Incorporation,Transnationalism, and Gender: Immigrant Incorporation and Transnational Participation as Gendered Processes1

This article analyzes immigrant incorporation and transnational participation as gendered experiences. The results indicate that the incorporation of immigrants is a complex process affected negatively by class and racial exclusion and positively by their knowledge of U. S. society. The analysis also indicates that incorporation and transnational participation are concurrent and intertwined processes. Our results show that gender matters in the analysis of immigrant incorporation. The experiences of immigrant men and women share a lot in common as they confront similar challenges, but are also affected differently by the most relevant factors in the process of incorporation and transnational participation.     

Transnational political practices and the receiving state: Turks and Kurds in Germany and the Netherlands

This article examines how the social and political contexts in receiving countries affect the transnational political practices of migrants and refugees, such as their mobilization around political events in their homeland. The case study explores the political participation of Turks and Kurds in Germany and the Netherlands in its full complexity, that is in both the immigration country and in homeland politics. The findings suggest that transnational political practices should not be reduced to a function of the political opportunity structures of particular receiving countries for two main reasons: (a) more inclusive political structures, which provide for more participation and co‐operation on immigrant political issues, may at the same time, and for that very reason, serve to exclude dialogue on homeland politics; (b) homeland political movements may draw on a different range of resources than their immigrant political counterparts, including those outside the local political institutional context.     

The contested spatialities of transnational activism: gendered gatekeeping and gender struggles in an African association of informal workers

In this article I explore the geographies of emerging transnational networks of organized informal workers, with empirical reference to a local association based in Mozambique and a transnational network of which it is part. I uncover the gendered spatialities of this transnational activism to demonstrate how participation is unequal and heavily mediated rather than direct. In particular, I show how influential actors have engaged in practices of gendered gatekeeping that tend to keep women in place. I also explore the tensions that emerged because of these practices and the negotiation of divergent gender ideologies and strategies within the network. In the article, I relate to recent theoretical work that problematizes the unequal and contested geographies of transnational activism, and introduce insights from feminist scholarship to reflect on gender inequalities and gender visions in transnational networks.     

Collaborations between young people living with bodily impairments and their multiprofessional teams: The relational dynamics of participation and power

This paper explores how more or less relationally oriented forms of professional practices could be expressed in collaborations between young people living with bodily impairments and their multiprofessional teams. The analysis was based on life-mode interviews with young people (16–20 years), individual and focus group interviews with the professionals and participant observation in team meetings. Drawing on sociocultural perspectives on participation and the workings of power, different discourses, subject positions and participatory strategies were recognised and related to the participation of the young people. Finally, the relevance of the findings for practice is reflected on in a participation rights perspective.     

Representation Beyond the State: Towards Transnational Democratic Non-state Politics

The crises of representative democracy and of state-based politics have been declared many times and ‘participation’ is often advocated as a remedy for the shortcomings of both. While the literature has extensively discussed representative practices in relation to territorial states, we argue in this article that more attention should be paid to the question of representation within transnational social movements striving for a politics that transcends current territorially bounded representative democracy. Analysing the World Social Forum and West African participatory trade policy-making, we find that as transnational social movements aiming at democratic goals deepen their interactions, they can face demanding questions such as: who or what has a right to be made present in a given political process and how is this established? We claim that avoiding the question of representation in transnational non-state-centred politics leaves power too many places to hide.     

Transnational migration: taking stock and future directions

Increasing numbers of sending states are systematically offering social and political membership to migrants residing outside their territories. The proliferation of these dual memberships contradicts conventional notions about immigrant incorporation, their impact on sending countries, and the relationship between migration and development in both contexts. But how do ordinary individuals actually live their lives across borders? Is assimilation incompatible with transnational membership? How does economic and social development change when it takes place across borders? This article takes stock of what is known about everyday transnational practices and the institutional actors that facilitate or impede them and outlines questions for future research. In it, I define what I mean by transnational practices and describe the institutions that create and are created by these activities. I discuss the ways in which they distribute migrants’ resources and energies across borders, based primarily on studies of migration to the United States.     

跨国实践中的社会地位补偿——华南侨乡两个移民群体文化馈赠的比较研究

中国改革开放以来,海外华人移民通过文化馈赠这种跨国实践极大地促进了东南沿海地区的发展。但从我们的观察来看,不同类型的移民群体的跨国实践模式不尽相同。本文借鉴以往国际移民与跨国主义的研究,从社会学的角度提出"社会地位补偿"的范式,对分别来自广东五邑开平与海南文昌下辖两个镇的移民群体进行比较。通过分析,我们发现移民对于侨乡的文化馈赠不仅受到其个人出国前后社会地位变化的制约,而且还受多种客观因素的制约。特定的祖籍国和移居国在世界政治经济地理格局中位置的差异,移民群体在移居地的不同社会境遇以及侨乡的地方政府和地方社会均对文化馈赠产生不同程度的影响。上述这些宏观、中观与微观层面的因素交互作用,形成社会地位补偿的特殊机制,影响移民跨国实践中的文化馈赠。     

Media use and transnational political and civic participation: a case study of Mexicans in the USA

Although communication is largely understood as a prerequisite for transnational activity, little research explores exactly how transnational communities use media and what the implications of media use are for transnational civic and political participation. Research from communication studies suggests that media can affect civic and political participation in various, sometimes contradictory, ways. In an effort to merge literature from transnational and communication studies, in this study I focus on the case of Mexicans in the USA, offering secondary analyses of two datasets concerning their communication habits and civic and political participation in Mexico. Results suggest differential effects on participation based on preferences for certain media and pre‐existing attitudes.     

“Transnational” Socio‐Cultural Systems and Ethnographic Research: Views from an Extended Field Site

This article discusses a widespread pattern of migratory moves that is often overlooked in contemporary research on transnational migration. Transnational theory has successfully highlighted the significance of migrants' attachments to people and places transcending the confines of nation‐states. By emphasizing, a priori, the national, this theory tends to overlook the full complexity and meaning of migrants' extra‐local socio‐cultural relations. Through an ethnographic study of dispersed family networks of Caribbean origin, I explore the wide range of migration practices in which differing actors engage and the nature of the sociocultural systems that emerge as migrants move between places.     

Organizing “Below and to the Left”: Differences in the Citizenship and Transnational Practices of Two Zapatista Groups

This article examines the political transnational practices—that is, both the physical and symbolic border‐crossing political practices—of two Zapatista groups. This study seeks to contribute to the existing body of literature on transnationalism and citizenship by focusing on immigrants’ political transnational activities in the global South, as well as transnational activists’ practices in the global North influenced by the global South. I argue that transnational ideological and political influences are bidirectional, that is, influences also flow from the global South to the global North. In addition, I argue that different transnational practices are strongly shaped by structural opportunities and constraints on activists, in this case, by citizenship status and economic class. My arguments are drawn from fieldwork and in‐depth interviews conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area with two Zapatista groups, which I name the Localizers and the Globalizers.     

Migrant Transnationalism and Modes of Transformation1

Much of the literature on migrant transnationalism focuses on the ways that specific sociocultural institutions have been modified in the course of being stretched across the globe. Yet migrant transnational practices are involved in more deep‐seated patterns of change or structural transformation. Such modes of transformation concern: 1) an enhanced ‘bi‐focality’of outlooks underpinning migrant lives lived here‐and‐there; such dual orientations have considerable influence on transnational family life and may continue to affect identities among subsequent post‐migration generations; 2) heightened challenges to ‘identities‐borders‐orders’stemming from migrants' political affiliations in more than one nation‐state; these particularly arise around questions of dual citizenship and nationality; and 3) potentially profound impacts on economic development by way of the sheer scale and evolving means of remittance sending; money transfer services, hometown associations and micro‐finance institutions represent three kinds of remittance‐related organizations currently undergoing significant forms of adaptation with significant consequences for development. These modes of transformation, and the practices of migrant transnationalism surrounding them, both draw from and contribute to wider processes of globalization.     

Renegotiating religious transnationalism: fractures in transnational Chinese evangelicalism

In this article, I question to what extent future generations of immigrants will engage in practices of religious transnationalism through their ethnic institutions. I examine how leaders of the next generation of English‐speaking Chinese Canadian evangelicals made sense of their participation in the Chinese Coordination Centre of World Evangelism, a movement that rallies behind both a pan‐Chinese identity and the belief that the Chinese have a special role in evangelizing the world. I argue that the call to religious mobilization grounded in Chinese ethnicity stands on tenuous ground and propose that linguistic, geographical, generational and ideological fractures may diminish the participation of future generations of the Chinese diaspora in ethnically‐based transnational religious organizations. I conclude that these developments would push ‘negotiated transnational religious networks’ into a state of ‘renegotiation'.     

Post‐return experiences and transnational belonging of return migrants: a Dutch—Moroccan case study

In this article we explore the links between return migration, belonging and transnationalism among migrants who returned from the Netherlands to northeast Morocco. While transnationalism is commonly discussed from the perspective of a receiving country, this study shows that transnationalism also plays a vital role in reconstructing post‐return belonging. Return migration is not simply a matter of ‘going home’, as feelings of belonging need to be renegotiated upon return. While returnees generally feel a strong need to maintain various transnational practices, the meanings they attach to these practices depend on motivations for return, gender and age. For former (male) labour migrants, transnational practices are essential for establishing post‐return belonging, whereas such practices are less important for their spouses. Those who returned as children generally feel uprooted, notwithstanding the transnational practices they maintain. The amount of agency migrants are able to exert in the return decision‐making process is a key factor in determining the extent to which returnees can create a post‐return transnational sense of home.     

Tracking ‘the transnational’: studying transnational organizations and managements,and the management of cohesion

This article argues for greater clarity in researching transnational organizations and management, and the need for gendered multi‐level theory and gendered multi‐actor analysis. It examines different understandings and conceptualizations of ‘the transnational’ in studying transnational organizations and management, and their implications for understanding and conceptualizing the ‘management of cohesion’. In so doing, three conceptual and theoretical questions are considered: what are the major meanings of ‘the transnational’ in studying transnational organizations and management? What are the major different disciplinary frameworks in studying transnational organizations and management? What are the major epistemological debates in studying transnational organizations and management? Particular emphasis is placed on: the field of studies on transnational organizations and management; transnational research projects on transnational organizations and management; and the lives of transnational researchers. Two ongoing research projects – on gender relations in transnational organizations and managements, and men's changing organizational practices in Europe – are focused on to illustrate these issues. The theme of gender critique is developed throughout.     

The media construction of remittances and transnational social ties: migrant–non-migrant relationships in the Romanian press

The study explores through a ‘transnational lens’ the Romanian media construction of remitting practices and identities within a wider debate on circular migration. It uses a broad definition of remittances (financial, sociocultural and political) and is concerned with the role of the Romanian press in articulating migrant–non-migrant relationships and laying the ground for informed policy debates. The methodology consists of qualitative corpus analysis and discourse analysis applied to a corpus of 221 news articles. The main findings indicate an overall positive evaluation of remittances (with the main exception of family separation), which endows migrants with social recognition as development agents and is used to justify various policy initiatives, but at the same time disempowers them through instrumentalisation. Even though limited in scope, grassroots migrant–non-migrant interaction, combined with a critical journalistic stance in editorials, opens up an avenue towards negotiation and joint transnational actions.     

Migration and Community Formation under Conditions of Globalization

This article sets out to rethink the dynamics of the migratory process under conditions of globalization. Two main models of migration and incorporation dominated academic and policy approaches in the late twentieth century: first, the settler model, according to which immigrants gradually integrated into economic and social relations, re‐united or formed families and eventually became assimilated into the host society (sometimes over two or three generations); second, the temporary migration model, according to which migrant workers stayed in the host country for a limited period, and maintained their affiliation with their country of origin. Globalization, defined as a proliferation of cross‐border flows and transnational networks, has changed the context for migration. New technologies of communication and transport allow frequent and multi‐directional flows of people, ideas and cultural symbols. The erosion of nation‐state sovereignty and autonomy weakens systems of border‐control and migrant assimilation. The result is the transformation of the material and cultural practices associated with migration and community formation, and the blurring of boundaries between different categories of migrants. These trends will be illustrated through case‐studies of a number of Asian and European immigration countries. It is important to re‐think our understanding of the migratory process, to understand new forms of mobility and incorporation, particularly the emergence of transnational communities, multiple identities and multi‐layered citizenship.     

Institutional legacies in TNCs and their management through training academies: the case of transnational law firms in Italy

In this article we highlight the effects of heterogeneous institutional contexts on transnational professional service firms, a relatively poorly studied issue. Specifically, we provide empirical analysis of how the specificities of the Italian institutional context affect the activities of English legal professional service firms in Milan. This reveals the intimate connection between a variety of capitalism, place specific workplace cultures and practices, and the institution‐related challenges transnational professional service firms and all transnational corporations (TNCs) face. We also reveal the way institutionally generated differences at the level of work practices are managed in transnational law firms through worldwide training programmes designed to ‘govern’ the practices of workers in different parts of the TNC's network. This emphasizes the importance of studying attempts to manage institutional heterogeneity at the level of workplace practices, something often missed in existing mesoscale studies of TNC governance structures. Consequently, we highlight detailed empirical archaeologies that explore the direct links between institutions and practices as an important component of future research on the effects of institutions on TNCs.     

Nigerians in China: Health maintenance,circulation and everyday transnationalism in Guangdong Province

The challenges facing Africans in Chinese cities have been examined from different perspectives, including healthcare-related challenges and barriers. However, how they navigate health problems through circulation and transnational practices has received scant attention. The article explored the importance of circulation and everyday transnationalism in health maintenance using qualitative data from 37 Nigerians in Guangdong Province, China. It revealed that transnational practices involving the flows of people, medicinal commodities and information were crucial in managing their health issues with circulating migrants, family members and healthcare professionals at home playing important roles. Circular migrants import herbal medicines and hard-to-acquire pharmaceutical drugs between Nigeria and China, family members and relatives also send over-the-counter drugs to migrants and health professionals in Nigeria supply medical information through transnational consultation. The article advanced the literature as it responds to the growing call for adopting a transnational lens for interrogating the link between migration and health.