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Transnationalism and Diaspora • TransnationaIism defines a condition in which, despite great distances and notwithstanding the presence of international borders (and all the laws, reguIations and national narratives they represent), certain kinds of relationships have been globally intensified and take place. • Transnational activities are the ones that span national borders.
Transnationalism and Diaspora • Transnational activities are carried out by the individuals such as immigrants, by the states (e.g.:the homelands and host states) ,MNCs etc. • Transnational activities are not limited to economic ones, but include political, cultural and religious initiatives as weIl.
Transnationalism and Diaspora • Diasporas can be exemplary communities in understanding transnationalism. • One of the hallmarks of diaspora as social form is the 'triadic relationship‘ between (a) globally dispersed yet collectively self-identified ethnic groups, (b) the territorial states and contexts where such groups reside, and (c) the homeland states • The dispersed diasporas of old have become today's "transnational communities' sustained by a range of modes of social organization, mobility and communication.
Transnationalism and Diaspora • Types of Transnationalist Activities • Economic transnationalism • Political transnationalism • Cultural transnationalism • In addition to diasporas and immigrants, there are other actors involved in transnational activities. Many illegal and violent social networks also operate transnationally (e.g. terrorists, insurgents, trans-border acts such things as trafficking in drugs, pornography, people, weapons, and nuclear material.)
Transnationalism and Diaspora • Diaspora/Immigrant transnationalism • Economic transnationalism offers an alternative to some immigrants and their home country counterparts against low-wage dead-end jobs; • Political transnationalism gives them voice that they otherwise would not have and • Cultural transnationalism allows them to reaffirm their own self-worth and transmit valued traditions to their all these processes against the cultural integrity and solidarity of receiving society there
Transnationalism and Diaspora • Some groups become deeply involved in transnational activities while others do not. • The history of immigration and the model in which migrants are received set the context for the direction that their activities will take. • Whether migration is massive and motivated by political convulsions at home it is likely that immigrants remain morally tied to kin and communities left behind and, hence, are more likely to engage in a variety of activities that sustain a common bound. • On the contrary where migration is a more individualized process, grounded on personal and family decisions. transnational activities are more selective and, at times, exceptional.
Transnationalism and Diaspora • Another factor that affects the character and scope of transnational activity is the cultural resources that a particular group brings with it. • The extent of discrimination and hostility faced by an immigrant group is another factor that interacts with the previous ones to give direction to their adaptive strategies including those of a transnational character .
Transnationalism and Diaspora • Under host state’s unreceptive conditions, there is no recourse but to draw a protective boundary around the group, identifying it with traditions and interests rooted in the home country and separating it symbolically, sometimes physically from the host society. • Transnational activities give them the chance to see themselves as belonging elsewhere both socially and economically .
Transnationalism and Diaspora • Homeland governments may also have an impact on the transnational activities of the immigrants. • They may perceive their kin communities as a source of investments, entrepreneurial initiatives, markets for home country companies and even political representation abroad.
Transnationalism and Diaspora • The mobilization of homeland governments in pursuit of the economic and political benefits of transnationalism has taken several forms that range from the creation of a specialized ministry or government department, the granting of dual citizenship and the right to vote in national elections or a new legislation allowing the election of representatives of the diaspora to the national legislature.
Transnationalism and Diaspora • Immigrants engage in complex activities across national borders that create, shape and potentially transform their identity. • Within their complex web of social relations, transmigrants draw upon and create fluid and multiple identities grounded both in their society of origin and in the host societies. • While some migrants identify more with one, they link themselves simultaneously to more than one nation. • By involving in transnational activities, they try to express their resistance to the global political and economic situations.
Transnationalism and Diaspora • Braziel outlines 6 premises in defining our conceptualization of transnationalism: I) bounded social science concepts such as tribe, ethnic group, nation, society, or culture can limit the ability of researchers to first perceive, and then analyze, the phenomenon of transnationalism; 2) the development of the transnational migrant experience is inextricably linked to the changing conditions of global capitalism, and must be analyzed within that world context; 3) transnationalism is grounded in the daily lives, activities, and social relationships of migrants;
Transnationalism and Diaspora • 4) Transnational migrants, although predominantly workers, live a complex existence that forces them to confront, draw upon, ant rework different identity constructs-national, ethnic and racial; • 5) the fluid and complex existence of transnational migrants compels us to reconceptualize the categories of nationalism, ethnicity, and race, theoretical work that can contribute to reformulating our understanding of culture, class, and society; and • 6) transmigrants deal with and confront a number of hegemonic contexts, both global and national, These hegemonic contexts have an impact on the transmigrant's consciousness, but at the same time transmigrants reshape these contexts by their interactions and resistance.
Transnationalism and Diaspora • To conceptualize transnationalism we must bring to the study of migration a global perspective. Only a view of the world as a single social and economic system allows us to comprehend the implications of the similar descriptions of new patterns of experience that have been emerging from different parts of the globe.
Transnationalism and Diaspora • A focus on transnationalism as a new field of social relations will allow us to explore transnational fields of action and meaning as operating within and between continuing nation-states and as a reaction to the conditions and terms nation-states impose on their populations.
Transnationalism and Diaspora • Migrant experiences in different areas of the world tended to be analyzed as discrete and separate phenomena rather than as part of a global phenomenon in social sciences, • Analyses of immigrant populations, their social relations and systems of meaning have continued to be enmeshed within theories that approached each society as a discrete and bounded entity with its own separate economy, culture, and historical trajectory.
Transnationalism and Diaspora • Transnational context of migrants' lives develops from the interplay of multiple phenomena: • historical experience, structural conditions, and the ideologies of their home and host societies. • In developing the concept of transnationalism, one need to provide those studying contemporary migrating populations with a framework in which global economic processes, and the continuing contradictory persistence of nation-states can be linked to migrants' social relationships, political actions, loyalties, beliefs, and identities.
