Abstract

The term «diaspora» is commonly used by groups to define themselves and their strategies of cultural survival in a deterritorialized or uprooted notion of belonging. From a scholarly perspective, the identifying function of the term has devolved into a puzzling and often contested analytical tool for describing the same process. In this article I present religious diasporas as identity patterns that allow a less traumatic processing of the parallel mutation in time and space of one’s community of belonging. In the final part, I suggest a tentative typology of the main cultural and social functions and trends of current diasporas.