DIASPORA POLITICS: A SOCIOLINGUISTIC AND ECONOMIC PATHFINDER IN THE 21ST CENTURY AFRICA
The author dissected the topic diaspora politics, advocating for some sociolinguistic,economic and political pathfinders in the 21st century Africa. The term diaspora is defined from a multi-disciplinary approach – sociolinguistic, political, economic, religious, cultural and philosophical angles. The concept diaspora has its origin in an ancient Greek word, which means “to scatter about”. A diaspora is a scattered population. The diaspora scatter from their home land to places across the Globe, spreading their language and culture as they move. The paper tries to answer the question is there a threat to the languages of the diasporas?' The writer posits that the term diaspora was associated with Jewish history, which is the dispersion of Jews among the Gentile nations, referring to the Jews who lived outside the biblical land of Israel. The paper also discusses the origin and development of the concept diaspora with the various theoretical issues, such as colonization, refugeeism, migration, assimilation, language change and endangerment, slavery, nostalgia, spiritual anguish, and language education policy. The author lists and discusses types of diaspora based on the causes such as imperialism, power struggle, economic recession, political crises, war, labour migration, religious conflict, job insecurity, decolonization, natural disasters, expulsion, population explosion, genocide, deportation and persecution. The paper concludes with the characteristics of different Diasporas of the world, such as African, Asian, European, American, World War II and the Cold War Diasporas. The paper then discusses the pathfinders to diasporan challenges in the 21st century Africa.
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