Who Speaks for the Diaspora?

With the increasing governmental value of the diasporas (particularly the wealthy ones) we are seeing the expansion of a managerial class in the media, heritage organizations, institutions, the cultural service sector as well as the academy who have limited understanding of the histories and the complexities of the phenomenon but know enough (and also are adept at rehashing nation-centric ideologies) or will be producing enough to reproduce regulated meanings of the diaspora and in the process shrink the (already small) demographic who does the critical work of naming these phenomena and their connection with neoliberalism and the ruling of the dominant classes.

A note about academic diaspora studies and their public role

In the absence of relevant studies, we can only speculate about the reasons for the lack, or at best limited, institutional interest in supporting Greek diaspora studies.

 
But we can very well see the implications of this neglect, particularly in this historical moment when grassroots interest in heritage and identity accelerates. With limited human and other resources there is little what researchers can do, while some opt to strictly stay within the niche of their research interests. As a result, academic contributions for understanding and contextualizing grassroots identity narratives is limited, and in some areas non-existent.

 
To speak about a topic which is close to my heart and politics, understanding women’s struggles for equality. In the context of this year’s International Women’s Day, diaspora associations mobilized widely, paying tribute to diaspora women, recognizing their contributions, honoring trailblazers, granting awards––under the rubric of promoting the discourse of equality.

I have not fully followed the discourse, and I do not think there is yet academic essays or commentaries contextualizing its various iterations. I hope I am mistaken. Perhaps there will be in the future. But Greek diaspora gender studies has also few practitioners.

 
I would have loved to hear how these grassroots celebrations of women addressed working class women. Whether the discussion included various feminisms and intersections between gender, class, sexuality. Whether there were discussions of how the struggle for equality squares with the social organization of associations which still segregate gender. Whether there were expressions of solidarity with vulnerable women in demographics beyond the Greek diaspora, in the spirit of an outward ethos of diasporic citizenship.

The lack of support for diaspora studies has considerably compromised its contributions to the public sphere, to the detriment, I believe, to all diaspora citizens as well as those in Greece who value reflection and learning.

A broad conversation is due about our presence in the public sphere and the forms it might take.

Note on Entrepreneurialism

Entrepreneurialism is valorized as a driving force for innovation, creativity, progress, success. It is cited to foreground the willingness to take risks, the ability to think and act outside the box, to the crossing, that is, of all kinds of boundaries, leading to new solutions and technologies, discoveries, medical breakthroughs, ultimately human well-being. Entrepreneurialism is of course ideologically loaded. In immigrant/ethnic discourses, where it is celebrated, it has provided ahistorical explanations of mobility, justification for intra-ethnic (as well as interethnic) hierarchies (successful vs unsuccessful migrant) and the arrogance that comes with them, national mythologies (bootstrap mobility), attacks on labor movements (the entrepreneurial middle class seeking to discipline immigrants involved in the labor movement, fearing the tarnishing of the ethnic reputation and the capitalist status quo). Entrepreneurialism creates but also destroys (social relations, the environment, values). Not rarely it connects with shady dealings behind sealed doors.

 
This is to say that the media, journalists, scholars, citizens ought to move beyond the ideology of entrepreneurialism as unbounded optimism––the sky is the limit––and explore the various facets of its social implications.