Transnational Migration

Increasing interconnections between nation-states across borders have made the transnational a key tool for understanding our world. It has made particularly strong contributions to immigration studies and holds great promise for deepening insights into international migration. This is the first book to provide an accessible yet rigorous overview of transnational migration, as experienced by family and kinship groups, networks of entrepreneurs, diasporas, and immigrant associations. As well as defining the core concept, the book explores its implications for immigrant incorporation, and its relationship to assimilation. By examining the political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions of transnational migration, the authors capture the distinctive features of the new immigrant communities that have reshaped the ethno-cultural mix of receiving nations, including the US, Canada, Australia and Western Europe. Importantly, the book also examines the effects of transnationality on sending communities, viewing migrants as agents of political and economic development. This systematic and critical overview of transnational migration perfectly balances theoretical discussion with relevant examples and cases, making it an ideal book for upper-level students covering immigration and transnational relations, on sociology, political science, and globalization courses.

Thomas Faist is professor of transnational, development and migration studies at the Bielefeld University, Germany.

Margit Fauser is a researcher in the department of sociology at Bielefeld University, Germany.

Eveline Reisenauer is a researcher in the department of sociology at Bielefeld University, Germany.

Table of contents
Acknowledgements

Chapter 1 - Three Transnationals: Transnationalization, Transnational Social Spaces and Transnationality
- Cross-border migration and the need for a transnational perspective
- Unpacking the transnational
- Aim and structure of the book

Chapter 2 - Transnationality and Social Practices
- Familial transnational practices
- Socio-cultural transnational practices
- Economic transnational practices
- Political transnational practices
- The significance of transnational practices

Chapter 3 - Conceptualizing Transnationalization and Transnational Social Spaces
- Transnationalization in historical perspective
- The concept of transnational social spaces
- The durability of transnationalization

Chapter 4 -Transnationalization and Development
- Three phases of the debate
- Remittances and their role for family and kin
- Transnational investment and business
- Hometown associations and their contributions to community development
- Transnational circulation of knowledge
- Social remittances and their effects

Chapter 5- Transnationality and the Models of Migrant Integration
- Transnationalism as a model of integration
- The relationship between transnationality and integration
- Second generation transnationality
- Migrant associations as a means of integration and transnationalization

Chapter 6 - States and Citizens - Transnational Political Practices and Institutions
- Citizenship: a conceptual sketch
- The policies of citizenship: the case of dual citizenship
- The politics of citizenship: citizens, diasporas and states
- Equal political liberty
- Rights and duties - states reaching out to emigrants
- Collective identity and nation-building
- Transnational citizenship?

Chapter 7 - Transnational Methodology
- Three methodological challenges for transnational analysis
- Methods to address the three challenges
- Capturing simultaneity

Chapter 8 - Transnationalizing Civil Society
- Civil society and transnational social spaces
- The relevance of development, social integration and citizenship for civil society
- Civil society and the state
- Civil society and the market
- Civil society and the family
- The role and function of migrant transnational social spaces for civil society
- The significance of a transnational approach for the social sciences

Endnotes
References