Place, geography and the concept of diaspora : a methodological approach

This paper is an investigation, in a methodological sense, of the relevance of place in the context of international migration. It offers a critical discussion of the concept of diaspora, especially in relation to place. It furthermore argues against the use of homogenised and pre-fixed concepts such as disembedding as bases for empirical research about place in the context of international migration. The theoretical part of the paper begins with what has been called the “cultural turn” in human geography, a development which is discussed in relation to the material and the immaterial. Throughout the paper the argument is that the material and the immaterial interact within the concept of place. The methodological argument starts with the phenomenological concept of typification, and continues by placing categories and prototypes as methodological concepts in a semiotic model which highlights both the material and the immaterial contexts of life