On the Differential Attachments of Migrants from Central and Eastern Europe: A Typology of Labour Migration

In this article we develop an empirically grounded typology of labour migration patterns among migrants from Central and Eastern Europe, based on two dimensions: attachment to the destination country and attachment to the country of origin. We conducted a survey (N=654) among labour migrants in the Netherlands from Poland, Bulgaria and Romania. We found four migration patterns in our data: (i) circular migrants (mostly seasonal workers) with weak attachments to the country of destination, (ii) bi-nationals with strong attachments to both the home country and that of destination, (iii) footloose migrants with weak attachments to both the home and the destination country, and (iv) settlers with weak attachments to the home country. Our findings demonstrate the relevance to the debate on transnationalism and integration of distinguishing different migration patterns. Successful integration in Dutch society can go hand-in-hand with ‘strong’ as well as with ‘weak’ forms of transnationalism. The bi-national pattern shows a tendency to strong transnationalism, while the settlement pattern demonstrates less transnational involvement with the country of origin.     

Life here beyond now: Chronotopes of the ideal life among Iranian transnationals

I address how U.S.‐based Iranian transnationals’ migration paths affect their (re)‐construction of chronotopes of the ideal life. Adopting an ethnographically grounded, discourse‐analytic approach, I illustrate how participants with student visas and U.S. Green Cards position themselves differently relative to images of success here [in the U.S.] and lack of success there [in Iran]. I argue that the chronotopes of success here and lack of success there (re)‐constructed by non‐resident Iranian students are prompted by a large‐scale cultural chronotope which pertains to their aspiration to stay in the U.S. This chronotope of ‘life beyond’ is less about a ‘remove from homeland’ and more about an ideal future in the host country. Migrants’ desires and anxieties, I argue, can determine what receives topical prominence in migration chronotopes – as in the case of Iranian educational migrants whose future positionings make temporality topically more prominent than spatiality.

     

Temporary Transnational Youth Migration and its Mobility Links

Going abroad to live, work, or study for a period when young has become increasingly widespread. An important aspect of this development is the longer-term consequences for mobility at the individual and population levels. The present article explores the specific connections – the ‘mobility links’ – between temporary stays abroad and other mobility events in the early life course. The paper is based on a retrospective study of transnational moves and mobility among young adults in Gothenburg, Sweden. The results identify two main forms of consequential mobility: first, ‘secondary’ travel during the stay between two places linked by a move and, second, patterns of regular travel back to the place of temporary stay in following years, mainly because of new social ties formed.     

EN-COUNTERING THE OTHER DISCOURSE OF CHICANO-MEXICANO DIFFERENCE

In this period in which Mexicans in the borderlands are being constructed as aliens and sources of cheap deportable labour (not makes of intellectual traditions which encourage transnational area studies and theoretical reflections in the US), it is important to remember that not only people but also ideas cross Mexican–American borders. It is doubly important to scrutinize those intellectual movements that cross state-sanctioned borders while restricting social possibilities and movements.

In this article I consciously assume this charge by focusing critical attention on an influential venue of transnational(ist) travel (On the road to Octavio Paz/On the Road to Chicano) within cultural productions that laid the foundation for an ‘alternative’ Chicano studies epistemology and tradition in the early 1970s. Drawing on disparate cultural studies traditions and the deconstructive insights of Chicana feminists and activists, I encounter the patriarchal dynamics, conceptual idioms, political investments (nationalism/familism) and essentialist difference that undergirded this intellectual formation and its construction of Chicana/o identity. In the process I argue that this formation not only rendered the desired form of political exceptionalism, but also served to distance Chicanas/os from the political and intellectual claims of Chicanas, Chicana feminists and other women and people of colour. However, as my concluding section demonstrates, this circulation of theories was – to use the language of Clifford – ‘cut across’, interrupted and contested by other theories in circulation during the same period that offered different claims to representation, different forms of transnational travel, and other possibilities for imagining social political and intellectual relations.     

Crafting places through mobility: Chinese American “roots‐searching” in China

A cultural heritage tour to China that is jointly sponsored by Chinese American organizations and the People's Republic of China government represents the “forging” (Schein 1998) of a transnational relationship between Chinese Americans and China through which Chinese Americans re‐assess their identities. Multicultural discourses in the United States and mainland Chinese government narratives of modernity produce racialized and territorialized ideas of Chineseness that forcibly attach Chinese American identities to their places of ancestral origin in China. In contrast, the Chinese American participants in this program draw from cultural and historical references formed through their experiences in the United States and use their privileges of mobility to experience their ancestral places in China in ways that draw upon multiple understandings of their relationships to China as a place. Their visits reflect transnational processes that are built upon yet qualitatively differ from those of previous generations.     

Regimes of Mobility Across the Globe

Mobility studies emerged from a postmodern moment in which global ‘flows’ of capital, people and objects were increasingly noted and celebrated. Within this new scholarship, categories of migrancy are all seen through the same analytical lens. This article and Regimes of Mobility: Imaginaries and Relationalities of Power, the special issue of JEMS it introduces, build on, as well as critique, past and present studies of mobility. In so doing, this issue challenges conceptual orientations built on binaries of difference that have impeded analyses of the interrelationship between mobility and stasis. These include methodological nationalism, which counterpoises concepts of internal and international movement and native and foreigner, and consequently normalises stasis. Instead, the issue offers a regimes of mobility framework that addresses the relationships between mobility and immobility, localisation and transnational connection, experiences and imaginaries of migration, and rootedness and cosmopolitan openness. The introduction highlights how, within this framework and its emphasis on social fields of differential power, the contributors to this collection ethnographically explore the disparities, inequalities, racialised representations and national mythscapes that facilitate and legitimate differential mobility and fixity. Although the authors examine nation-state building processes, their analysis is not confined by national boundaries.     

Ugandans in Britain Making ‘New’ Homes: Transnationalism,Place and Identity within Narratives of Integration

This article draws on substantial ethnographic data among Ugandans in Britain and Uganda. It takes a migrant-centred approach to its discussion to reflect the relationship between assumptions of integration and institutional, socio-cultural and socio-economic dimensions. This highlights colonial transnational practices that continue to inform migrants' everyday lives. The article shows how migrants' understanding of education as a vital component of social mobility and status is attributed to the legacy of British colonial administration. This means that, for Ugandans, the process of adaptation in the UK comes with a different set of connotations, as this heritage remains of key significance to migrants' expectations. Important dimensions to the interfaces between transnationalism and integration are shown to be labour-market participation and immigration status. Place and identity emerge as points of intersectionality where the negotiated nature of transnationalism and integration processes is revealed.     

The Capacity and Desire to Remit: Comparing Local and Transnational Influences

This article explores the relationship between transnationalism and integration by examining the determinants of remittance-sending practices. We base our analysis on the premise that remittance-sending is shaped by a combination of the capacity and the desire of migrants to remit. The capacity to remit depends on access to funds that can be remitted, be it through wages, other income or savings. The desire to remit determines how remittance-sending is prioritised in relation to alternative expenditures. We assume that capacity is shaped by circumstances in the country of residence while desire depends on attachment and commitments in both the country of residence and the country of origin. Our analysis is based on survey data on immigrants in Norway (N=3,053). We find that economic integration is important for remittance-sending, and point to different mechanisms through which this effect could operate. Migrants' socio-cultural integration, however, appears not to have significant effects on remittance-sending. Our approach and results illustrate how different aspects of integration can have divergent impacts on transnationalism.     

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.     

Affective Friendship that Constructs Globally Spanning Transnationalism: The Onward Migration of Filipino Workers from South Korea to Canada

This article explores how affective friendship of migrant Filipino workers constructs transnationalism that overarches different host countries. Following a sequence of ‘mobility and sedentariness’ through ‘multi-sited ethnography’ methods, I discuss the affective friendship that emerges out of a specific sociocultural context in Korea, namely activities of the Catholic congregation. I also demonstrate that such friendship is accompanied by onward migration to Canada through the transfer of ties in a new social setting. Moving beyond the duality of home and abroad, this study reveals that migrants’ transnationalism exhibits cosmopolitanism through the reconfiguration of their compatriot friendship into globally spanning, multi-local ties.