“The notion that there is an immutable (unchanging over time) link between cultures, peoples or identities and specific places, a permanent join between a particular culture and a stable terrain, is increasingly wearing thin” (Lavie and Swedenburg 1996)

It is now widely recognised that that social and cultural processes regularly exceed the boundaries of individual nation states, sketching ‘transnational’ cartographies of cultural circulation, identification and action

Cultural identities are no longer wedded to particular nation states, and places are rethought not as intrinsically bound entities but as constellations of connections within those wider cultural circuits (Massey 1994).

BUT – it is important to note that although notions of diaspora may decentre and disrupt the bounded nation-state and citizenship, it is unable to fully displace it given the massive military and legal forces that ensure its continuity. States are continually involved in the maintenance of boundaries – both physically in terms of securing borders, but also through the identification and classification of its citizens (through legal documents – passport, birth certificate etc.). (Mavroudi 2007)

Despite the ephemeral (temporary) nature of fashion, the use of certain fabrics, styles of clothing and accessories reminiscent of Southern Asian contexts has remained a persistent presence in the fashion cultures of Britain. (Jackson et al 2007)

The emergence of a new generation of designers, both British born and trained, but with an Asian heritage, has resulted in the creation of a new and distinctively British-Asian fashion culture. The transformation of telecommunications links between Britain and the sub-continent has produced a fashion industry which is truly transnational in its operations so that designs sketched in London are faxed back to India for immediate manufacture. (Jackson et al 2007)

Therefore, Jackson et al argue that a variety of ‘global’ influences are indigenised within specific consumption contexts and that locally meaningful discourses shape individual consumption practices. Whilst fashion may be transnational in nature, crossing global borders, it is highly localised in terms of consumption.

Transnational fashion in Britain is frequently criticised as a forceful tendency of white, western elites appropriating other cultures as part of a ‘cultural logic of multinational capitalism’. Jackson et al argue here that British and Indian fashion cultures are inherently hybrid: a complex mixture of global and local influences including both ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ elements. They challenge the essentialist view that sees cultural authenticity as the innate property of this type of fashion.

Using Bollywood as an example, we see that Indian culture is neither confined solely to India, nor is it simply being transported by migrants from one place to another. Instead these transnational links suggest a more dynamic conceptualisation of cultures being formed and transformed across and between national boundaries.

“Diaspora identities are at once local and global. They are networks of transnational identifications” (Brah 1996).

Gilroy’s argument is that all these musical forms are the results of fusions of different cultural traditions within the black Atlantic diaspora. While all the musical forms retain some distinctive elements of what might be deemed ‘African’, they have been transformed within different geographical and national contexts. Through these connections Gilroy upsets the notion of tradition or fixed origins. The musical forms of the black Atlantic are not diluted forms of ‘traditional’ African music, but are new syncretic (fusion) forms produced within diasporic culture through cultural flows or interconnecting routes.

For Brah (1996), diaspora spaces are “the point at which boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, of belonging and otherness, of us and them, are contested”.

There are many places we can consider to be diasporic spaces. For example ‘Chinatowns’ in many cities may have begun as segregated residential spaces and as key sites for the provision of ethnic goods, but they have been revitalised as commodified tourist spaces. However, some argue that such towns simplify or essentialise ethnic identities. (Dwyer 2013)

Religious spaces can also be considered to be diasporic: for example the Jain Temple in London is both a careful recreation of temples in India, as well as a hybrid architectural form with accommodations to both British planning regulations and the vagaries of English weather.