Theories on Character and Characterization
their original community. He also states that there is no diaspora that exactly the ideal type. If that is so, then it can only be defined toone group such as Jewish
diaspora Safran, 1991:48. Diaspora in postcolonialism generally talks about the idea of cultural
dislocation Gandhi, 1998: 131. It means that in diaspora—the movement of the people create a condition when the people experience a disruption on their
original cultural identity—they have to live in a new cultural spectrum which is not their own.Paul Gilroy in Gandhi’s Postcolonial Theory: A Critical
Introduction states that diaspora has its’ value in “the elucidation of those processes of the mutation of culture and restive discontinuity that overpasses
racial discourse” Gandhi, 1998: 131. Diaspora revolves around the process of cultural mutation that refuses stagnancy and stability of meaning and identity. The
culture moves within the diasporic experience, it always changes. It mutates when the original culture meets the new one.
Diaspora also illustrates the mobility of thought and consciousness made by the cultural adherence of colonialism. In diasporic discourse, the discussion
does not only stop on the idea of Western or colonial identity but also it has the nuanced culture of travel Gandhi, 1998: 132-133. In diaspora, there is
amovement of thought and consciousness of the diasporic people caused by the requirement of colonialism. The culture moves and travels.
Clifford 1994:304 enunciates that diasporic configurations such as longing, memory, and disidentification are partaken by a broad range of
minority and migrant populations. The dispersed community who are once PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
disconnected from their homeland, now are capable to find themselves in border relation with their own homeland because of technologies of transportation,
communication tools, and migrating labor. Furthermore Clifford says that regardless the existence of idelogies of purity, dispersed communities can never
be exclusively nationalist Clifford,1994: 305. They are moved and affected by the transnational networking with multiple attachments, and also change in
accordance with the host countries’ norm as well as resisting it. It means that diaspora is not exclusive to one national identity but it is influenced by
transnational movements. It adapts and resist the host country as well. Diaspora includes dwelling, communities maintainance, having
collective home far from home. At the end it creates forms of community consciousness and solidarity that retains the identifications apart from their
national timespace in order to live in the host countryClifford, 1994: 304-308. Diaspora forms a community with their own fellows. This community share
togetherness and solidarity to survive in the foreign place. Jim Clifford describes it, the term diaspora is “a signifier not simply of
transnationality and movement”, but of political struggles to define the local - would prefer to call it place - as “a distinctive community, in historical contexts of
displacement” 1994:308. Diaspora is not only the matter of movement of the dispersed people but it is also about the community’s struggle to define
themselves. Diaspora emphasizes “the historically spatial fluidity and intentionality of identity, its articulation to structures of historical movements
whether forced or chosen, necessary or desired” Clifford, 1994:308. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI