In 2006, I walked with Marco Fedi, a newly elected member of the Italian parliament, into the Chamber of Deputies in the Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome. What was unusual about this scene was that Mr Fedi is an Australian. He serves in the Italian parliament – participating in Italian debates and voting on Italian laws – as a member of the Italian diaspora.

Diasporas – communities that live outside, but maintain links with, their homelands – have been with the world at least since the Jews were exiled to Babylonia. But in recent years they have become larger, thicker and stronger. Italy’s extraordinary innovation in electing diaspora MPs is only one example of the world’s growing diaspora consciousness.