The Hadrami Diaspora: A "diaspora for others" in the Indian Ocean

Abstract

The term diaspora has, over the past two decades, become ubiquitous both in the vernacular and in academia, to the point that it appears to have lost its acuity as an analytical concept, often meaning little more than a group of migrants. In an attempt to reinvigorate the concept, this article invokes the notion of the “diaspora for others”: a diaspora that has a coherence across space and time, linking the various localisations of a diaspora, and the homeland. The case study is the Hadrami diaspora, and by tracing the links between members of the diaspora, this article demonstrates how the diaspora, although marked by internal differences, nevertheless displays an overall cohesion that grants it a stable and distinct identity as a spatially dispersed community, thus recalling the original sense of the term diaspora.