And then the Diaspora thanked the hackers?

I am amazed. For the first time, it feels like part of the hype! The web is finally flooded with Diaspora news, but of a new Diaspora. Since early 2010 and without much warning, Diaspora tags and searches started returning news and articles generously announcing a visionary software product to come. For several years now I have been following Diaspora-thematic news, and links would point to resources addressing the economic, social and political claims and hopes of citizens living outside their country of origin. But Wikipedia’s software pages now tell us that Diaspora (also Diaspora*) “is an as yet unreleased open-source personal web server software intended to provide a distributed social networking service, a decentralized alternative to Facebook."



So if now most of the Diaspora news coming in are about the software, are there any consequences of the name of this social network project for those of us, Diaspora members, activists and critics? And for those academics that have been attempting to define it? While Diaspora definitions discussions have ranged from encompassing the wider spectrum of all those with a common socio-cultural background living in a dispersed manner to those highly skilled living outside their country of origin, now the term faces a new turn: its association with a global social networking platform. will this change how we talk of the Diaspora?

By now we know that the information society, shaped by increased interconnections from the penetration of information and communication technologies (ICT), is not only propitiating redefinitions of the vocabulary and actions of every aspect of our lives, but also, of identity and belonging. Transnational approaches and regionalists movements have been pushing for widening the understanding of Diaspora, migration, citizenship and belonging in the world of increasingly ICT-impacted porous and permeable frontiers. And now, out of the blue, a bunch of “young hackers from NYU” as they define themselves (meet them here), make a bet for Diaspora as the word comprising it all: ICT, network, and all of us spread around (and even more, Facebook's aspiring competitor).

Probably the approaches about Diasporas in the information society had not suspected that their subject matter title would be taken upon to name the new social networking promised –virtual– land. Or is it a response to their efforts to position the concept? Will have to ask the NYU hackers. In the meanwhile, I can’t help thinking how much sense makes that, even if due to some not yet clear latent semantics indexing, a social networking software news comes hand in hand with the news about the cause of migrants, diversity and inclusion. Is these hackers’ idea to help the cause of humanist and migration movements by giving people the choice to join and be part of a global Diaspora while respecting singularities and diversity? Whether intentional or not, their name choice has a political connotation, and I thank them for that! On their launch date on 15 September 2010, we are all becoming potentially part of the Diaspora. You will notice it, the web will be even more flooded with it.
And then, will you join the Diaspora call?