"Although there have been some discussions about `diaspora' in the past, this has been more pronounced in the intellectual and public domain during the last decade of the 20th century. Why has `diaspora' attracted such scholarly interest only recently? Who are the protagonists who have made important contributions to the field? This comprehensive collection of essays provides some answers by focusing on themes such as immigration, transnationalism, ethnicity, identity, religion, politics, citizenship, gender, sexuality, and hybridity which comprise the domain of diaspora studies. This book will be useful not only to sociologists but also to scholars working in the fields of social anthropology, political science, geography, history, philosophy, literary, cultural and ethnic studies."