I live and work in Toronto, but as a Lebanese‑Ukrainian immigrant in Canada, my attention has been elsewhere since the United States and Israel launched their war with Iran. I refresh my phone constantly, checking in with family in Lebanon, scanning group chats, watching the news, hoping the next alert is not the one I fear most.

For many in diaspora communities, this has become a daily condition. As conflict in the Middle East intensifies, its effects are not contained by borders. They are lived transnationally, folding distant violence into the routines of everyday life.

What emerges is a condition I — a displacement, migration and identity scholar — call “split belonging”, an experience of being physically located in one place while remaining emotionally, cognitively and relationally anchored in another that is under threat.

Unlike more familiar accounts of diaspora and hybrid identities, — which often emphasize continuity or the preservation of an unbroken cultural lineage and the formation of new identities through cultural mixing — “split belonging” is about being pulled by two places at once.

It captures the demand to function in conditions of stability while remaining persistently oriented toward instability elsewhere, especially where loved ones still reside there

This distinction shifts the focus from identity to capacity, asking how people live, work and participate while managing ongoing exposure to crisis.

Living in between stability and instability

My own experience reflects this.

I’ve lived at a distance from conflict in both my home countries: the October 2019 Lebanese........

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