How we remain : religious diasporas and strategies of cultural persistence = Come si rimane : diaspore religiose e strategie di permanenza culturale

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 identificatory function of the term has reverted into a puzzling and sometimes 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.