Striving for exact definitions of terms such as ‘diaspora’ and ‘transnationalism’ may seem a futile exercise. Diaspora, in particular, has become an all-purpose word. It may therefore be more meaningful to look at its uses. As the uses of these terms often overlap and are sometimes even interchangeable, no clear separation is to be expected. Nonetheless, a close conceptual comparison is an opportunity to bring to light crucial questions about cross-border processes. Towards this end, it is useful to compare the two concepts first to globalisation studies. While the impact of globalisation is often assumed to be universal and worldwide, approaches linked to the concepts of diaspora and transnationalism refer to phenomena that occur within the limited social and geographic spaces of a particular set of regions or states. Globalisation approaches and world theories differ from diasporic and transnationalist approaches in at least three respects.