Diasporas, Home Conflicts, and Conflict Transportation in Countries of Settlement

Conflicts occurring within and between diasporas, in their respective countries of settlement, have been largely ignored by scholarship. This chapter focuses on such conflicts, considering concepts of conflict transportation (the process through which a conflict is imported and spreads to host countries) and of conflict re-territorialisation (entailing the expansion of the space in which the home conflict is fought), each potential configuration through which conflicts happening in home countries influence diaspora politics, and vice versa. It points out that actors, ideas, values, and narratives of conflict can circulate back and forth between home countries and diaspora settings, and even the broader transnational space. It also discusses cases of conflict “autonomisation”, where transported conflicts take on a different nature, and involve different actors, themes, and issues, than in countries of origin.