The Creation of “Archives” and Identity Politics: an Example of Diaspora “Archive”

Abstract

The long history of emigration from its current territory has marked Croatia as an emigration country. However, this history of emigration, although concerning the same physical space, encompassed different political systems in the "homeland" (Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, Republic of Croatia) as well as different hegemonic discourses of identity. The paper examines the (re)structuring of "diaspora" subjectivities in relation to identity politics and the construction of a collective "national subject". It also questions the positioning of the "diaspora" within the "national body" and homeland within these various political contexts and institutional spaces that comprise archives, museums, and libraries. These institutions are directed towards "recording and preserving" national memory and common history as well as the tradition that constitutes a part of the collective identity. This structuring of the "diaspora" is examined through the consideration of materials collected over the years on diaspora through Derrida's concept of the archive. The paper does not examine the content of the diaspora materials, but rather their positioning and the meanings it acquires through changes in the political context of the "homeland". The objectification of these materials as objects of national memory and history in different institutional spaces is viewed through changes in the "command of memory", which, according to Derrida, establishes the archive as well as changes in hegemonic institutional discourses of identity that have influenced what enters the "diaspora archive". These discourses have also shaped the inclusion criteria for defining who belongs to the diaspora and who does not.