French Citizens Research Articles

The example of Article 40, paragraph 2 of the French Code of criminal procedure in the fight against corruption and bribery: a whistleblowing mechanism for civil servants that is a legal obligation and not a mere right.

Whistleblowing, which emerged under the influence of US laws and international agreements, is a new concept for european countries. France was initially reluctant to establish effective whistleblower protections. Then, in recognition of its international commitments and in response to various political and financial scandals (Kerviel affair, Cahuzac affair), France adopted comprehensive reforms of its public and economic life by laws passed from 2007 to 2016. As such, beyond adopting the legislative changes called for in a number of european and international conventions, several measures should be considered to improve the legislation on whistleblowing in France, especially in the fight against national and transnational corruption. In the fight against corruption, OECD and GRECO have both recommended that France takes appropriate measures to promote reporting by public officials under article 40, paragraph 2 of the CPP. However, France’s recent legislative initiatives to reform whistleblower protection in the french public sector, voted from 2013 to 2016 (“Sapin 2”), remain silent on the procedure for implementing article 40, paragraph 2 of the CPP. Clearly, the text of article 40, paragraph 2 of the CPP, as drafted and applied today, no longer meets France’s needs or its international commitments. Legal protection of public officials who blow the whistle during the course of their duties on corruption matters is not sufficient to ensure the application of article 40, paragraph 2 of the CPP. The text should be overhauled in order to provide a coherent and efficient mechanism for reporting that protects the rights of french citizens. The scope of this article and the conditions for its implementation should be clarified, and the question of whether that provision should be coupled - or not - with a penalty should be discussed.

Elizabeth Heath.Wine, Sugar, and the Making of Modern France: Global Economic Crisis and the Racialization of French Citizenship, 1870–1910.

Elizabeth Heath.<i>Wine, Sugar, and the Making of Modern France: Global Economic Crisis and the Racialization of French Citizenship, 1870–1910</i>.

Remembering French Algeria. Pieds-Noirs, Identity, and Exile

Algeria is the symbol of the collapsing French colonial empire. Its past under French colonial rule therefore is mostly discussed as a story of fighting oppression. The idea of Algeria as a lost French department is still a taboo. In her work Remembering French Algeria. Pieds-Noir, Identity, and Exile, Amy L. Hubbell attacks this blind spot in French History and sheds light on a total different narrative: the one of a lost home to many French citizens who left independent Algeria to ‘the Hexagon’ in 1962, a move which they themselves perceived as ‘exile’. This literary study depicts how French Algeria has been remembered in literature and film since 1962. Hubbell aims to analyse the construction of a collective identity through memory of those so-called Pieds-Noirs, and their oscillation between the feeling of exile and the desire to return to a (forever lost) Algerian past. In contrast to the understanding of ‘Pieds-Noirs’ as French compatriots living in Algeria under French colonial rule, Hubbell defines the repatriation of the Français d’Algérie to the Hexagon after Algerian independence as the key moment for a collective identification. An (originally pejorative) appellation became particularly relevant and almost a sacred affiliation for those coerced to leave their trans-Mediterranean homeland. Suffering from Nostalgérie (‘references to the sun, the heat, the winds, the sea, and the different parts of the largest cities, such as Algiers or Oran’ to describe the repatriates’ nostalgia) constituted the main element for a strong Franco-Algerian double-bind collective identity. The ‘dual trauma of leaving Algeria and being rejected in France’ was then passed on from generation to generation. Hubbell uses the concept of ‘postmemory’ to explain why it is obvious to analyse the memory of French Algeria from its origin in 1962 to the present, when Pieds-Noirs descendants born in the Hexagon still cling to this identity of a ‘paradise lost’ like to a ‘phantom limb’. Interestingly, instead of former ethnic origins, in France, the specific Algerian city they had left became the new origin, the ‘paradisiacal [geographical] point of reference’; unfortunately, Hubbell does not explore this any further.

Leon Blum: Prime Minister, Socialist, Zionist by Pierre Birnbaum (review)

Reviewed by: Leon Blum: Prime Minister, Socialist, Zionist by Pierre Birnbaum Saul Lerner Leon Blum: Prime Minister, Socialist, Zionist By Pierre Birnbaum. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015. 217pp. In her 1939 essay, “The Art of Biography,” Virginia Woolf said biographers “stimulate the imagination” and reveal the essence of character “by telling us the true facts, by sifting the little from the big, and shaping the whole so that we perceive the outline.” This is what Pierre Birnbaum attempts in his brief biography of Leon Blum published as a part of Yale University’s “Jewish Lives” series of interpretive biographies. To reveal the essence of Blum’s character, Birnbaum seems to have used the distinction made by Archilochus, “The fox knows many little things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing,” which was brilliantly employed in Isaiah Berlin’s The Hedgehog and the Fox (1953) to explore Leo Tolstoy’s concept of history in War and Peace. Birnbaum sought to make Blum a hedgehog, pursuing, in the words of Berlin, “a single central vision, one system less or more coherent or articulate,” as opposed to “those [End Page 130] who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory” (3). The “one big thing,” the focus of Blum’s life and the essence of his character as a secular Jew, arose from his experience during the profoundly antisemitic period of the Dreyfus Affair, which deeply influenced Blum, diverted him from literary pursuits, and ultimately convinced him to be a Juif d’ Etat, a “state Jew,” secularly maintaining a life-long commitment to the heart of the French Revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity and employing the social justice of his mentor, Jean Jaures, leader of the French Socialist Party, to expand justice for all French citizens. Birnbaum’s charming, interesting, and, on the whole, thoughtful book on Blum introduces an important historical figure about whom most Americans know little, if anything. For this reason, Yale’s publication of Leon Blum adds much to the portrayal of significant “Jewish Lives” and to a greater understanding of Blum. Birnbaum, a distinguished French historian, provides an important analysis of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century antisemitism and the struggle between the advocates and opponents of the Enlightenment that resulted in the tragedy of the Dreyfus Affair. More recently Birnbaum has been assessing modern French antisemitism. Blum’s life, the story of a Jew granted equal rights as a consequence of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, illustrated the late nineteenth-century outcome of justice for Jews. So enamored was Blum with the importance of justice, even for women, that in 1907 he published an extremely controversial book, Du marriage, in which he argued that women, like men, should be permitted to sow their wild oats prior to marriage. Blum’s sense of justice also led him to head the French Zionist Union which endeared him neither to French Jews and to non-Jews of the period. For Birnbaum, Blum, in seeking to extend justice, believed that “the origin of French antisemitism “is not in the lower classes, but in high society,” and “he laid plans to revolutionize French society,” enhancing justice through socialism (27–29). Thus, becoming a “state Jew” (a concept developed by Birnbaum), Blum used the state to expand emancipation and reduce antisemitism. Starting his political career as a rapporteur of case law in 1896, Blum ultimately interpreted “266 cases, and between 1902 and 1919 he drafted 1,800 opinions” (74). As Birnbaum asserts, while the state was neither a dominant nor authoritarian power, its role was that of managing services and expanding the area of the public domain. In his 1927 speech to Parliament’s lower house, Blum said “the Government derives from its prerogatives as a public power, from its command authority over firms, and from its national and legislative authority” (75). [End Page 131] Because the state was the center “of social and economic life,” Blum sought to strengthen the state as an agent for justice. The trajectory of Blum’s career would eventually lead him to the position of Prime Minister of France in 1936. Jean Jaures had urged Blum to pursue a career in public life...

Colonialisme et handicap : la situation des aveugles dans l’Algérie colonisée

Our article analyses the mode of assistance to the blind in Algeria from the beginning of the 20th century until the Declaration of Independence of the country (1962). If Moslem blinds face discriminatory practices, all the blind – French citizens and subjects – are victims of unequal treatment because they are not entitled to the social measures granted to the blind in mainland France. Nevertheless, during the first decades of the 20th century, many actors travel between mainland France and the Algerian colony and introduce on the Algerian territory innovating practices developed in mainland France (Braille schools for the blind, eye clinics, promotion of manual work). They thus disrupt traditional practices of assistance to the blind, which are intrinsically related to Islam. Moreover, we want to underline the agency of the blind in the context of colonial Algeria, since blind association leaders take part in the colonial policy making of assistance to the blind. From the 1930s, they start to claim the equality of rights of the blind of Algeria with those of mainland France. This research allows to reflect on the construction of the citizenship of the blind in a colonial context.

Colonialism and disability: The situation of blind people in colonised Algeria

Our article analyses the mode of assistance to the blind in Algeria from the beginning of the 20th century until the Declaration of Independence of the country (1962). If Muslim blinds face discriminatory practices, all the blind – French citizens and subjects – are victims of unequal treatment because they are not entitled to the social measures granted to the blind in metropolitan France. Nevertheless, during the first decades of the 20th century many actors travel between metropolitan France and the Algerian colony and introduce on the Algerian territory innovating practices developed in France (Braille schools for the blind, eye clinics, promotion of manual work). They thus disrupt traditional practices of assistance to the blind, which are intrinsically related to Islam. Moreover, we want to underline the agency of the blind in the context of colonial Algeria, since blind association leaders take part in the colonial policy making of assistance to the blind. From the 1930's, they start to claim the equality of rights of the blind of Algeria with those of metropolitan France. This research allows to reflect on the construction of the citizenship of the blind in a colonial context.

Reading between the lines: Identity issues in Kanak narratives and the agency of the storyteller

Abstract The repeal of l’indigénat in 1946 gave the Kanak all the rights associated with French citizenship. However, for many years afterwards, there was growing unrest that came to a head with les événements of the 1980s, when the proindependence groups clashed violently with government forces. This violence led to the signing, first, of the Matignon Accords in 1988 and the Noumea Accord in 1998. The Noumea Accord has set in motion the gradual and irreversible transfer of administrative powers to the colony under the supervision of the United Nations Decolonization Programme, culminating in a referendum (by 2018) to determine ultimate independence from France. It is critically important that the New Caledonians arrive at a functional model for such an arrangement and so, predictably, the practicalities involved have stimulated much discussion at all levels of society. Narratives are an important resource, allowing the reader to better understand cultural values and problems. Using ideas derived from critical discourse analysis, this article examines the emerging discussions in the literature written since the signing of the Accord, focusing in particular on a selection of works by Kanak authors.

France: An Algorithmic Power

The Paris attacks of November 13, 2015, demonstrate, if such a demonstration is still necessary, that the aim of new French intelligence laws is not to anticipate or prevent terrorist attacks, but simply to eliminate the private lives of French citizens. President Hollande's statements that delays in implementing the law were behind the "failure" of the intelligence services are a denial of the fact that this legislation only confirms existing practices. The Law on Intelligence, just like the law on military planning, is mainly an attack on private freedoms. The state of emergency will likewise eliminate public freedoms.&amp;hellip; Following the November 13 massacres, the government is already considering changes to the Law on Intelligence, with the aim of "eas[ing] the procedures the intelligence services must follow when they would like to use means of surveillance." Yet this law does not establish any controls over the activities of the secret services. It does set up a National Control Commission, but this body has no effective possibility of carrying out its mission, and can only offer recommendations. It is not a question, then, of eliminating a control that does not exist, but of signaling that the very idea of monitoring the executive branch should be abandoned&amp;mdash;a clear signal that no limitation can or should be placed on its actions.&lt;p class="mrlink"&gt;&lt;p class="mrpurchaselink"&gt;&lt;a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-67-number-9" title="Vol. 67, No. 9: February 2016" target="_self"&gt;Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the &lt;em&gt;Monthly Review&lt;/em&gt; website.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Immigration and French national identity under neoliberalism: Sarkozy's selective immigration politics as a performance of sovereignty

ABSTRACTIn 2007 then French president Nicolas Sarkozy established the Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Cooperative Development. Ocak investigates what the ministry wanted to achieve by promoting national identity and linking it with immigration. Focusing on the so-called selective immigration policies and the national identity debate, she examines the ways in which neoliberalization hollows out the nation-state and transforms its relations vis-à-vis citizens and, as a result, increases the need to perform sovereignty to counterbalance the crisis of the welfare state. The articulation of the undesired immigrant figure and the project to engage French citizens in the management of the immigrant operate, she suggests, as tactics to smooth this transformation and compensate for the losses that the French citizens experience as a result of the reign of neoliberal policies.

Saharan Jews and the Fate of French Algeria by Sarah Abrevaya Stein, and: The French Intifada: The long war between France and its Arabs by Andrew Hussey (review)

Reviewed by: Saharan Jews and the Fate of French Algeria by Sarah Abrevaya Stein, and: The French Intifada: The long war between France and its Arabs by Andrew Hussey Dzavid Dzanic Saharan Jews and the Fate of French Algeria By Sarah Abrevaya Stein. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. The French Intifada: The long war between France and its Arabs By Andrew Hussey. New York: Faber & Faber, 2014. Debates on immigration and national identity continue to permeate the public sphere in France. Countless essays, novels, historical monographs, documentaries and television shows have been devoted to these topics in recent years. The legacy of French imperialism often frames these debates and many commentators have pointed to possible links between the colonial past and the recent history of troubles in France’s poor suburban areas, or banlieues. Sarah Abrevaya Stein’s Saharan Jews and the Fate of French Algeria and Andrew Hussey’s The French Intifada: The long war between France and its Arabs throw new light on the long and complicated process that attended the creation and recreation of identities during the colonial and postcolonial periods in Algeria and France. In Saharan Jews and the Fate of French Algeria, Stein examines the ways in which the colonial government in Algeria imposed an “Indigenous” identity on Mzabi Jews in southern Algeria by relying on rigid legal categories. Stein also shows that these legal categories continue to reverberate among this small community, despite its exodus from the Mzab in 1962. Using a comparative approach in The French Intifada, Hussey seeks to uncover what he sees as the colonial roots of widespread anger and anti-French views among the descendants of families who moved to France from Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco both before and after decolonization. Saharan Jews and the Fate of French Algeria is an exceptional study in which Stein convincingly argues that the marginal social status of Mzabi Jews did not represent a perennial historical fact because their marginality was in fact constructed during eighty years of French colonization. By examining the history of Mzabi Jewry in its regional context and paying close attention to its entangled relationship with the more numerous Muslim Ibadi community, Stein rightly puts into question the widespread reliance on the east-west, or Occidental-Oriental, binary. She shows that members of this small community primarily experienced a north-south duality because they were treated as an Indigenous population with the same rights as their Muslim neighbors, while northern Jewry underwent a different trajectory, especially after it obtained the French citizenship due to the 1870 Crémieux decree. In the first chapter, Stein offers a fascinating examination of Lloyd Cabot Briggs’s 1964 book on the Mzabi Jewish community, No More for Ever: A Saharan Jewish town, which Briggs wrote after personally witnessing the 1962 exodus. Due to his close relationship with the colonial authorities, Stein argues, Briggs failed to see that the “innate” traditional qualities he believed marked the community in fact represented the final stage of a long colonial process. Turning to the roots of that marginality in the second chapter, Stein shows that the decision to legally classify Mzabi Jews as an Indigenous population owed much to the colonial administration’s attempts to preserve the fragile status quo in the south, where French officers projected onto the Muslim population fears about possible unrest in the event of an extension of the Crémieux decree to the south after 1870. The third and fourth chapters detail the ways in which French officers and Mzabi Jews tested the elasticity of this unique legal categorization. For instance, French officers tried to rigidify the legal restrictions that circumscribed Mzabi Jews’ ability to travel, trade and mix with the surrounding Muslim and Jewish communities. According to French officers, this remained the only approach that could prevent the straining of relations between the colonial state and the Muslim Ibadi leadership. For their part, Mzabi Jews challenged their legal status by demanding to be conscripted into the army, by attempting to obtain better access to public health and by seeking access to French schools for their children. In the fifth chapter, Stein demonstrates that the imposition of limiting legal categories also meant...

The French colonial policy in Tunisia between 1920 and 1930 and its influence on the Greek community

ABSTRACTThe Greek presence in Tunisia dates back to the middle of the sixteenth century, when merchants and ex-slaves, once victims of the pirates operating in North Africa, settled primarily in the ports of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. During that period, Tunisia was part of the Ottoman Empire, and from1705 a semi-independent hegemony. The French invasion of North Africa was a crucial point in the Greek community's long presence in Tunisia. The French colonial policy brought tremendous changes in the social life of people residing in multinational Tunisia, including Greeks. The decade between 1920 and 1930 marked a series of reforms in the governmental structures of Tunisia. These events also affected Greek residents in Tunisia. Although they retained their religious identity, their ethnic orientation became directly dependent on these political and social changes, since that is when the majority of Greeks acquired French citizenship. It is important to examine whether this shift was accompanied by a transformation of the Greek national identity and the extent of its influence within the actual Greek community.

Schooling, Citizen-Making, and Anti-Immigrant Prejudice in France

Are schools an effective institution to build citizenship and to transmit values associated with a given citizenship regime? A survey of 300 middle and high school pupils showed that for pupils, the representation of the French citizenship model is structured in two dimensions, ‘republican citizenship’ (or colorblind equality) and ‘new laïcité’ (or secularism), replicating previous research among adults. Moreover, the results support the schools’ effectiveness in the transmission of republican values by showing that in the mainstream track, older high school pupils endorse more strongly than younger school pupils both the principle of republican citizenship and new laïcité. The fact that this is not the case for pupils in a professional track suggests that these results are not simply a question of age but of schooling. Finally, support is found for a theoretical model suggesting that these two principles of the French citizenship model mediate the effect of schooling on prejudice. The implications of these results for current theories of intergroup relations are discussed.

The Republic Unsettled: Muslim French and the Contradictions of Secularism

Mayanthi Fernando's debut book, The Republic Unsettled, investigates the asymmetries and contradictions of French secularism through an ethnographic account of the lived experiences of “Muslim French.” She defines “Muslim French” as those individuals who are committed to “practicing Islam as French citizens and to practicing French citizenship as pious Muslims” (p. 13). The term “Muslim French,” used in place of the more common “French Muslims,” not only adheres to the self-ascription of Fernando's interlocutors but also symbolizes the book's overall theme of questioning how we think about and analyze secularism, liberalism, French national identity, and Muslim religiosity. Fernando upends tired arguments about how Islam or Muslims are not sufficiently secular or integrated, alternatively opting for a critique of the ways the contradictions of French secularism govern and disrupt Muslim lives. The book provides a beautifully written and compelling scholarly critique, not only of the hegemony of Western liberal secular discourses but also of how we think about the discursive construction of identity, difference, and “the Other.”

The BUMIDOM in Paris and its suburbs: contradictions in a state migration policy, 1960s–1970s

ABSTRACTIn 1962, the BUMIDOM, a state agency, was founded to organize and increase migration flows from the West Indies and La Reunion to the metropole. A major difference with the immigration from Sub-Saharan Africa was that, as French citizens, the migrants from the DOM were encouraged to come to metropole. Paris was a pivotal place where they were welcomed thanks to the creation of community centers. But experiences of living in the capital city also exposed the hardship and contradictions of this migration. Indeed, the egalitarian and republican discourse generated hope among migrants while the living conditions, particularly housing, were found to be disappointing. For these migrants, citizenship was not only formal but it enabled them to define places in Paris, such as the community centers, as specifically West Indian or Reunionese. These were spaces where a regional identity was built in-between a racialized definition and the2017 celebration of cultural particulars. It also expressed an irreducible difference between Sub-Saharan migrants on the one hand and West Indian and Reunionese ones on the other. Then, the common experience of discrimination was not enough to create a unified representation of a Black Paris beyond legal statuses and geographical origins.

L’affaire Galmot: Colonialism on trial in 1931

Between 9 March and 21 March 1931 12 men and two women, all French citizens from French Guiana, were put on trial at an extraordinary session of the cour d’assises in Nantes. All were accused of looting and murder during riots which had taken place on 6 and 7 August 1928 in Cayenne; all were acquitted. Despite being one of the biggest trials of the interwar period in France, the event was largely forgotten until a major exhibition staged in Nantes in 2011. Examining the public reaction to the trial in 1931, this article has two key aims. First, it will explore attitudes towards colonialism and republicanism in the provinces and metropolitan France. Second, it will use the exhibition of 2011 as a means of addressing the memorial debate to show how such recoveries of forgotten events, however laudable and necessary, risk perpetuating an image of an idealised republicanism based upon universalism.

Who is a legitimate French speaker? The Senegalese in Paris and the crossing of linguistic and social borders

Just as the distinction between ‘French’ and ‘Francophone’ has implications in French literary studies, the boundaries that position certain groups as outsiders also exist in French society at large, where just because one speaks French, one is not necessarily a legitimate French speaker. For instance, while linguistic legislation in France stipulates that one must demonstrate a certain level of language proficiency in order to be granted citizenship as a means of fostering social integration, experiences of discrimination and exclusion evoked in interviews with 24 Senegalese immigrants and French citizens of Senegalese origin call into question the link between proficiency and acceptance. Through an applied linguistics perspective, this article demonstrates that linguistic competence is often determined by more than just the ability to use a language; it depends on the ability to prove cultural legitimacy, which is directly tied to understandings of race, nationality and language ownership.

The coming of the terror in the French Revolution

Between 1793 and 1794, thousands of French citizens were imprisoned and hundreds sent to the guillotine by a powerful dictatorship that claimed to be acting in the public interest. Only a few years earlier, revolutionaries had proclaimed a new era of tolerance, equal justice, and human rights. How and why did the French Revolution s lofty ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity descend into violence and terror?The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution offers a new interpretation of this turning point in world history. Timothy Tackett traces the inexorable emergence of a culture of violence among the Revolution s political elite amid the turbulence of popular uprisings, pervasive subversion, and foreign invasion. Violence was neither a preplanned strategy nor an ideological imperative but rather the consequence of multiple factors of the Revolutionary process itself, including an initial breakdown in authority, the impact of the popular classes, and a cycle of rumors, denunciations, and panic fed by fear fear of counterrevolutionary conspiracies, fear of anarchy, fear of oneself becoming the target of vengeance. To comprehend the coming of the Terror, we must understand the contagion of fear that left the revolutionaries themselves terrorized.Tackett recreates the sights, sounds, and emotions of the Revolution through the observations of nearly a hundred men and women who experienced and recorded it firsthand. Penetrating the mentality of Revolutionary elites on the eve of the Terror, he reveals how suspicion and mistrust escalated and helped propel their actions, ultimately consuming them and the Revolution itself.

Symptoms Moderating the Association Between Recent Suicide Attempts and Trauma Levels: Fan-Shaped Effects

The present study focuses on variables moderating the incidence of recent suicide attempt in a large community sample (n = 39,617) of French citizens with various levels of trauma. Five trauma levels were established based on posttraumatic stress disorder items of the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview. Twenty-three symptoms were examined as potential moderating variables with a fan-shaped pattern. Seven symptoms regarding desire for death, self-harm intention, suicidal ideation, lifetime suicide attempt, depressed mood, loss of interest, and panic attack exhibited the fan-shaped pattern. The absence of these moderating symptoms decreases the incidence of suicide attempt and their presence leads to a gradual increase.

Concepts of citizenship in France during the long eighteenth century

François Furet famously described the French Revolution as ’the first experiment with democracy’, and modern French citizenship is often seen as having emerged during this period. Universal male suffrage was practised for the first time in 1792 and the Revolution also witnessed debate over such issues as: the rights of citizens; the extension of the franchise to poorer inhabitants and black slaves; and even whether women should be given political rights. Yet, the modern idea of citizenship did not emerge from nowhere in 1789. Rather it was the product of more than a century of debate. This article examines the different understandings of citizenship that were competing for dominance in France during the long eighteenth century: the ancient conception; the Bodinian understanding and the rights-based approach. Not only does it demonstrate the contribution of these approaches (and in particular the last) to revolutionary understandings of citizenship, but it also highlights how the tensions of the eighteenth-century debates, and the ambiguities inherent in the rights-based conception, sparked some of the key controversies of the Revolution.

‘Gotta Go Visit Family’: Reconsidering the Relationship Between Tourism and Transnationalism

AbstractA comparative examination of two groups of highly skilled Global North migrants – US citizens (Americans) in London, Berlin, and Paris and French citizens in London – this paper explores the nature of these migrants' visits home, situating these visits between tourism and transnationalism. We question whether there has been a tendency to conceptualise visits home by migrants from the Global North as tourism and those from the Global South as transnational engagement. We found that our study participants' visits home often incorporated visits to family, relaxation, tourism, and cultural transmission to children, suggesting there is not a clear distinction between tourism and transnationalism. At the same time, we noted a certain tension between transnationalism, here primarily familial obligations, and tourism, as migrants sought to balance a felt need to visit family and a desire to have some aspect of relaxation or tourism. Visits home also often necessitated negotiations of social relations – often in both home and host countries. Finally, we noted a bidirectionality in visits: migrants visited home, but family and friends visited them as well, which also serves to maintain social connections with home, suggesting that the implications of this bidirectionality for the nature of transnationalism are an area for future research. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.