ABSTRACT
Although the concept of diaspora is often claimed to be a misconceptualised and incomplete theory, it has continued to shape both modern migration or diaspora studies and the spaces of daily politics. However, the conceptual framework of the diaspora literature is mostly based on descriptive and essentialist diaspora studies, which often described diaspora as a static “anomaly” or challenge and expressed in the emotional and abstract concept through the lenses of nation-state system. This study aims to contribute to diaspora and migration studies and their empirical examples including well-known subjects of local political agenda such as Armenian and Turkish diaspora studies in both conceptual and methodological aspects by bringing together the most recent improvements and interventions in the diaspora literature. With this aim, this article reviews the most recent challenges to the three fundamental components of diaspora; dispersion, homeland-orientation and boundary-maintenance, and concludes that rather than the traditional essentialist narratives based on the identity-homeland axis, diaspora requires a new perspective enhanced by the new contributions made in the expanding geographies of the social sciences on micro-nationalism, boundary-shifting, integration, assimilation, and transnationalism.