Migration, Diasporas and Transnationalism

Abstract

Readers of this journal are no doubt familiar with recent emphases on the transnational nature of diasporic communities worldwide. For the most part, this emphasis has been associated with studies of migration and has been conceptually linked to disciplines such as anthropology, sociology and cultural studies. The notion of diasporic populations has, rather recently, enjoyed somewhat of a conceptual revival, largely due to complex political and economic changes that lead to substantial numbers of emigrants. The end result has been the ability to emphasise the transnational nature, that is, the construction and maintenance of social fields across and independent of modern geo-political boundaries, of these identities.Vertovec and Cohen's edited volume provides a useful overview of the three distinct yet closely related themes identified in the title. Conceptually linked to the well-established (and highly productive) United Kingdom-based ESRC Research Programme on Transnational Communities, of which the senior editor is the Director, the volume is a compilation of previously published articles from various journals and other volumes that the authors have compiled in order to address the growth and breadth of studies in which the central foci revolve around migration, diasporas and transnationalism.As pointed out by the editors (p. xiii-xiv), the background for a transnational approach can be found, more or less, in the wider understanding and recognition of the issues surrounding pressures in global economic and political arenas. To borrow from Appadurai (p. 463, this volume), the recognition of global ethnoscapes (i.e., social, territorial, and cultural reproduction of group identity), formed as a result of substantial population movements (both voluntary and involuntary), led to an increase in attention given to the transnational social spaces that were ultimately created. The only new material in the volume can be found in the editors' own introduction, which is of particular merit. Vertovec and Cohen engage the current state of diasporic studies by focusing on the various of diasporas, suggesting that a diaspora can be viewed as a social form (characterized by specific social relationships, political orientations, and/or economic strategies), a type of consciousness (consisting of negative experiences of discrimination or exclusion and positive experiences of heritage or ethnic affiliations), and a mode of production (the globalization from below, or the world-wide flow of cultural objects, images and meanings [p.xix]).The rest of the volume is presented in three separate sections. The papers selected in the first section on migration are meant to reflect the changing nature of international migration flows. The editors, however, position migration in the context of diasporas and transnationalism by suggesting that migrants now, more than ever, find it possible to have multiple localities and multiple identities (p. xvi). The reader is treated to an early paper by Harvey Cholding in which these linkages were recognized, followed by an attempt by Fawcett to categorise linkages in migration systems. Remittances are also featured in a highly technical but important reprint of Hatzipanayotou's paper that posits a model for determining the impact of income, trade and fiscal policies on migration. Approached from another angle, Keely's article examines whether worker remittances either increase dependency or improve the overall quality of life.The section on diasporas presents almost a history of the concept, with excellent reprints by James Clifford, Gabriel Sheffer (for whom existing definitions of diasporas are inadequate for our purposes since their underlying assumption is that diasporas are transitory and that they are destined to disappear through acculturation and assimilation [p. …