Nostalgic diaspora or diasporic nostalgia? Discursive and identity constructions of Greeks in Qatar

Abstract

This paper deals with the discursive constructions of transformative, agentive and creative ethnolinguistic self-conceptualizations and positionings of some select members of the approximately 3000-member Greek diasporic community in the State of Qatar. It is a digital and linguistic ethnographic study focusing on the linguistic and semiotic ways whereby Greeks in Qatar negotiate, challenge, process and ultimately respond to the sociopolitical and cultural narratives that constitute "nostalgia," namely remembrance and homesickness for Greece. The main argument put forward is that multimodal and translanguaging group styling is employed for the construction of diasporic nostalgia discourse, and the assertion of nostalgic diasporic identities, which in unison construct community membership anew all the time. Nostalgia, as a constructed discourse with (in)authenticity-related spatiotemporal dimensions, and diaspora, as a web of creatively styled sociolinguistic and semiotic identities, are two concepts found in tension primarily due to the contextual precarity Greeks in Qatar live in. The paper contributes empirical and methodological knowledge to the field of language and identity in diaspora by focusing on an under-researched diasporic group, and by employing an emic ethnographic perspective in its discursive and sociolinguistic practices.