Diaspora diplomacy, emotions, and disruption: A conceptual and analytical framework.

Abstract

The article advances diaspora diplomacy scholarship arguing that enabling as well as disruptive emotions mediate diaspora assemblages comprising states, transnational non-state actors and other international actors; and that diasporic agency, practices and discourses can’t be fully analysed and understood if divorced from their underpinning emotions. After reviewing existing literatures and current gaps, I propose a theoretical and analytical framework to study diaspora diplomacy that links (1) identity, belonging and transnational ties in diaspora, (2) with media and the digital nature of diasporas, (3) adopts the distinction between diaspora as category of analysis (entity) and category of practice (Brubaker, 2005; 2017), and (4) integrates emotions and discourses. I then apply this framework to a corpus of 21 semi-structured interviews with representatives of the Romanian diaspora organizations in the UK to explore how they define their (emotional) ties with home and host state, and how they construct their identity. Recommendations and further reflections are formulated in the end to inform policy making in diaspora diplomacy.