Diaspora and the Possibility of a Move from the Sense of Exile to Emplacement: A Survey of Approaches

The sense of displacement and exile which is the result of forced or voluntary dispersal of people from their homeland is an important issue in the lives of diaspora. A wide range of scholars of different disciplines in humanities attempt to answer how diaspora who are evicted from their homeland as a result of war, colonization, or socio-political upheavals, can overcome their sense of exile and develop a balanced relationship with the environment, culture and language of their home and host societies. This article is a study of the two main approaches to the issue. The first approach is poststructuralist and advocates acceptance and appreciation of “unhomeliness” and “hybridity” in the age globalization. The second approach, which is advocated by scholars of Marxism and Postcolonial studies, insists on resistance to social inequality and reinforces the idea of “habitation” and insistence on belonging. While discussing the two approaches and their limits in relation to recent case and experimental researches, this article argues that any intellectual solution for a move towards emplacement would be valid only if it addresses and shows awareness of what Edward Said calls “situational complexity”, meaning the historical, cultural and geographical complexity of a particular case. Given the complexity and varietyof different groups of diaspora and their needs, it is their right of return to their homeland and the right of freedom of religious, social and cultural activities in the host country that determine and prioritise the strategies of emplacement.