Pnina Werbner The Boundaries of Diaspora: A Critical Response to Brubaker Abstract: Unlike the classic diasporas of old - the Jews, the Armenians, the Greeks - the terri- torial origins and boundaries of late modern diasporas may be vast and diverse regions, some- times even stretching globally. Late modern diasporas are distinctive, the chapter suggests, in being fractal and perspectival rather than multi-layered and ‘deep.’ Home, homeland and be- longing may not coincide in such diasporas. The paper thus concurs with Rogers Brubaker’s cri- tique of a tendency to essentialise diaspora while contending that, like many other diaspora scholars, Brubaker too fails to theorize the dynamic social principles underlying the shifting boundaries of diaspora formation in the late modern world; the fact that late modern diasporas, and perhaps all diasporas, are not only social fields made up of clusters, networks and activities, but that they have multiple boundaries that are stressed situationally. Like Brubaker, I argue that in the face of the fuzzy boundaries of modern-day ethnic groups, attempts to institute any cor- porate form of multiculturalism simply cannot work. Nor are Pakistanis in Britain part of one single ‘community.’ Rather, they belong to a host of moral, aesthetic and interpretive commun- ities, uniting them with other Muslims, women, black people, South Asians, cricket lovers, La- bour activists, businessmen and anti-racists, as well as with their fellow-Pakistanis. Neverthe- less, in some situations, the boundary of the diaspora periodically surfaces as a momentary reality. Finally, the question the chapter raises is: May we say that the Muslim ummah is in some sense a late modern diaspora? What are the boundaries of late modern diasporas? Where is home for members of such diasporas, what is their imagined homeland and where do they find a sense of belonging? The answers to these questions are by no means as straight- forward as it may seem. Unlike the classic diasporas of old - the Jews, the Ar- menians, the Greeks - the territorial origins of late modern diasporas may be vast and diverse regions, sometimes even stretching globally. Late modern dia- sporas are distinctive, I want to suggest here, in being fractal and perspectival rather than multi-layered and ‘deep.’ Home, homeland and belonging may not coincide in such diasporas. Understanding these features of late modern diasporas is crucial if we are to engage with Rogers Brubaker’s critique of a tendency to essentialize diasporas as though they were definite, clearly bounded groups. In a highly influential paper, Brubaker argues trenchantly against the scholarly penchant to take as reality the rhetoric of so-called diaspora or ethnic ‘entrepreneurs’; self-appointed spokes- men and women who make claims on behalf of a whole diaspora, often number- ing millions, as if that diaspora was unified in its singularity.¹ In invoking the diasporic ‘community’, diaspora entrepreneurs, Brubaker contends, disguise  Rogers Brubaker, “The ‘ Diaspora’ Diaspora,” Ethnic and Racial Studies . (): -.