A genre is never ultimately about etymology. When Martin Baumann rebukes James Clifford for encouraging a metaphorical use of diaspora by not bothering about the provenance and coinage of the term (Baumann, 1997: 395), he is unable to see that genre designations bear little relation to the question of etymology. Statements on the etymological origins of a term may indeed participate in the genre, but no genre is really ever regulated by the strictures of etymologists or by the definitions found

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... in dictionaries. The singularity of a genre nomination is really independent of the question of root meanings. Emanating from a diverse range of sources and arenas, generic statements frequently confound the whole issue of origins, roots and beginnings. Root meanings do not give birth to a genre; rather, a genre is made up of the dynamic procession of statements (some entering, some exiting) participating at the relational scene of the nomination. The total statement implied by the designation exists outside this relational order. The etymology of the designation, novel ('new', 'unusual' or 'of a kind not seen previously'), for instance, tells us very little about the participatory statements that engender the genre of the novel over the longue durée. Derived from diaspeirein, which is Greek for 'scattering' or 'sowing' (speirein) and originally used to account for the botanical phenomenon of seed dispersal (hence dia completely ϩ speirein sow), the root meaning of diaspora, similarly, sheds little light on the archive that has emerged around the critical discourse. Diaspora is related to the question of dispersion certainly, but the genre not only exceeds the etymological question but also includes counter-statements or statements that concern matters not strictly connected to the subject of dispersion. A daunting number of works form participatory statements at the scene of the genre of diaspora criticism. Since it would have been impossible for me to comment on each and every one, my choice of material has been influenced by a simple rule of citation. I have given preference, in short, to those works that form recurrent features or are mentioned with some regularity by those participating in the critical debate. Needless to say, this bears absolutely no relation to the issue of intellectual worth per se. Rather, it is meant to indicate the disproportionate impact some works have had on the critical genre. Paul Gilroy's The Black Atlantic, Stuart Hall's 'Cultural Identity and Diaspora', James Clifford's 'Diasporas' and William Safran's 'Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return' are four cases in point. No intellectual work is ever a solitary endeavour. Many friends and colleagues, past and present, here and abroad, have contributed to my thinking on the subject: