Key themes of this year's conference include: * Defining and conceptualising diasporas in connection with festivals and cultural events; * Histories of diaspora communities’ mobilities and the transformation and adaptation of festivity and cultural events to new community circumstances and settings; * Relationships between diaspora communities and the ‘homeland’ and expressions of collective memory through festivals and cultural events; * The distribution and circulation of globalised diaspora festival forms – e.g. carnival, mela, Irish, Chinese, Jewish – religious and secular, established, emerging and contested; * The role of diaspora festivals and cultural events in policies and programmes to promote community cohesion, crime reduction and anti-racism; * Festivals, cultural events and the identities of diaspora community members - inter-generational issues; * Festivals, cultural events and the multi- (inter-) cultural city; * Settings and spaces for diaspora festivals and cultural events; * Issues surrounding new and recently introduced diaspora community festivals and cultural events; * Performing diaspora community arts through festivals; * Diaspora tourism markets.