Reformulating tradition and modernity: Moroccan migrant women and the transnational division of ritual space

In this article I analyse the rituals that transnational migrants who live and work in Europe (mainly Italy) perform in Morocco during their return there for summer holidays. The transnational dimension of rituals and ceremonies reveals the diverse ways in which Moroccan families gain social recognition across transnational space. I explore how migrants construct and display their identities contextually and in opposition to multiple Others. By performing the traditional rituals associated with important turning points in their lives in Morocco, migrants seek to reintegrate themselves and maintain their membership of their community of origin. At the same time, however, these performances bring to the surface a hidden agenda: the assertion and exhibition of migrants’ differences with respect to those who have stayed behind. These rituals, which provide a perspective through which to analyse the intersection of global and local interconnections, also reveal complex and shifting interpretations of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’, and the practices in which these are embedded. I conclude by suggesting that, in this process, migrants develop a creative interplay with ‘traditional practices’ by subverting, reformulating and giving new creative shape to their meaning and content.     

Do transnational brokers always win? A multilevel analysis of social support

Migrants often maintain relationships with significant others located in their countries of origin, which results in having transnational interpersonal ties in addition to local ones. The majority of previous studies indicate that financial and social remittances flow from countries of immigration to the countries of emigration through migrants and their networks. However, less is known about who is involved in those exchanges, what kind of supportive resources flow within and across nation-state borders, and what level of individual cross-border engagement of migrants is related to those flows. We ask whether and how transnationality as an individual attribute, together with other personal, dyadic, and supradyadic characteristics, explain received social support. Drawing on data from 100 ego-centric networks collected from Turkish migrants in Germany, the results indicate that not only the dyadic level but also network structure, the position occupied by individuals in the network and their level of transnationality explain supportive resource flows within and across borders.     

Migrant Membership as an Instituted Process: Transnationalization,the State and The Extra‐Territorial Conduct of Mexican Politics1

How should we conceptualize membership, citizenship and political community in a world where migrants and their home states increasingly maintain and cultivate their formal and informal ties? This study analyzes the extra‐territorial conduct of Mexican. politics and the emergence of new migrant membership practices and relations between migrants and home states. Standard globalist, transnationalist or citizenship theories cannot properly contextualize and analyze such practices. I propose that we rethink the concept of membership in a political community not only as a Marshallian status granted by states, but also as an instituted process embedded within four other institutions and processes: home state domestic politics; the home state's relationship to the world system; a semi‐autonomous transnational civil society created in part by migration; and the context of reception of migrants in the United States. A main conclusion is that the state itself plays a key role in creating transnational political action by migrants and new migrant membership practices. The article draws on printed sources and interviews and ethnography done since 1990.     

Transnational connections of later-life migrants

In this paper a transnational perspective is used to explain whether and how older migrants construct and sustain their social networks. The paper uses a transnational viewpoint on older migrants' lives by analysing their engagement with their former homeland, and the intensity and habitualness of those engagements in old age. The aim of this article is to study the transnational connections of later-life migrants'. Attention is especially paid to the features of old age while maintaining these connections. These considerations are based on analyses of transnational networks in the everyday lives of later-life migrants from the former Soviet Union residing in Finland. The data were collected from 11 later-life migrants.It is found that transnational relationships are a vital part of the everyday lives of older migrants, and that they are sustained in varied ways. These connections mean a concrete source of help, family affiliations, the sharing of emotions, and a larger social network. Economic limitations affect the frequency and type of communication, and various physical limitations may also cause inability to maintain contacts across borders. In these circumstances, family members or other close relatives or friends are needed to deliver messages on the older person's behalf. Old age and immigration status affect the amount and direction of communication across borders, thereby shaping these networks.     

“You Know,Abraham Was Really the First Immigrant”: Religion and Transnational Migration

The purpose of this article is to summarize what we know about the role that religion plays in transnational migration and to outline a strategy for further research in this area. While migration scholars now generally acknowledge the salience of migrants' economic, social, and political transnational activities, we have largely overlooked the ways in which religious identities and practices also enable migrants to sustain memberships in multiple locations. My goals in this article are threefold. First, I provide a brief overview of related bodies of work on global, diasporic and immigrant religion and differentiate them from studies of migrants' transnational religious practices. Second, I selectively summarize what we have learned about the role of religion in transnational migration from prior research. Finally, I propose an approach to future research on these questions.¹     

Transnational healthcare seeking: how ageing Taiwanese return migrants view homeland public benefits

In this article, I argue that, by offering ageing return migrants new opportunities both to organize their lives and to rethink their social attachments, the extension of public healthcare in Taiwan constitutes a new contextual feature of the transnational social field bridging Taiwan and the USA. I use the concept of ‘transnational healthcare seeking’ to describe how returning seniors try to maintain their physical, psychological and social well‐being by accessing the benefits of public healthcare available in their homeland rather than in the USA. Furthermore, I offer the concept of ‘logics of social right’ to demonstrate how older returnees seek to reconfirm their social commitment to their homeland and to defend their entitlement to its state‐provided benefits against public criticism that they are free riders. In so doing, this article contributes a nuanced understanding of how ageing migrants imagine, pursue and construct an ideal later life across national borders.     

The Politics of Migrants' Transnational Political Practices

This article critically examines transnational political engagement of migrants and refugees in local, national and global political processes. Based on inductive reading of existing scholarship and in particular the author's own research on Turks and Kurds in Europe, the article discusses key concepts and trends in our understanding of why, how and with what consequences migrants engage in transnational political practices. These practices, this article suggests, are influenced by the particular multilevel institutional environment, which migrant political actors negotiate their way through. This environment includes not only political institutions in the sending and receiving country, but also global norms and institutions and networks of other nonstate actors. Finally, the article argues for critical examination of the democratic transparency and accountability of migrants' transnational networks in any analysis of their long and short‐term impact on domestic and global politics.     

Gendered Transnational Ties and Multipolar Economies: Chinese Migrant Women's WeChat Commerce in Taiwan

After a first migration in internal China, Chinese migrant women re‐migrate to Taiwan through marriage. There, to cope with economic discrimination, by exploiting the social network WeChat, Chinese women produce physical and virtual transnational multipolar economies, connecting the society of departure, China, and of settlement, Taiwan. Engaging with the contemporary debate about migrants’ translocal practices and economic transnationalism, this research article aims at elucidating the link between migration and entrepreneurship, through the case of Chinese migrant women's physical and virtual entrepreneurial activities across the Taiwan Strait. It explores the development of a specific culture of migration and of affections during the two mobility experiences, and the creation of gendered transnational networks across the borders. Thus, it provides empirical data for an understanding of Chinese women's cross‐strait migration in terms of interconnection, circulation and simultaneity.     

The transnational politics of the Tomato King: meaning and impact

Abstract In this article we deploy transnational ethnography to explore the transnational electoral politics by which Andrés Bermúdez, a successful tomato grower and labour contractor from Winters, California, who came to be called ‘the Tomato King’, was elected mayor of the municipality of Jerez in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. We seek to explain the meaning of his transnational electoral victory and its impact on the role of ‘the migrant’ as a new social actor in Mexican political development. We thus situate the Bermudista phenomenon in the context of the literature on migrant transnational politics. We hope to move the literature on migrant political transnationalism forward by advancing an agency‐oriented perspective that incorporates both the politics of representation of ‘el migrante’ in transnational electoral campaigns and the emerging dynamics of transnational coalition politics. Our approach underlines the need to carefully historicize the relationship between transnationalism and citizenship ‐ namely, to map the contingency and agency underlying the changing practices of states, migrants, and transnational institutional networks vis‐à‐vis questions of transnational citizenship. This is best done by paying close attention to the actual social and political practices whereby human agents pursue historically specific political projects that extend the practices of citizenship across borders.     

Consuming the transnational family: Indonesian migrant domestic workers to Saudi Arabia

Abstract There is heated debate in contemporary Indonesia about the rights and regulation of transnational women migrants, specifically about the ‘costs to families’ of women working overseas, but little attention has been given to women migrants' own views of family or women's own motivations for migration. In this article, which is based on field work in a migrant‐sending community in West Java, I focus on migrant women's narratives of transnational migration and employment as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia. I contribute to the literature on gender and transnational migration by exploring migrants' consumption desires and practices as reflective not only of commoditized exchange but also of affect and sentiment. In addition, I show in detail how religion and class inflect low‐income women's narrations of morally appropriate mothering practices. In conclusion, I suggest that interpreting these debates from the ground up can contribute towards understanding the larger struggles animating the Indonesian state's contemporary relationships with women and Islam.     

Transnational activities and aspirations of irregular migrants in Belgium and the Netherlands

The literature on immigrant transnationalism and on irregular immigration suggests irregular migrants engage relatively little in transnational activities because of the obstacles associated with their legal and economic statuses. Drawing on participant observation and in‐depth interviews with a diverse population of irregular migrants in Belgium and the Netherlands, however, I shall demonstrate in this article that irregular migrants do indeed engage in various transnational activities. Moreover, I argue that a focus on aspirations helps to understand why irregular migrants either do or do not engage in specific transnational activities. Distinguishing between investment, settlement and legalization aspirations, I analyse whether and for what reasons irregular migrants carry out economic, social and political transnational activities. I conclude that future research on transnationalism and on the incorporation of irregular and regular migrants alike could benefit from contextualizing the agency of migrants by taking their aspirations into account.     

Migrants’ Descendants and New Mobilities between China and Spain

The economic rise of China and the financial crises in Spain have transformed transnational practices between the two countries and have boosted new strategies of mobility among Spanish of Chinese descent. This article examines the relationship that migrants’ descendants establish with their parents’ country of origin from their childhood, and analyses emerging new mobilities towards China undertaken by migrants’ descendants who have attained high degrees of formal education and are looking for a better professional future. The article argues that migrants’ descendants are reshaping the transnational space between the two countries and re-evaluating their transnational training in order to apply their Spanish and Chinese socio-cultural skills in their professional careers. The research reveals how migrants’ descendants undertake a migration journey to secure upward social mobility, just as their parents did when migrating to Europe. Hence, social and geographical mobility intersect in opposite directions over time and across generations.     

From the multi-sited to the in-between: ethnography as a way of delving into migrants’ transnational relationships

Multi-sited ethnography has been extensively applied to migrants’ transnational family life and to the underlying care practices. Its methodological underpinnings and dilemmas, though, are relatively under-reflected. How can the relational and affective spaces between migrants and left-behind kin be ethnographically appreciated? Against this question, I revisit my fieldwork on a migration flow between Ecuador and Italy. This is an instance of the development of transnational social relationships, based on the circulation of material, cognitive and emotional resources, whereby people living ‘here’ and ‘there’ negotiate mutual affections, concerns and expectations. The challenge for ethnographers, under similar circumstances, lies less in staying in more sites than in sensing and understanding the relationships between them and the social practices on which this connectedness relies. The attendant methodological implications are discussed, ultimately pointing to the significance of relationality and in-betweenness for ethnographies of migration, transnationalism and mobilities.     

Celebrating Ourselves: The Family Reunion Rituals of African‐Caribbean Transnational Families

In the past decade, family reunions have become an important ritualized event among Afro‐Caribbean transnational migrants. Dispersed across a large number of North Atlantic countries, Afro‐Caribbeans have turned to organizing events specifically designed to reunite kinfolk. The rituals constitute a celebration of family as a distinct social group with a kin‐based, lineage‐like identity. Re‐creating kin ties among those spread across different nations and transmitting kin‐based connections to their offspring are the main incentives for holding these rituals. In this article I describe three different recent family reunions, one held in Barbados, one in Grenada, and one in Trinidad and Barbados. I analyse the specific forms these rituals take, relate their differences from the social positioning of the core members of the kin groups and discuss the signifying practices of the reunions for maintaining Caribbean family connections in the diaspora. Finally, I raise questions about how the kin‐based identities constructed in the reunion rituals intersect with race/class, ethnic and national identities.     

How does Conflict in Migrants’ Country of Origin Affect Remittance‐Sending? Financial Priorities and Transnational Obligations Among Somalis and Pakistanis in Norway

This article examines how conflict in the country of origin interacts with other factors in shaping migrants’ remittance‐sending practices. Our data come from a survey of 10 immigrant groups in Norway and semi‐structured interviews with Somali and Pakistani remittance‐senders and receivers. First, we conduct an in‐depth comparison to explore the differences in how Somali and Pakistani migrants decide about remittance‐sending. Second, we use survey data on all 10 migrant groups to evaluate whether the differences that are not explained by socioeconomic characteristics, may partly reflect whether or not there is ongoing conflict in the country of origin. In our analyses we differentiate between (1) the effect of migrants’capacity to remit and their prioritizing of local and transnational expenditures, and (2) the impact of state collapse and absence of human security on migrants’ and refugees’desire to remit. We find that ongoing conflict in the country of origin exerts an upward pressure on remittance‐sending.     

Salvadoran Migrants in Australia: An Analysis of Transnational Families’ Capability to Care across Borders

In this paper, I focus on the transnational care practices of Salvadoran refugees living in Perth (Western Australia) and who care for their ageing parents who have remained in their home country. The analysis is based on a conceptualization of transnational care as a set of capabilities that include, but are not limited to, mobility, social relations, time allocation, education and knowledge, paid work and communication (Merla and Baldassar, 2011). I focus in particular on the impact of Salvadoran refugees’ difficult access to, and use of, these capabilities on their capacity to fulfil their culturally defined sense of obligation to care for their ageing parents. Results show that extended transnational kinship networks play a major role in helping migrants overcome obstacles to transnational caregiving.     

Moving for a ‘better welfare’? The case of transnational Sudanese families

The burgeoning literature on welfare migration, or on the likelihood of migrants moving to countries with more generous welfare states, yields mixed results. In this article, we aim to disentangle what kinds of considerations underlie the decisions that migrants and their families make to address their social protection needs when they move to certain places. We explain how Sudanese extended families, with members scattered across multiple countries, draw on formal and informal institutions to meet their needs for social protection. Through a transnational approach, we analyse the mechanisms guiding the access, circulation and coordination of resources to cover different but related social protection domains. We contribute to current debates on transnational social protection by drawing on the life stories of members of a Sudanese transnational family and by expanding on the concept of ‘resource environment’. We based this article on 14 months of multi‐sited ethnographic fieldwork with Sudanese migrants and their families in the Netherlands, the UK and Sudan.     

Making Global Society: Friendship Networks among Transnational Professionals in the Building Design Industry

Abstract Little is currently known about the nature and wider implications of transnationalism among professionals, despite the fact that companies are increasingly establishing overseas business links, seeking foreign contracts and obliging professional employees to work overseas for long periods of time. Focusing on the research generated by a small study of mainly architects and engineers who had worked abroad at some time in the building design industry in this article I explore their transnational experiences and the factors that enabled them to construct viable friendship networks extending over time and into global life. These experiences are briefly contrasted with the social processes constructed by migrants and others operating in transnational social space. Though professionals appear to lack the clear sense of collective unity, the pre‐existing identity and/or the same sense of membership and organization as other types of transnational communities may exhibit, these networks nevertheless demonstrated a high degree of sociality and affectivity and a capacity to generate further transnational relationships. They also revealed a strongly postnational orientation arising from the conjunction of a unique combination of shared factors especially age, emotional deprivation, location and the nature of overseas work.     

The social order of transnational migration markets

The ‘infrastructural turn’ in labour migration studies has shifted attention away from the experiences of migrants to the role of public authorities and private actors in facilitating migrant mobilities. As part of a broader turn towards studying transnational mobilities rather than immigration and settlement, this research shows that the formalization of transnational labour migration has made mobility both freer and more difficult. In this article, I reinterpret mobility infrastructures from a market sociological perspective. Transnational labour migration, I argue, is more clearly conceptualized as the organized ‘making’ of cross‐border labour markets. Moreover, from a market sociological perspective the construction of cross‐border labour exchanges is at the same time a question of how the uncertainties inherent in market exchanges are coordinated by market actors. In its focus on how exchanges across borders are possible at all, a market sociological perspective makes note of the conflicting interests, power imbalances and uncertainties that must be handled for a social order of transnational migration markets to emerge. An important question concerns whether alternatives to the less regulated neo‐liberal market order that is evident in most migration corridors are possible and under what conditions. With reference to the challenges facing the regulation of cross‐border labour markets, in my conclusion, I map an agenda for future research.