The figure suggests, first, that the movement or migration of individuals and/or groups of people is a universal factor that is much wider in scope than the specific dramatic dispersal or scattering of a particular community or people. Consciousness of belonging to a community that straddles nation State boundaries certainly resembles and even overlaps with consciousness of belonging to a diaspora, but their origins are different: one is formed largely as a result of trauma and loss and the nurturing of a memory and a will or determination to recover; the other is born of voluntary action. In the latter case, while the memory of a point of departure may exist, it might not persist over time. Transnational communities might not be more than nostalgic, romantic and whimsical. Consequently, transnational communities are more  
likely to have lifespans of one or two generations, after which memory fades into deeper mythology. Consider, for example, the descendants of the Dutch and German migrants and settlers of North America, who no longer retain dynamic community-memories of their pasts and can be identified perhaps only by the etymology of their names. The generalized migration story of human movements is more of this kind than of the diaspora kind.
![img-4.jpeg](img_ref_5)
figure 1. The transnational continuum/apex
Source: Harry Goulbourne.