Transnational Political Space Research Articles

Transnational cyberpublics: new political spaces for labour migrants in Asia

This article offers a cultural interpretation of transnational solidarities that Asian political activists are generating through electronic telecommunications networks. Its focus is on the experiences of the Migrant Forum in Asia [MFA], a network of non-government organizations that question issues of human rights, citizenship and working conditions of labour migrants in the Asian region. MFA's networking activities are being transformed as email enables daily conversations across multiple national borders, and new 'imagined' communities of political action have emerged. English has been chosen as the language of solidarity, and photographs have become important in communicating activities and ideas. These media are innovative modes of transnational communication and shape political spaces that exist in symbiotic relation to the 'real'. Attention to these practices, spaces and the symbolic meanings activists attach to these communities helps to illuminate a cultural politics of transnational activism in this region.

Crossing borders: Global civil society and the reconfiguration of transnational political space

This article examines the changing international division of regulation and the emergence of `transnational regimes' that transgress the traditional boundaries of interstate diplomacy. I argue here that globalization has resulted in a number of negative transboundary impacts, both social and environmental, that are not being addressed by conventional interstate regimes. In response, actors in global civil society are in the process of creating transnational institutions intended to manage or eliminate these impacts. I also provide brief descriptions of two examples of such regimes.