World wide webs

the long version

"Diasporas -- communities which live outside, but maintain links with, their homelands -- are getting larger, thicker and stronger. They are the human face of globalization. Diaspora consciousness is on the rise : diasporans are becoming more interested in their origins, and organising themselves more effectively ; homelands are revising their opinions of their disaporas as the stigma attached to emigration declines, and stepping up their engagement efforts; meanwhile, host countries are witnessing more assertive disaporic groups within their own national communities, worrying about fifth columns and foreign lobbies, and suffering outbreaks of 'diasporaphobia'."--Vii