Rethinking Diaspora Agency in Peace and Conflict

Diasporas’ versatile roles as victims of conflict, participants in conflict and agents of peacebuilding have been widely explored. We observe that diaspora contributions to ongoing conflicts and subsequent peacebuilding mechanisms have long been framed through a binary lens. Until recently, in both academic and policy debates, diasporas were frequently cast either as “peacemakers,” contributing to reconciliation, reconstruction, and dialogue, or as “peace wreckers,” fuelling violence, sustaining grievances, and prolonging conflicts from afar. Although recent studies have mostly moved away from this approach, this dichotomy has provided a convenient heuristic for categorising diaspora engagement in homeland conflicts and has shaped much of the empirical and normative literature in this field. Despite this growing empirical visibility, dominant analytical frameworks in international relations and peace and conflict studies have struggled to adequately conceptualise diaspora agency. In this special issue, we seek to advance current debates on diasporas in peace and conflict by moving beyond this reductive peacemaker/peace wrecker dichotomy. While existing literature has made important strides in recognising the transnational roles diasporas play, we argue for a more nuanced understanding of the ambivalent, shifting, and context-specific ways in which diaspora actors relate to conflict and peacebuilding processes. The articles included in this special issue provide a multidimensional analysis of diaspora politics, examining diasporas’ complex political agency and vulnerability, what determines and constrains their mobilization, and how they deal with internal divisions during times of conflict.