Using Pragmatism to Approach ‘Diaspora’

This chapter focuses on social practices of 'doing diaspora' by different actors. It also argues an approach based on pragmatism in conjunction with a focus on boundary-work and meaning-making enables to identify and contextualize emic and etic meanings of being Afghan and belonging to a wider Afghan diaspora. Using pragmatism to approach ideas of diaspora would be to examine what individuals or groups do, or intend to do, when using the concept of diaspora as a label. By explicitly rejecting the notion of diaspora as an etic category of assumed self-identification, people also draw attention to the history and complexity of Afghan society and to the effects that decades of war and protracted violence have had on Afghanistan and its people. Diaspora as an ambiguous category of self-identification is also used to draw distinctions between established Afghan migrants and recently arrived newcomers.