Diasporic Memory

In a globalized world, also memory and processes of remembrance have become transnational. Individuals and groups nurture and preserve memories of the past and of places they have left; they generate new memories and experiences in virtual spaces; and they commemorate victims of violence from afar. This entry focuses on “diasporic memory,” i.e., memories and processes of remembrance that individuals and groups in the diaspora maintain and enact, which revolve around their identification as a people that was once dispersed from a homeland, and that continues to relate to and identify with that homeland. Diasporic memory can take the form of nostalgia for a better time and place that have been left behind and as romanticized recollections of “home.” A difficult past, on the other hand, can serve as a collective trauma around which a diasporic identity is constructed. Memory and memorialization play an important role in shaping a diasporic sense of belonging. Engagement with memory through, for instance, commemorative events, monuments, media, culture, or activism can serve to connect diasporas with a distant homeland but at the same time be a way to feel more at home in the countries of residence. Importantly, for a diaspora to continue to exist over time, the transmission of collective memories to younger generations is a central but often complex, process.