society. • Among all these potential benefits of the formation digital diasporas, as mentioned above, they could also pose a risk to national sovereignty and security. The Internet is still one of the places where interactions are most difficult to control and regulate. While this creates numerous advantages for the traumatized diaspora members to get involved and have their voices heard, it could and does easily get exploited. This report suggests, however, that this risk needs to be tackled with a pro-active attitude from the states and should not overshadow the stated benefits of digital diasporas. • Overall, digital diasporas will continue to form and become increasingly more significant political actors in the international arena. While this prospect is almost certain, what this would imply for different countries and international/transnational organizations will depend on how quickly and effectively they would position themselves vis a vis digital diasporas. The first essential step to take is to acknowledge and embrace the fact that diaspora communities have multiple and hybrid identities, and they are engaged in a transnational mode of living. Once this step is taken, the rest depends on the logistics of how to more effectively mobilize their resources and engage them.
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I. Introduction This recently emerging concept, digital diaspora, refers to the new and technologically enhanced ways in which internationally dispersed communities could (re)construct, maintain and manifest a ‘diasporic identity’ and engage in significant transnational relations in the contemporary globalized world. The concept does not yet enjoy a similar level of popularity as the concept of diaspora in international relations or political discourses; nor has it been subject to a sufficient level of academic interest and inquiry. However, as this report shall attempt to manifest, a heightened level of interest should be directed towards the concept of digital diaspora as part of a transforming scenery of international relations and diplomacy in today’s digital age. The interest in the concept of digital diaspora derives mostly from a growing interest in the diasporas and in the ways in which Information Technologies (IT) have been transforming International Relations. Far from the times when the concept of diaspora was considered to refer to a necessarily traumatized and marginalized community; in today’s world everyone is in a race to engage the diasporic communities to benefit from their economic, political and socio-cultural resources. Therefore, before showing how the current advanced technologies in communication make these efforts simultaneously easier and yet more complicated thereby invoking the concept of digital diaspora, I shall start with defining some essential concepts related to diasporas as a background. Then, the concept of digital diaspora will be defined. Later, the potential of this concept shall be evaluated from the perspectives of the sending countries, receiving countries and diasporas. The report shall close with a discussion of the policy implications of the concept concerning the potential and prospects of digital diasporas.
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II. Background: Contemporary Diasporas and the Growing Interest in Diaspora Resources i. The Concept of Diaspora and Diasporic Communities The concept of diaspora emerged originally in reference to specific dispersed communities, i.e. the Jewish and Armenian communities, and their particular experience with dispersion and migration (Cohen 1997). However, today, the concept is used much more liberally and generally in reference to a great number of communities. These ‘modern diasporas’ are “ethnic minority groups of migrant origin residing and acting in host countries but maintaining strong sentimental and material links with their countries of origin- their homelands” (Sheffer 1986, 3). Although different people have different definitions, a review of the literature seems to suggest that contemporary diasporas are communities that possess (Brinkerhoff 2009, 31; Cohen 1997, 515; Vertovec 1997): • a diasporic consciousness and associated identity hybridity; • a collective memory and myth about homeland; • a commitment to keeping the homeland alive; • the presence of the issue of return, though not necessarily a commitment to do so. Among others, two very important implications should be kept in mind: • Diaspora is a subjective community that is based on conscious ownership of a common identity. Therefore, no individual can be assumed to be a member of any diasporic community only by virtue of their ethnic identity. They need to consider themselves to be part of that community. Thus, only when this diasporic consciousness is strong and mobilisation around this diasporic identity is achieved could a diasporic community be influential. • A diasporic identity is always and necessarily a hybrid identity. It is a unique and customized blend of the cultural identities of the homeland and the host context. Moreover, the literature on diasporas demonstrates that it should not necessarily be a ‘zero-sum conflict’ (Brinkerhoff 2009, 32). To the contrary, the contributions of the diasporic communities are greatest when they are allowed to obtain and express their hybrid identities securely and freely. This realization is evident in the increasing international trend where the emigration countries ask their diasporic communities abroad to ‘integrate’ in their host countries and to obtain citizenship; 6
while the immigration countries increasingly quit assimilationist discourses and turn to integration policies accepting the immigrant and minority communities’ diasporic identities.
ii. The Race to Engage Diasporas Today, there is a remarkable race to engage diasporic communities for a range of political and economic objectives. On the one hand, the emigration countries are trying to mobilize diaspora resources in the service of home country’s economic and political development. Already by the year 1999, Meyer and Brown (1999) have identified forty-one formal knowledge networks linking thirty countries to their skilled nationals abroad. In addition, many emigration countries have established “Diaspora Ministries” to support their nationals abroad and to keep strong relations with them. Some of these cases are very extreme. For instance, the government of the Philippines has established a consultation office in the US to give legal advice to Philippino asylum-seekers to get refugee status. In other words, the government is helping individuals who are claiming to have escaped the country to make their case! (Vertovec 2009, 8-9) Such is the extent of emigration countries’ acknowledgement of the importance of diasporic communities. Turkey has not been any different in this manner. In addition to a growing number of programs and projects organized by institutions like TUBITAK (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) and various ministries aimed at diaspora Turks, a new Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities has been established in 2010. The immigration countries, on the other hand, increasingly acknowledging both the reality and irreversibility of ethnic and cultural diversity in their societies, try to facilitate cultural integration of diasporic communities while ensuring them that assimilation is no longer a political objective. As a result, some countries such as Germany and France are stepping back from assimilationist policies while more multiculturalist countries such as the Netherlands and the UK are asking for cohesion around a sense of belonging and common values (Unutulmaz 2012). The negotiated compromise seems to be cultural integration- a term loose enough to incorporate the existence of hybrid diasporic identities while also asking for conformity with the rules and general culture of the host context. The sending countries, in fact, like this idea of better integrated diasporas who would have more political capital and higher socio-economic status. In the next section, I shall try to show how the emergence of digital diasporas fits into this picture of ever growing political salience of engaging diasporas. First, let me define the concept.
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III. Definition: Digital Diaspora and the Internet for Diasporic Communities In the strictest sense, digital diasporas can be defined as virtual communities who exist only in the cyber space and act through internet. However, this is only one part of the actual phenomenon. In fact, digital diasporas should be defined as diasporic communities that make use of the extensive range of possibilities provided by the advanced Information Technologies to (i) mobilize around a common diasporic identity and form communities; (ii) express that identity publicly and negotiate the terms of it; (iii) provide solidary and material benefits to its members; and (iv) engage in political, economic, socio-cultural activities transnationally. As a tool for communication and community building, the Internet is perfectly equipped with opportunities and possibilities for connecting diasporic communities who are geographically scattered. In fact, one of the very few major studies on diasporas’ use of media technologies suggests that diasporic communities not only use, but also adopt cutting edge technologies (Karim 2003). IT allow dispersed communities to produce and maintain new diasporic identities with stronger ties within and among diaspora communities and with the homeland (Panagakos 2003). The Internet offers a host of probabilities for new connections and forming a range of communities. Three significant types of virtual communities are defined in the literature: i) virtual communities that are congruent with physical communities; ii) virtual communities that overlap with physical communities (but are not congruent with them); and iii) virtual communities that are thoroughly distinct from physical communities (Brinkerhoff 2009, 44; Foster 1996). The first kind of communities may include grassroots organisations or similar non-profit ones that provide services in the physical world while maintaining modes of interaction in cyberspace such as discussion forums for community building purposes. The second type of virtual communities, which overlap with physical communities but are not congruent with them, may include those that connect dispersed communities and utilize the Internet to discuss and plan for purposive engagement in the physical world that they would later execute either in the homeland or in one or more host contexts. The completely virtual type of diasporas are organisations that are cocreated by members and exist only online. Although “more multiplex relationships” could be formed through the use e-mail addresses and individual members‘ connections ‘offline’, these connections are out of the cyber-communities (Wellman and Gulia 1999).
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Besides these types of virtual communities, the more traditional types of organizations that exist primarily in the physical world who make growing use of the Internet need to be considered in relation to digital diasporas. The overlay of virtual communities may potentially strengthen the physical communities. Indeed, research has shown that virtual interaction intensify support and relationships in physical communities (Hampton and Wellman 2002). It is, thus, not surprising to see that even the smallest community organization today seeks to form a virtual presence either in the form of a web page or as a group or community membership in one of the popular social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, or Myspace. The impact of such social media outlets in the organisation and mobilisation of communities in the physical world was most vividly witnessed in many recent events worldwide, including the so-called Arab Spring and the London Riots of 2011. Internet does not only make it easier and faster for members of diasporic communities to communicate by enabling the creation of cyber-communities that connect dispersed populations and provide solidarity among members (Brinkerhoff 2009, 14). It also transforms the nature of such communication. For one thing, the intra-community organization and communication via Internet as a communication tool facilitates the expression of liberal values such as individualism and freedom of speech, through anonymity and access to opportunity (Brinkerhoff 2009, 46). Although there might be a formal hierarchical structure in the virtual communities as well, they tend to be much more loose usually allowing members to engage in forum discussions and cyber activities anonymously and giving voice to a lot of individuals who may lack it in the physical world. Moreover, the Internet functions as a mobilizing tool, by facilitating the formation of a shared identity necessary for collective action; by serving as an organizational/networking resource for assembling and communicating among individuals and groups; and by facilitating ‘issue framing‘ and confidence building (Brinkerhoff 2009, 47). Individuals and groups within a diaspora, could use the Internet to frame various issues in specific ways as to call for action and to give a sense of efficacy to the other members of the digital diaspora by suggesting various options for action. At a much faster pace compared to the physical world, digital diasporas could rally around specific issues by spreading the word in many different online outlets and what may have started as a marginal idea could quickly snowball into a motion followed and supported by masses of people.
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IV. Positive and Negative Implications of Digital Diasporas The limited literature on digital diasporas has mostly focused on the matters from the perspective of diasporic host countries or societies. In the following, I shall try to evaluate the implications and potentials of digital diasporas from the viewpoints of sending countries, receiving countries and diaspora members themselves.
i. Implications for the Diaspora Members: It has certainly become much easier in terms of logistics and much more effective in its nature for dispersed communities to sustain a common diasporic identity and stay in touch with their coethnics around the globe in today’s digital age. Digital diasporas, let them be purely virtual communities that exist only in the cyber-space or physical communities that maintains a cyber existence alongside; communicate, organize and mobilize through the Internet. There are several significant advantages that digital diasporas enjoy in today’s globalized world. In what follows, some of these most significant implications of advanced IT resources in engaging contemporary diasporas will be summarized from the perspective of the members and leaders of these diasporas: Material Benefits: One of the most significant ways in which digital opportunities enrich diasporas’ lives is through the material benefits that using Internet offers. Among others, these include news and information on the homeland, its culture, history and religious practices- which might become particularly important for the subsequent generations of the diaspora. These information on the homeland may also include information on how to do business with the homeland, opportunities for the expatriate communities, and even dating and matchmaking services. Material benefits also include news and information on the host context, commercial opportunities, legal and bureaucratic processes, and events for socialization. Very importantly, IT provide significant levels of social capital to digital diasporas who use the contacts and personal relationships they establish in the cyber-space to improve their lives in the physical world. Identity/Solidary Benefits: The above material benefits, though very important in the lives of diasporas, are not specific to those communities. However, for migrant communities the identity and solidary benefits that cyber-communities provide are extremely prevalent. This is because these communities actively fight to produce, maintain and reproduce a diasporic identity and require comfort and identity support as they cope with sometimes traumatic experience of dispersion. The digital diaspora members “articulate their loneliness”, deal with their trauma and 10
adapt to their changed realities while sustaining their homeland identity through their interactions (Hozic 2001). Studies have shown that digital diasporas' use of Internet gives them a platform through which they experiment and express hybrid identities (Sapienza 2001). In other words, the Internet constitutes a legitimate and prolific social space for digital diasporas where it is OK not to chose one or the other identity but be who they want to be revealing “varying degrees of juxtaposition and mixing of local and global” as opposed to cultural polarization or marginalization (Sapienza 2001, 435). Of course, the Internet plays a pivotal role in today’s world for some diasporas who try to sustain their traditional national identities (Saunders 2004). One of the ways in which the Internet enables these identity benefits is through its interactive components which provide an efficient and accessible way of storytelling and discussion. It is through these tools that digital diasporas share, reproduce, and transform diasporic identities and get socialized and mobilized around them getting away from the feeling of loneliness. Integration/ Anti-Exclusion Benefits: Having to leave one’s country is usually a costly process, materially and emotionally. The settlement and living processes in its aftermath might be particularly difficult experiences. The migration literature suggests that social capital in the form of networks, cultural capital in the form of familiarity with the host culture, and human capital in the form of skills and qualifications are extremely valuable assets in this process that help an individual immigrant to integrate. On all these accounts, as mentioned above, IT offer a host of opportunities and advantages. Digital diasporas use IT to acquire or increase their social, cultural and human capital through various material and solidary benefits of the digital age. This, in turn, helps them alleviate the sense of loneliness, exclusion and marginalisation; and, makes it easier for them to acquire a sense of belonging at the local and transnational levels. The analysis of the implications of digital diasporas on integration will be elaborated on below in further detail from the viewpoint of the host country governments.
ii. Implications for Sending Countries: As I have outlined above, there is an increasing trend for all emigration countries to reach out to their diasporas and mobilize their resources in the service of the country’s development. Digital diasporas are much easier to reach and mobilize in this regard as long as the sending countries can exploit the host of new opportunities the digital age has to offer. The following is a brief overview of the implications of the emergence of digital diasporas for the sending countries.
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Mobilisation/Organisation of Diasporas for Home Country Benefit: The most significant implication of digital diasporas for the sending countries is surely the ease with which the sending country governments and institutions can call upon their diasporas on a global scale, mobilize their resources and benefit from them. The economic and financial transfers from the diaspora to a sending country are much easier and cheaper with the advancements in internet banking and online investment opportunities. For example, while the humanitarian financial assistance following natural disasters used to be in the monopoly of states and big institutions, today countries that suffer from a natural disaster use internet not only to inform their diasporas about the extent of the disaster and ask for their assistance; but also to give them several options ranging from online bank transfers or credit card donations to transfers through intermediary companies such as PayPal. The recent case of Van Earthquake in Turkey in 2011 displayed how digital diaspora groups, big or small, were organized over the internet using mail groups, Facebook messages or Twits, to raise donations from the Turkish diaspora all around the world. Even apart from such drastic cases of crises or emergencies, digital diasporas are much more easily accessible emigrant communities that contain significant resources. An increasing number of programs and schemes are designed in many developing countries to enable highly-skilled members of their respective diasporas to contribute in the economic development of the countries without requiring them to move physically or to move permanently. These mostly involve transfers of technical knowledge and consultancy over the internet, use of international networks established by the members of diaspora, teaching from afar, ‘telecommuting’ and so on. I have already indicated above how most developing countries have been establishing significant institutional frameworks to engage their highly-skilled diasporas worldwide. Diplomatic Advantages and Political Leverage: Today’s world is not only marked by technological advancements. It is also marked by an unparalleled level of diversity and multicultural cohabitation in many parts of the world. The latter half of the 20th Century, which is called the ‘age of migration‘ (Castles and Miller 1993), created national political communities which involve very significant numbers of citizens of migrant or minority origin. Among many others, these developments bring about political implications in the contemporary international relations. The significance of the Jewish diaspora in the US and their influence on US foreign policy has long been known. Today we see the emergence of similar diasporic pressure groups and lobbies in many parts of the Western World with a great pace. There are over 4 million Turkish immigrants in Germany, with almost 1,5 million having acquired German citizenship and more and 12
more passing the age of voting. The Latin American community in the US where the Mexicans constitute a majority has been consistently increasing their visibility and influence. It should also be noted that the relative significance and influence of a diasporic community on a country’s foreign policy does not merely rely on its size. It is rather determined by a set of historical, social, economic and political factors. This is evident in the case of the aforementioned Jewish case in the US and the case of Armenian diaspora in France. Digital diasporas, then, create implications for the sending countries not only to exert political influence on other countries where its diasporas are residing, but also to maximize and shape that political influence. Sending countries could urge their diasporas to acquire citizenship of their host countries (if possible without giving up their former citizenships), encourage them to be involved in the socio-economic and political life more, and ask them to be instrumental in forging significant relationships between the two countries through the Internet. In addition, they could help their diasporas all along providing assistance and counseling using e-consulate web pages or posting on digital diaspora forums. This potential would be amplified at election times when the potential votes of diasporas will be sought after by the host country politicians. Through the possibilities of the Internet and accessibility of digital diasporas, sending country governments could more easily follow the political atmosphere in the receiving countries and could mobilize their diasporas more effectively. Digital diasporas offer a less problematic way of interaction between the sending state and the diaspora members many of whom might have less than a positive view of the state due to their previous experiences as long as the state could embrace the new social and political reality and allow the digital diasporas to maintain their hybrid identities.
iii. Implications for Receiving Countries: To repeat, the level of ethnic and cultural diversity within all Western countries have reached an unprecedented level at the beginning of the new millennium. Around 10% of the national populations in most developed countries are now constituted by foreign nationals, while another 10% are naturalized or further generation immigrants (Unutulmaz 2012). Furthermore, the growing identity concerns and rise of ‘identity politics’ in the wake of ‘clash of civilizations’ discussions following the 9/11 attacks have led to the securitisation of immigration discourses. In all these, social and cultural integration has emerged as a burning topic both in the political and public discourses. Digital diasporas; who hold hybrid identities that are informed and affected simultaneously by the home and host identities, who are responsive to local and transnational contexts, and who would be easily engaged in various discussions and negotiations, bring about 13
several significant implications for the receiving countries as well. In the following, I have briefly summarized two most important of these implications. Integration of Immigrants into Society: Many of the scenes from the suburbs of Paris a few years ago, and elsewhere in Europe since, when immigrant youth clashed with police were repeated in London in the summer of 2011. According to the ‘Riots Communities and Victims Panel’s interim report, the number one lesson drawn from the London Riots of 2011 was the necessity of social integration for minorities and vitality of giving them ‘a stake in the society’ (Panel 2011). I have already pointed out above that digital diasporas are enjoying the benefits of IT in increasing their social, cultural and human capital, which in turn help them integrate into the host society and alleviate feeling of social exclusion. The benefits of digital diasporas for more effective integration from the receiving country’s perspective are not limited to that, though. For one thing, it is easier for local and national governments in the host countries to interact with organized communities instead of unorganized masses of individual immigrants. They can more easily reach out to their target demographic groups, disseminate information about the relevant integration policies and programmes, encourage diaspora members to be engaged in such programmes and so on. In addition to this more or less logistical benefits of digital diasporas for receiving country integration measures, the much more essential and crucial benefit of digital diasporas is the reviewed space created for the production, maintenance and expression of hybrid identities. This benefit is, therefore, conditional on receiving country’s attitudes. In as long as the receiving country could create a context that is conducive for such hybrid diasporic identities that essentially carries elements from both sending and receiving backgrounds; digital diasporas will serve greatly in support of the formation, dissemination and expression of that identity which in turn is instrumental in giving the diasporic communities a ‘significant steak in the society’ and in fostering a very real, non-artificial sense of belonging. This may seem paradoxical given the fact that most digital diasporas appear to uphold identity discourses which are essentially all about the home identity. However, a closer examination on several case studies will reveal the fact that existence of a secure diasporic identity is not an impediment in front of immigrant integration; to the contrary, it will serve as the basis on which a comfortable hybrid identity necessarily endorsing the diasporic context could be built (Brinkerhoff 2009). Therefore, successful integration through digital diasporas requires an awareness of the implications of the digital age and existence of
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these diasporas, on the one hand; and on the other, an acceptance for the formation and expression of such hybrid diasporic identities on the part of the receiving countries. State Sovereignty and Security: The last couple of decades have witnessed the securitisation of migration discourses wherein issues of migration and migrants have acquired a security connotation in the wider international context of transformation of traditional security conceptions (Buonfino 2004). In this context, the Internet has often been blamed as a necessarily uncontrollable realm within which terrorist organisations ensure organisation, communication and recruitment of new members without states being able to effectively intervene in these processes. This idea of IT constituting a big challenge to a state’s sovereignty and capacity to govern was found to be very widespread in Wilson’s (1998) literature review on the topic. It has been shown to be true that terrorist organisations did and do make use of the Internet and other IT resources in planning and undertaking many of their activities, including the 9/11 attacks (Weimann 2006). However, there is significant reason to believe that digital diasporas could actually enhance receiving states' sovereignty and effectiveness to govern, on the one hand; and their security, on the other, in many ways. Brinkerhoff (2009, 10) lists a few: [diaspora] can act as an additional watchdog on homeland governments. Using IT, diasporas can facilitate communication channels in support of accountability and responsiveness to human rights concerns, enhancing governance legitimacy. By contributing to the provision of public goods and technical assistance/capacity building of government agencies, diasporas support governance effectiveness. Additionally, they may potentially prevent the participation of fellow diasporans in continuing or instigating renewed violence in the homeland.
In summary, while the ever changing and developing IT possibilities represent a significant potential threat to state sovereignty and security; they also have plenty of potential to enhance the capabilities of states’ to deal with the new security threats in the digital age. One such area where effective use of IT could help enhancing security is engaging digital diasporas. Receiving countries could exploit the benefits of internet in reaching to, educating and integrating various diasporas in counterbalancing any potential call from radical terrorist organizations for recruitment and support. As long as these technologies are out there and they provide a number of untraceable and uncontrollable ways of contacting individuals, it is only wise for the states to use them very effectively and create a healthy communication with every segment of their societies instead of sitting back while extremist organisations use them for their own purposes.
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Conclusion: Prospects and Policy Recommendations This report is a brief overview of the recently growing importance and implications of the digital diasporas. Although the literature on the subject is fairly limited, and written mostly from the perspective of the receiving countries, there is no doubt that the concept of digital diasporas will be used much more often in the recent future. The various implications reviewed here also suggest that, if engaged effectively, digital diasporas have the potential to become very significant transnational actors in the international relations and diplomacy. Therefore, I would like to close this discussion with the following points and suggestions. Digital diasporas are already significant communities which are extremely cheap, easy and effective to organise and mobilise. The advanced Information Technologies, which contribute the process of globalization in all aspects of life, have a special bearing for the diaspora groups who are dispersed geographically, maintain a simultaneous interest in two or more contexts, and wish to reproduce their (hybrid) identities in the diaspora over many generations. In such a context of inevitable diversity, diasporas and digital diasporas will definitely grow in significance as international and transnational political actors. Sending countries who wish to mobilise diaspora resources in the service of home country development; receiving countries who wish to effectively manage the cultural and ethnic diversity within the host country through successful integration; and any international, supranational, transnational organizations who wish to mobilise a great mass of people with a migration background for their particular agendas; all need to acknowledge the fact that diasporas and digital diasporas will be one of the significant actors in the international arena. As stated previously, the Internet is not only a channel for accessing diasporas, it functions as a mobilizing tool, by facilitating the formation of a shared identity necessary for collective action; by serving as an organizational/networking resource for assembling and communicating among individuals and groups; and by facilitating ‘issue framing‘ and confidence building (Brinkerhoff 2009, 47). There is an increasing trend of accepting ethnic and cultural diversity instead of homogeneity as the norm in many parts of the world (Vertovec 2007). In such a context, one homogenous, ethnically defined national identity is harder than ever to promote. Although ‘post-nationalism’ might still be a long way to go and the nation states remain as THE sovereign actors in international relations; multiple, hybrid and transnational identities could not be ignored. The wise choice for all countries would be to come to terms with this reality and embrace the multiplicity of identities in the population as a richness. This does not, by any means, imply that a national 16
identity should not be promoted or sought after. It rather implies that the terms of such a national identity should be formulated in a delicate way as to be unifying and civic in nature, and not exclusionary and ethnic. This is particularly crucial for the digital diasporas whose identities are necessarily hybrid and whose mode of conduct is necessarily transnational in one way or another. As long as the governments of sending and receiving countries could embrace the hybrid and transnational nature of digital diaspora identities; it will be much easier for them to engage these communities effectively. As I mentioned above, the contributions of the diasporic communities are greatest when they are allowed to obtain and express their hybrid identities securely and freely; and when they are not forced to make a choice between two exclusive identities. If, therefore, the governments insist on such outdated understandings of exclusionary, essentialised, ‘one true identity’ which forces immigrants and minorities to chose one of the two national identities, they will necessarily alienate the diasporas. It should be stressed here again that one of the biggest advantages of IT for digital diasporas is the low-level barrier or entry and the anonymity that allow for a huge flexibility for individuals to manifest their identities. This more philosophical change in nation states’ understanding of diaspora identities is a MUST. Only after that we can talk about more practical steps to be taken. We are already witnessing a great level of effort on the part of governments to catch up with technological advancements in IT and utilize the potential of Internet as much as possible. This efforts should definitely be extended vis a vis diasporas. Although the physical movements and contacts of diaspora members may be more difficult and costly, the Internet provides an endless array of opportunities to form and maintain contact between the home country and diaspora communities globally. These channels for continuous communication should not be seen in immediately instrumental terms. They are rather channels for mobilizing the diaspora communities when they are needed.
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