The Geopolitics of Diaspora

The Geopolitics of DiasporaAuthor(s): Sean CarterSource: Area, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Mar., 2005), pp. 54-63Published by: Wiley on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20004429 .

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Area (2005) 37.1, 54-63

The geopolitics of diaspora

Sean Carter School of Geography, Archaeology and Earth Resources, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4RJ

Email: [email protected]

Revised manuscript received 25 November 2004

In recent years there has been a growing body of work dealing with issues of diaspora and hybridity, both within geography and in other disciplines, such as cultural studies. This work tends to celebrate the potential of the hybrid and diasporic to transcend essentialist notions of identity and subjectivity. In this paper I argue that these approaches often fail to pay sufficient attention to two particular aspects of the diaspora experience: firstly, the geographical specificities of particular diasporas, and secondly, the ways in

which essentialist modes of being are often reproduced within diasporic discourse. This is done by providing an overview of recent research into the Croatian diaspora in the

United States (particularly their involvement in the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s), which

begins to develop the notion of the geopolitics of diaspora.

Key words: diaspora, geopolitics, Croatia, Croatian American, territory, identity

Introduction In recent years there has been a growing academic interest in the notion of diaspora (Axel 2001; Brah

1996; Lavie and Swedeburg 1996; Chow 1993). The idea of diaspora is attractive in the sense that it offers a progressive possibility for a non-essentialized self, and can break the supposed fixed relationship between place and identity. Within diasporic communities this can be achieved through the

maintenance of multiple connections, between the

present 'here', and a past or future 'there'. As Clifford puts it, 'the empowering paradox of diaspora is that dwelling here assumes a solidarity and connection there. But there is not necessarily a single place or an exclusivist nation' (1997, 269, original emphasis). The problem with much of the diaspora literature, however, is that it fails to acknowledge that diasporas can also reproduce the essentialized notions of place and identity that they are supposed to transgress. Clifford suggests that 'there is not necessarily a single place or an exclusivist nation'; but this there often is a 'single place' (1997, 296). This paper is

concerned, then, with those moments when the

there of the diasporic cartography is in some way

fixed, essentialized or exclusive, drawing upon research into the role of the Croatian community in the United States during the recent 'Homeland War'.

There are three main sections. In the first section I develop a more substantive discussion on the notion of diaspora, its current use within social studies, and the relationship between diaspora and territory. In the second section the Croatian-American community is used as an example of the banal nationalism of

diaspora geopolitics. Finally, the third section discusses some of the emergent theoretical implications of these kinds of diasporic practices.

Diaspora and territoriality

Diasporas, according to Basch et al. are 'nations unbound, who re-inscribe space in a new way' (in Cohen 1997, 2). In his summary of current approaches to diaspora, Cohen suggests that

diasporas are positioned somewhere between nation states and 'travelling cultures' in that they involve dwelling in a nation state in a physical sense, but travelling in an astral or spiritual sense that falls outside the nation-states space/time zone. (1 997, 1 35-6)

ISSN 0004-0894 ? Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) 2005



The geopolitics of diaspora 55

Contemporary diasporas are, then, seen to occupy a 'third space', a position 'beyond space and time, and

beyond the situated practices of place and the lived experience of history' (Mitchell 1997, 534). Diaspora has been transformed (at least in a theoretical sense) from a descriptive condition applied largely to Jews in exile, to encompass a multitude of ethnic, religious

and national communities who find themselves living outside of the territory to which they are historically 'rooted'. The significant shift in the use of diaspora is not restricted, however, to the groups to whom it has become attributed, but the concept itself has taken on a new resonance. Diaspora is now conceived together with a range of other concepts (hybridity, nomadism, creolization) that seek to celebrate the progressive potential of such positions, to overcome the fixed and essentialized assumptions regarding both identity and territory. In this sense, the recent literature on diaspora is of considerable interest to geographers, as the spatial, if largely only used in a metaphorical sense, is never very far from the centre of much of this work. There is a tendency

within diaspora studies, however, to utilize these spatial metaphors, whilst simultaneously denying the significance of geography. In many of these accounts borders are traversed, boundaries are dissolved and space is something that is overcome. Space is invoked, but often left un-interrogated. In particular, the diaspora literature tends to discount the re-territorializing elements of diasporic practices, a shortcoming that I argue is largely due to the lack of interconnectedness between the theoretical literature on diaspora and empirical research on 'actual' diasporas and their specific geographies. In

order to better understand some of the key ideas in this literature, there follows a short review of the

work of two of the most influential and sophisticated accounts of diaspora formations; those accounts produced by the sociologist Paul Gilroy, and the anthropologist James Clifford.

In Between camps (2000), Gilroy deals with the twin issues of territory and identity from a diaspora perspective. Gilroy begins by re-iterating the well established point that identity is more often than not allied to territory - identities are normally bounded and particular, and are 'thus revealed as a critical element in the distinctive vocabulary used to voice the geo-political dilemmas of the late modern age' (2000, 99). Rather than being understood as a pro cess, identities are seen as a 'thing' to be possessed, owned, carried around and displayed, which divide people, absolutely. As an alternative to this view of

place and identity, or geography and genealogy, Gilroy utilizes a number of historical 'black Atlantics', whose lives demand to be understood as hybrid and recombinant, not pure and essentialized. Here, however, Gilroy uses these figures not so much as a

way of understanding the formation of black cultural forms, but as a way of disrupting place and identity

more generally:

As an alternative to the metaphysics of 'race', nation, and bounded culture coded into the body, diaspora is a concept that problematises the cultural and

historical mechanics of belonging. It disrupts the fundamental power of territory to determine identity by breaking the simple sequence of explanatory links between place, location, and consciousness. (Gilroy 2000, 123)

Gilroy does not want to suggest that place, location and territory are completely redundant in the forma tion of a diaspora consciousness, but rather than understanding this relationship as a simple, straight forward, static mechanism, he argues that diaspora consciousness is focused on 'the social dynamics of remembrance and commemoration defined by a strong sense of the dangers involved in forgetting the location of origin and the tearful process of dispersal' (2000, 124). When seen as not just move ment, but as a relational network, diaspora is a way of creating a rift between places of belonging and places of residence.

There is an explicit spatiality to Gilroy's work -

he proposes that

the concept of space is itself transformed when it is seen in terms of the ex-centric communicative circuitry that has enabled dispersed populations to converse, interact, and more recently even to synchronize significant elements of their social and cultural lives. (Gilroy 2000, 129)

Despite this recognition of the spatialities of diaspora in Gilroy's work, the diaspora literature has failed, I think, to fully explore this transformation of space, beyond re-stating that diaspora consciousness opens up a rift between location and identity. Ultimately,

what Gilroy's concept of diaspora calls for is some kind of specificity through which to analyse diasporic formations; he rejects the libertarian anti essentialist agenda as one which does not pay sufficient attention to specific histories, journeys, experiences and formations. Rather, Gilroy 'insists on the routing of diaspora discourses in specific maps/histories' (Clifford 1997, 266).



56 Carter

Clifford's most explicit treatment of the notion of diaspora can be found in a number of essays in Routes: travel and translation in the late twentieth century (1997). Within these essays, Clifford develops a discourse on the relationship between diaspora and territory, not least through his discussion of what counts as a diasporic. For Clifford then, a key question is how to define diaspora, or distinguish diaspora as a social and cultural form. Clifford offers a diacritical definition; what does diaspora define itself against? Primarily, Clifford suggests that diasporas are defined against nation-states. This is not a clear, simple, opposition (one of 'absolute othering'), but rather a process of 'entangled tension' (Clifford 1997). Thus

diaspora discourse articulates, or bends together, both roots and routes to construct . .. alternate public spheres, forms of community consciousness and solidarity that maintain identifications outside the national time/space in order to live inside, with a difference. (Clifford 1997, 251)

A common thread that has run through the discourse of diaspora is the perception that a diaspora consciousness coupled with 'collective practices of displaced dwelling' (Clifford 1997) is capable of subverting the norms of the nation-state, both ideologically and spatially. Clifford endorses this view, describing diaspora as 'ways of sustaining connections with more than one place while practising non-absolutist forms of citizenship' (1 997, 9). And, as I have shown above, Clifford chooses to define diaspora against (or at least in 'entangled tension' with) the nation-state. However, Clifford does accept the possibility that diasporas might not always be so non-absolutist, acknowledging that there have been instances of nationalism and chauvinism (often violently purist) emanating from diasporas. In particular, Clifford acknowledges that the very definition of a diaspora presupposes a centre from which they have been dispersed. Clifford views the existence of such centres as one way in which absolutism can sneak back in, but argues more forcefully that this need not be the case:

The empowering paradox of diaspora is that dwelling here assumes a solidarity and connection there. But there is not necessarily a single place or an exclusivist nation. (1997, 269, original emphasis)

However, such non-absolutisms remain possibilities, not inevitabilities, and very little emphasis is given to those occasions when absolutism does 'sneak back in'. For example, Clifford argues 'there is not

necessarily a single place or an exclusivist nation'. But there, often is. The discourse of diaspora tends to afford little insight into such outcomes. This general problem is well illustrated by highlighting two particular components of this shortcoming - an inadequate treatment of territory and an inadequate treatment of politics. There is then an absence of the 'specific maps and histories' that Gilroy calls for, or,

put another way, an absence of the geopolitics of diaspora. In the rest of the paper I introduce and explore one such 'specific map/history' as a means of analysing the celebratory tendencies of the diaspora literature.

Croatian-Americans and the 'homeland' war of independence

When the war broke out, we all became Croatians again. (Interview with Ruth', Pittsburgh, April 1999)

This statement came from Ruth, an American citizen in her late fifties. Although born in Croatia, Ruth had lived in the United States since she was twelve. This statement reflected a widespread increase in interest of Croatian-Americans in the politics of their 'homeland', as a result of the fragmentation of Yugoslavia in the early 1 990s. This revived engagement in homeland politics was not, however, the first such occasion. Throughout the twentieth century, Croats in America have sought to influence the politics of Croatia itself. During the First World

War the Grskovic group (also known as the Croatian League) lobbied the US government in an attempt to secure an independent Croatia in any post-war settlement (Sadkovich 1986); in the 1920s and 1930s Hrvatsko Kolos (Croatian Circles) were

established across America in opposition to the Serbian-dominated first Yugoslavia (Kraja 1964-5); and the post Second World War era saw the birth of a host of more radical Croatian organizations, some of which used terrorism to further their aims (Clissold 1979). For the large part, these movements consisted of Croatians who had relatively recently arrived in America; what perhaps was more unusual about the revival of hrvatsko (literally 'Croatian-ness') in the early 1990s was that amongst those involved in the social and political organizations which sprang up were second, third and fourth generation 'Croatians', most of whom had never seen their 'homeland'. The label 'Croatian-American' is used in a very broad sense. I use it to refer to anyone who, at some level, and to differing degrees, imagines




themselves as part of a Croatian community in the United States. In this sense they are diasporic (cf. Clifford 1997). Mass Croatian emigration to the United States began in the late 1880s and peaked in the first decade of the twentieth century. In total, it is likely that Croatian emigration to the United

States prior to the First World War was between 600 000 and one million (Prpic 1971). The majority of these immigrants settled in the industrial cities of the Northeast, particularly Pittsburgh, Cleveland and

Chicago. The Croatian community in the United States is thus relatively old, and has not been added to significantly in the post-Second World War era.

This paper draws upon a period of fieldwork in Pittsburgh in the spring of 1999, when a range of approaches were undertaken in order to construct a specific map/history of the Croatian diaspora in the United States and, in particular, its relations with the homeland during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s. These approaches included archive work on the weekly newspaper of the Croatian Fraternal Union, the Zajednicar, interviews with prominent figures in the Croatian-American community and a series of in-depth interviews with a range of indi viduals who positioned themselves, to differing degrees, within the Croatian-American community. It is not my intention here to fully discuss all the

outcomes of this research - rather I want to draw upon some of the key trends identified and use these to articulate the necessity for developing an understanding of the geopolitics of diaspora.

The range of practices undertaken by those within the Croatian-American diasporic formation during the 1990s were varied, wide-ranging and substan tial. In a small number of cases, this engagement took extreme forms, such as returning to Croatia to join fighting units, organizing illegal arms shipments and raising money to purchase weapons and other military material. The activities of the Croatian diaspora in this regard have been well documented by Hockenos (2003; see also Hajdinjuk 2002) in his study of 'exile patriotism and the Balkan wars'.

Whilst this study is a very useful and welcome addi tion to the literature on the Balkan wars, and to the debates concerning the politics of diaspora, Hockenos focuses for the most part on a number of prominent individuals, such as Gojko Susak. Susak, a Canadian pizza entrepreneur, became a close political ally of Franjo Tudjman, and eventually returned to Croatia to head up both the Ministry of Defence and the

Ministry of Return. Hockenos captures extremely well the politics and practices of extremists within

these diaspora communities, but his account does not fully explore the rather more mundane ways that the majority of those in diaspora are involved in homeland politics. He paints a picture of

diaspora communities as temporary exiles, rather than settled and embedded in local society. On Susak, for example, he says,

his coterie had circulated in a seamy underground of militant ultranationalist splinter groups. These men never established roots in Canada's multiethnic society but dwelled in the subcultural enclaves they had carved out for themselves. (Hockenos 2003, 1 1)

Whilst it is certainly true that elements within the diaspora conformed to this picture, it is also true to say that, for the most part, diasporic engagements

were more akin to the kind of banal nationalism outlined by Billig (1995); mundane practices which may have been directed towards a distant 'homeland', but were nevertheless embedded within the everyday lives that the diaspora had created for themselves in their host countries. For example, engagement in the homeland war often took place through everyday events such as community barbecues, concerts and bake sales. Nevertheless I would argue that such practices were essentializing practices - that is to say that regardless of how banal or mundane they might appear, these practices were closely linked to the creation and maintenance of an essentialized territory and an essentialized identity. The actions of the Croatian diaspora were aimed at supporting the emerging Croatian state, and Croatian 'nationals' (broadly defined), rather than all of those states and individuals caught up in the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s. Furthermore, as illustrated in the statement from Anne above, and as I further demonstrate below, the Balkan conflicts

had two particular effects on the Croatian community in the United States. First, it led to a revival of interest in Croatian heritage and ancestry; and second, there was a noticeable political shift

within community institutions towards a more recognizable nationalist and patriotic stance, centred on strong support for Tudjman's HDZ party.

There were three principal areas of diasporic engagement - fundraising, political protest and public relations campaigns. Fundraising efforts were largely conducted through pre-existing diaspora organizations, such as the Croatian Fraternal Union (CFU), the Croatian Catholic Union or individual

Croatian Catholic parishes. The most significant of these was the humanitarian fund established by the



58 Carter

CFU, which shipped aid to the value of US$24 million between 1991 and 1998. As well as provid ing very real material benefits for those affected by conflict in Croatia, these fundraising campaigns also had significant impacts on the Croatian-American community. The very banality and ordinariness of participating in fundraising activities such as bake sales, picnics, barbecues and concerts mobilized

many of those on the margins of the Croatian-American community into the arena of homeland politics. From this position of mundane involvement, it became easier to become enrolled in more overt and 'political' acts of engagement.

Political protest in the Croatian-American com munity took a number of different forms. The decla ration of Croatian independence and the subsequent violent unravelling of Yugoslavia occurred in the year prior to an American presidential election. Leaders of the Croatian-American community, which at this point in time was still relatively apolitical,

were frustrated by the approach taken by George Bush Senior towards the crisis in the Balkans, inter preting his policy of non-involvement as one of tacit support for the maintenance of a unified Yugoslavia. This frustration was reflected in the election cam paign of 1992. For example, the editorial in Zajed nicar (the bi-weekly newspaper of the CFU) in the week of the election claimed:

we have a clear cut choice on Election Day, 1992. For the future of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia and Macedonia, it is imperative that Bill Clinton and Al Gore are elected president and vice president of the United States. We have no alternative. (CFU 1992, 2)

One form of political activity within the diaspora, then, was through the electoral process. This form of political engagement had been preceded by a number of ad hoc forms of protest, principally a series of localized rallies and marches, both celebrating Croatian independence and decrying US foreign policy, and a national rally held in

Washington in July 1991, attended by 35 000 people. However, this form of political engagement was rather sporadic and short-lived. The Croatian American community soon developed a more targeted approach to protest, which involved the lobbying of particular politicians on specific issues.

This took two main forms. The pre-existent institutions, such as the CFU, organized campaigns that encouraged members to phone or write to their elected representatives. Alongside this, new organizations developed with the express intent of

providing the Croatians with an effective lobbying presence in Washington. The Croatian-American Association was thus formed in 1990, and the National Federation of Croatian-Americans (NFCA) in 1994. The NFCA brought a more coherent

and comprehensive approach to Croatian-American political protest. In particular, the NFCA recognized the need not just for effective lobbying of government, but also of the necessity to engage in a Public Relations 'war'.

The significance of Public Relations within Croatian-American discourses emerges in the latter stages of the war in Croatia. In 1994, for example, the Chair of the Public Relations committee of the NFCA argued:

Croatian Americans have a both a historic chance and a duty to bring this horrible war to a more acceptable conclusion . . . It all boils down to two letters: P.R. P.R. is not just calling your Congressman, or writing to an editor. . . P.R. must also create an image - a positive image of a country, a people. (Goss 1994, 27)

The newly found emphasis on PR had two impulses. The first of these was a perceived sense amongst the Croatian community that the Serbs were winning the media war, and that there was an anti-Croatian bias in Western media reporting of the conflict. Croatian-Americans argued that this was preventing any meaningful intervention by the United States. Second, diaspora activists were beginning to look forward, to the post-war era, and realized that

Croatia would require investment and would also need to develop good relations with important regional players, such as the EU and NATO. In an interview for a diaspora publication, the founder of a Croatian-American think-tank and PR consultancy proclaimed 'I propose to correct history. And it has to be done constantly . .. The world is learning

Croatian history through the eyes of Serbia only. I call it Serb-Prop' (Goss 1998).

There were a diverse set of practices taking place then, which could be described as 'collective practices of displaced dwelling' (Clifford 1997), even if only of a very banal, mundane kind. Croatian

Americans 'here' were involved in a distant 'there', but clearly not always in the non-absolutist ways in which much of the diaspora literature concep tualizes these kinds of practices. Moreover, evid ence from my research suggests that underlying these forms of long-distance participation in the politics of the homeland were two key shifts with in the Croatian-American community; first, greater




involvement by a greater number of people, or a revival in 'hrvatsko' in the American diaspora; and second, a political shift towards a more patrio tic, nationalist outlook, particularly evident in the

Croatian-American institutions. This second point in particular requires elaboration.

The Croatian-American community has always been politically diverse, a point which is well illus trated through reference to the two largest Croatian

American institutions - the Croatian Catholic Union and the Croatian Fraternal Union. The CFU was established in 1904, primarily as a fraternal insur ance organization, in order to provide security amongst the largely industrial Croatian workforce. It has many connections, therefore, with the labour and social movements of the industrialized Eastern cities in turn of the century America. The Croatian Catholic Union, however, was established in the 1920s, and took a much more overtly nationalist stance towards events in the homeland. Indeed, these tensions were also evident within the CFU.

National conventions of the CFU from the 1930s through to the 1950s were rife with internal strug gles between political interests from the left and right. For many in the Croatian-American commun ity, the CFU was too closely allied to workers

movements, and by implication, communism. This was reflected in the CFUs stance towards the Tito regime in Yugoslavia, which it tacitly supported -

the CFU sent a representative to Tito's funeral in 1980, for example.

The CFU, then, took a rather apolitical stance towards the developments within Croatia in the 1 980s, and the growing unrest within Yugoslavia at this time was barely reported upon within the Zajednicar.

Not until 1990 was there any significant comment on the political developments in the homeland, when an editorial expressed support for the gradual emergence of freedom and democracy within Croatia. The tone of this article, and a number of subsequent editorials on the same theme, reflected not so much celebration in the fact that an independent

Croatian homeland might now possible, but rather rejoicing in the fact that Croatia was embracing

American ideals of freedom and democracy. Within a matter of months, however, the CFU was express ing a much more patriotic and nationalistic line. For example, at the National Board of Directors meeting in May 1990, the National Secretary proclaimed:

We truly believe that the Croatian Fraternal Union is the LAST BASTION to protect our Honourable

Croatian Roots by preserving the Heritage, Culture and Language of our Croatian Ancestry; which suggests that any individual with CROATIAN PRIDE should stand up and be counted . . . Unfortunately, far too many of the Croatian persuasion are content to stay in the outer periphery for God knows what reasons at the most critical period of time in the struggle to preserve the Croatian Language, Culture and Heritage... What happened to the Croatian People and their pride? Who is going to speak for and defend the Croatian cause and ideals? (CFU 1990, original emphasis)

Later in the following year, in an interview published in the Zajednicar, the National President of the CFU remarked:

our position is that the most important item now is the future of our Croatian people and whether or not we

will remain as a nation of proud and historic origins or whether we will be totally assimilated into a foreign ethnic nation and no longer exist as a people. (CFU 1991)

For some members of the Croatian-American community, this shift towards a more patriotic, nationalist stance rendered their own participation within the diaspora problematic:

since then [the collapse of Yugoslavia] the CFU has moved, not only moved obviously away from supporting Yugoslavia, but has also moved in, how can I say, my association with the community has been, I felt more and more alienated from the Croatian community, as there's really been a kind of right wing movement in the Croatian community over the last, um, really since the dissolution of Yugoslavia, it was almost as if a unified Yugoslavia kept the community in a much more progressive position, you know tolerating other ethnic groups, a much more liberal position . . . the history of the presidents of the CFU were either progressive democratic, even socialist, or even members of the American communist party, so you know there was a tradition of progressive political life which has now been totally denied, and there's a real ascendancy in

Croatian politics and Croatian American politics of influence from the Church, that isn't very progressive. (Interview with Joe, Pittsburgh, April 1999)

This shift was not altogether. explicit within the Zajednicar, but was perhaps evident in two main ways: tone and content. The newspaper did not begin to publish overtly jingoistic or patriotic editorials and articles, but in tone there was a definite shift; the conflict was being scripted as an



60 Carter

overt attack by Serbian nationalism on Croatians and Croatian identity. Criticisms of the Croatian government and forces were not reported in the paper, except in cases where they were used as evidence of bias in mainstream news media. Equally, Croatian voices opposed to the nationalism of Tudjman, and of secession of Yugoslavia (which did exist within Croatia, and also within the Croatian-American community) were not heard within the Zajednicar. There was, then, a more or less complete acceptance of the viewpoint of

Tudjman's ruling HDZ party, and its policies towards the war. Previously, support for the HDZ was part of a generalized support for the establishment of democracy; this then changed to an uncritical acceptance of the HDZ and its political position.

This essentialization of diasporic identities was also reflected in heightened tension within the respective ethnic communities in America. Whilst this was not as pronounced in Pittsburgh as else

where (Chicago and Cleveland, for example), there was nevertheless a hardening of attitude, and a series of boundaries drawn out between Serbian

American and Croatian-American subjectivities. At a much more intimate level, interviews revealed a growing strain on personal relationships between acquaintances across the Croat-Serb 'divide'. When questioned on this point, one participant (disillu sioned by the rise of nationalism in Croatia) responded:

. .. there used to be this Yugoslav cultural month, used to be a co-operative effort between Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and some of the tension was very evident even before the war, and as the war developed, it was more simply not talking to each other anymore. I mean there's people I know, its interesting, there's people I know from outside of

work who I don't particularly have to deal with who are Serbs who I simply don't deal with anymore, and there are people within my workplace who are Serbs,

who given what I do in my job I really do have to deal

with, and we no longer acknowledge the fact that I'm Croatian and they're Serbian, it's simply something that's very politely ignored, very carefully ignored. (Interview with Joe, Pittsburgh, April 1999)

Even more starkly, another participant recounted:

I think there was a lot of tension between people who had been friends for a long time. I have a couple of

acquaintances that are Serbian, there was this one girl we were working on a project together, right at the time this happened, I was interviewed and I was on

television right at the time, it was just something we didn't talk about, we kept it above, we didn't get into that. The war did make it awkward for a lot of people ... there was a step back in those kind of relations

when the war took place, and I think a lot of people started to take sides, and were often very vocal about it, it was awkward ... I had a couple of articles

published, a couple of letters published in our newspapers with my views on the situation, I had a Serbian call me threatening to kill me, because of that, there was definitely a heightened interest at that time and an awareness. (Interview with Richard, Pittsburgh, April 1999)

Clearly, tensions were being felt, even amongst those communities consisting largely of third- and fourth-generation immigrants. This did not manifest itself in particularly noticeable or violent ways, but in the more mundane and banal everyday acts of conversation and changed routines. Nevertheless, to some degree the conflict in the Balkans was being reproduced in the diaspora, including the community in Pittsburgh. A battle was starting between the two sides, but rather than a physical, visceral battle, this was a war of words. The aim of the battle was to make 'the truth' about the conflict and its history known to the American public, its

media and its politicians. At the most basic of levels, this took place in the course of everyday conversations.

Towards a geopolitics of diaspora

During the 1 990s, then, there was a series of interventions by Croatian-Americans in the conflict that was occurring in the Balkans. Whilst there is some evidence that a number of diaspora

organizations were involved in either anti-war or cross-community projects, for the most part these activities broke down along ethnic lines.

Such interventions necessitate that we re-think not only the kind of diasporic sensibilities theorized by Gilroy, Clifford and others, but also our notions of nationalism. These practices are nationalistic, at least in the banal sense conceptualized by Billig (1995), yet the actants do not reside in the nation; their actions do not 'take place' there; the target audience of their actions are not necessarily situated there; yet their interventions are all about 'there'.

This is not entirely new (see Mulligan 2002), but given the increased capacity for diasporas to 'act at a distance' due to technological advances in com

munication, and indeed the greater prevalence of




diaspora communities in the contemporary world, we need to reconsider the ways that we think about the nation and its territorialities, as well as diaspora and its territorialities.

This theme of reconfiguring political territoriality has been central in recent developments within critical geopolitics (see, for example, Agnew 1994; o Tuathail 1994 1996; 6 Tuathail and Luke 1994; Luke 1996). Of particular relevance here is the sus tained criticism within critical geopolitics of the territorial assumptions that often characterize both 'traditional/classical' geopolitics (seen as an 'aid to statecraft') and dominant realist perspectives in international relations. The most prominent feature of these territorial assumptions has been the con ceptualization of the nation-state as a single, fixed, unified, entity, or as Ruggie puts it 'mutually exclu sive enclaves of legitimate dominion' (1993, 151). This territorial order, if it ever existed, has become increasingly disrupted by processes of globalization, both from 'above' (transnational capital, global political bodies, regional political and economic union) and 'below' (transnational communities, glo bal civil society, separatist national movements). Nevertheless, as Agnew (1994) and others have argued, traditional forms of geopolitics and inter national relations have both continued to treat the nation-state as a coherent 'container' of society on the inside, and solid and impermeable from the outside. Critical geopolitics, on the other hand 'pays particular attention to the boundary-drawing prac tices and performances that characterise the every day life of states' (0 Tuathail and Dalby 1998, 3). In this regard, critical geopolitics seeks to break down both the conceptual borders that imagine nation states as discrete from each other, and the imagina tive distinction between foreign/domestic or inside/ outside the nation-state. An understanding of the geopolitics of diaspora is an integral part of achieving this aim.

Work within critical geopolitics has strived to capture the contradictory nature of these spatial political transformations, particularly through an emphasis on holding together both deterritorializa tion and reterritorialization. This approach has been

most notably articulated in a series of writings by 0

Tuathail (e.g. 1998a 1998b, and also Luke and 0

Tuathail 1998; 6 Tuathail and Luke 1994). 0 Tuathail describes the deterritorialization approach thus:

it evokes the challenges posed to the status of territory and, by extension, our territorially embedded

understandings of geography, governance and geo politics, states, places, and the social sciences, by planetary communication networks and globalising tendencies. But it is deceptive when it becomes an answer polemically naming this challenge as a clear disappearance of territoriality. The problematic of deterritorialization is also the problematic of reterritor ialization; it is not the presence or absence of state territoriality but its changing status, power and

meaning in relationship to postmodern technological constellations, speed machines and global webs of capitalism. (1998a, 82)

The strength of this approach is the emphasis on both de- and re-territorialization. This is, I believe, a useful way of interpreting the 'collective practices of displaced dwelling' (Clifford 1997) displayed by the Croatian diaspora in the United States. Their participation in the homeland war, their geographical imagination and their self-identification, all place them, at least at particular moments, in an elsewhere (Croatia) as well as in America. The transnationality of their thoughts, emotions and practices challenge 'modern' notions of territoriality. Equally, however, the ways in which these transnational practices are conducted often involve a reconfiguration of 'modern' territoriality, rather than it's surpassing.

There is simultaneously de- and re-territorialization. Perhaps the best way of illustrating this point is by looking at a particular example: Croatian-American interventions in American foreign policy. DeConde has remarked that:

The ethnoracial influence in American foreign policy has been difficult to gauge with precision or to assess without biased emotion. The very nature of ethnic politics compounds the problem. It blurs the distinctions that analysts usually employ to mark off domestic from foreign-policy issues, because ethnic politics are rooted in two places - in the United States and abroad. (1992, 8)

DeConde (1992) further traces the relationship between race and ethnicity in American foreign policy. For the dominant Anglo-American elites the re-emergence of ethnic politics and lobbying in the 1 970s was viewed as a potentially destabilizing influence. Such a view fails to recognize the ways in which 'special interest' groups (such as the

Croatians) deliberately script their cause as coterminous with the American national interest, and 'American values'. For example, individuals, diaspora media and Croatian lobbying groups all saw the homeland

war in 'American' terms, as democracy against



62 Carter

dictatorship, the free-market against Communism, Western against 'an Other'. Moreover, the diaspora has also sought to challenge the Croatian politicians in areas where it feels the homeland is not meeting 'American standards' in economic, political and social life. In other words, diaspora intervention in the homeland need not undermine the national interest of the 'host' society, as Shain has previously argued:

diasporic mobilization on homeland-related affairs, which takes place mostly through 'official channels' of U.S. foreign policy - that is, the electoral system and the lobbying of decision makers - has the potential to direct ethnodiasporan energies in ways that are conducive both to the assimilation or reinforcement of basic American values, such as freedom and pluralism, and to overall diasporic integration into American society. (1999, 199)

This is an important corollary to the 'diasporas as dangerous extremists' notion that is the dominant perspective within Benedict Anderson's (1998) concept of the 'long-distance nationalist', and exemplified in the work of Hockenos (2003) on the Balkans. It is important that we recognize the often overt, and sometimes extreme, elements of diaspora politics, but we should not do so at the expense of also recognizing the rather more complex politics of large sections of diaspora groups. Croatian American foreign policy lobbying, for example, is a clear example of the reconfiguration of territoriality that has both de- and re-territorializing effects.

Moreover, this works in a number of different locations. Within such processes it is not only the

distant homeland which is 'becoming transnational', but as DeConde (1992) suggests, such interventions also blur the distinctions between domestic and foreign policy issues within America, such that the host country is also implicated in this reconfigura tion. Through diaspora engagement in homeland politics then, there is a double re-territorialization. Firstly, political interventions are aimed at supporting a distant homeland, and in this particular example, creating and preserving a bounded territorial unit. Secondly, such interventions are rooted (or routed) through the territory of the nation of residence. In this case, American 'values' of freedom and democracy are mobilized in ways that make American goals coterminous with Croatian goals.

The influence of ethnic lobbies within foreign policy discourses is just one example of the ways in

which diasporas are creating and maintaining links with the old homeland. The range of practices

which diasporas engage in does suggest that they are indeed, 'nations unbound, who re-inscribe space in a new way' (Basch et al. 1994, in Cohen 1997). Analysis of these spatial re-inscriptions must carefully avoid, however, the notion that this signals the death of the nation. Accounts of hybrid and diaspora identities often capture well the contempo rary predicament of multiplicity, but too often resort to claims of the transgressive potential of these sub jectivities (or, alternatively, focus too much on the extreme politics of these groups). What is required is a geopolitics of diaspora, which utilizes specific histories, maps, interventions and trajectories of diaspora, so as to fully understand the complex and ambiguous ways in which territory is reconfigured by 'collective practices of displaced dwelling' (from Clifford 1997) - transnational practices, then, sug gest a simultaneous de- and re-territorialization of both ethnic identity and political community.

Acknowledgements

This paper draws on doctoral research funded by the ESRC (award R 00429734696). 1 am grateful to David Harvey and

Catherine Brace at Exeter for reading and commenting on an

earlier version of this paper. I would also like to acknowledge

the helpful comments of the editor and the two anonymous referees. The usual disclaimers apply.

Note

1 All interview quotes have been anonymized in line with the usual conventions.

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