The Kashmiri Diaspora in Britain and the Limits of Political Mobilisation

The great euphoria about the diaspora concept is certainly over. While in the 1980s and especially the 1990s “diaspora” was eagerly adopted as an antidote against the “metaphysics of ‘race’, nation and bounded culture”, in Paul Gilroy’s words (Gilroy 1997: 328), and experienced ever increasing popularity, the concept evoked more cautious and critical voices in the last decade. In the discourses of social sciences and cultural studies, “diaspora” has been mostly used as a term for a “social form” among the three meanings of the concept which Steve Vertovec (1997) identified. In fact, in many cases “diaspora” has been plainly employed as another term for (migrant) community. This usage of “diaspora” has