Beyond Border Crossing and Soulless Places: The Role of Mexico’s Northern Border Cities in the Construction of Transnational Social Spaces

Abstract

Transnational approaches have challenged traditional views on international migration, which was previously characterized as a permanent change of residence between two nation-states, leading to assimilation in the migrant’s destination.1 Indeed the transnational approach implies a radical overturning of geographical concepts of migration (e.g., place of birth or place of destination) that are left behind by more ambiguous, yet more analytically challenging, transnational social spaces. Transmigrants take actions, make decisions, and develop identities within social spaces that connect them to two or more societies simultaneously.2 Furthermore, migrants create fluid, transnational spaces that are defined as both a social terrain that reflects migrants’ biculturality and a fragmented, diffused geographical reality.3