The German Manual for the Young and for Self-Tuition

The use of the term "diaspora" indicates the adoption of new ways of approaching and understanding questions of identity politics. Diasporic subjects are seen not as some anomaly to the norm but as distinct versions of a modern, transnational, intercultural experience. "The diaspora experience… is defined, not by essence or purity, but by the recognition of a necessary heterogeneity and diversity… Diaspora identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference" (Hall 1990, 235). The adoption of the term also reflects the keenness of the Tibetan intellectuals to appropriate any vocabulary that provides them an opportunity to express their identity to the external world. It enables us to theorize Tibetan diasporic identity in terms of contradictions and possibilities (see Anand 2003), a task that is undertaken in this chapter. These contradictions not only constrain and contain the possibilities for self-expression that are available but, more significantly, are productive of the very identities in question (see Venturino 1997) ...»