Trading diasporas is a term coined by Philip D. Curtin to mean: "communities of merchants living among aliens in associated networks".
History
Trading diasporas were formed as a result of international trade that resulted in the settlement of merchants in certain countries where they sold their products. Their importance to the global world was marked by their impact on the spread of cultures and ideologies of certain areas to the rest of the world. First mention of trading diasporas dates back around 2000 BCE when the Assyrian merchants traveled to the Anatolian Peninsula in order to sell their goods. Trading diasporas in this period of time were created as a result of the Assyrian traders staying as "semi-permanent residents" in cities of the Anatolian peninsula. According to Steve Gosch of the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire divides the Assyrian traders into "stayers" and "movers." Gosch further explains that "stayers" were the merchants who permanently settled on the Anatolian peninsula while "movers" traveled back and forth in order to sell their goods.
According to Jane Schneider, the merchants trading prior to 15th century were able to create "asymmetrical links between world regions." Barry Gillis and Andre Gunder Frank go on to say that "the earliest world system contained the essential features of its modern counterpart: asymmetrical relationships between regions in the core and periphery, continuing struggles for hegemony within the core and alternating periods of expansion and contraction in the system as a whole." This means that the relations between different regions in the early modern world were not perfect and differed from the international relations of the modern time. Trading diasporas were able to create cultural and economical ties with different regions rather than a political relationship.
Causes
There are several reasons for the creation of trading diasporas some of which included a demand for products that were not available in particular regions of the world, the division of the world into small city states who wanted to create economic and cultural ties with the rest of the world and the willingness of people living in certain areas to create their communities abroad and to be represented by them. As Gosch explains "premodern world system was to some extent an "archipelago of towns" in which urban centers in Europe (Bruges, Ghent, Genoa and Venice), the Middle East (Cairo, Aden, and Hormuz), and Asia (Samarkand, Calicut, Kanchipuram, Malacca, Quanzhou and Hangzhou) were connected to one another by trade and shared in a common culture of commerce." Strong empires like China and several European states were also using the merchants to create trading diasporas in order to gather information about a certain country and possibly exploit it either in the event of conflict or just for sociable reasons. Long distance trade at this time mainly "dealt largely if not exclusively with luxury goods or high value relative to their bulk." Therefore, protection of trading diasporas in the countries where diasporas settled was important as it guaranteed supply of luxury products into the country.