According to Wikipedia: ‘ “diasporas” is now generally used to describe those who identify with a geographic location, but now reside elsewhere. ‘
Looking in passing on Polish diaspora on Wikipedia it says that there are estimated 20mil Polish people living abroad in a diaspora “making the Polish diaspora one of the largest in the world”
However when checking rankings, depending on website I see:
1) India 15-17mil
2) Mexico 11-12mil
3) Russia ~10mil
4) China 9-10mil
etc..
Poland is not even in the top 10 which tend to go down to around 5mil.
Looking at Germany’s page it says “total number of Germans in the world range from 100 to 150 million, and most of them live in Germany” implying a diaspora of 50-70mil when compared to population statistics.
French page says “diaspora includes over 30 million people” and British claims “the British diaspora includes about 200 million people worldwide”
So what’s going on? Is it only counting first generation immigrants? Or Ethnic groups? Or cultural groups? Or linguistics groups? Is there any standard to make any meaningful comparison?
None of this is adding up as is and I’m starting to think that all of these numerical claims can’t be trusted.
6 comments
I think it’s something quite difficult to calculate, what I have personally seen (and I could be wrong) is that it depends a lot from person to person, especially from second generation immigrants depending how they grew up and where, some still have some attachment to their parents’ culture while others feel closer to the culture of the country they’re in now. But then you have people that are fourth or fifth generation claiming to be from, let’s say Germany, even tho they never been there, don’t speak the language and only know stereotypes, so would it make sense to count them as well?
To me makes sense counting first generation immigrants, but then the complexity goes up exponentially with second generation since it comes down to each individual and how much they’re connected to part of their culture. I don’t have the answer to your question but just more questions, sorry!
It’s about the perception. The english page about Czech diaspora basically lists emigrants. Having germany first, slovakia second and usa third. But the czech resources about diaspora will not mention these countries at all. A diaspora here is a place with people doing czech customs there like these villages in romania and ukraine. Not just popular destination for emigration.
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I imagine it’s largely self-reported. I don’t really get it myself though. I’ve got some Irish family going back a few generations (probably closer than a lot of Irish-Americans or Irish-Canadians) but I wouldn’t consider myself to be a part of the Irish diaspora.
In our case, more people live outside than in, which is a crushing percentage. Not all of them emigrated (but a significant number did), but first and some second generations have a strong tie with the land (for which we have a particular word that most languages don’t).
I guess the British stats expect Australians and New Zealanders to identify more with Britain than their own turf, which I don’t know how real that would be. Same for Germans in the Americas, where most of them actively erased all ties with their past out of shame.
The Indian, Mexican, Russian,… probably indeed identify as such and are emigrants or first generation with language and ties with the country.
Side question (sorry op)
How does everyone pronounce diaspora?
Can’t find a youtube video (except those automated ones) and a friend debated me without proof.
Is it: Die – as – pora
Or: dee – es – pora ?
Thanks everyone