Transnational Practices Research Articles

Return Migration and Transnationalism: Evidence from Highly Skilled Academic Migration

ABSTRACTBased on a study of U.S. public university employees from Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC), this article explores transnational practices among highly skilled migrants. Although our interviewees reported considering returning to their home countries or participating in onward migration to other nations, they prefer engagement in transnational practices on the professional and personal levels to long-term return. As we highlight the factors that influence their decision making about return and engagement in transnationalism, our findings suggest that the wide array of transnational activities by the highly skilled needs to be studied as an important complement to the focus on return migration.

How Transnational Mothering is Seen to be ‘Troubling’: Contesting and Reframing Mothering

This article aims to examine how changes in mothering induced by international migration become transformed into ‘troubles’. Based on the analysis of 79 selected articles on transnational families published between 2004 and 2013 in national press and Internet media portals in Lithuania, along with interviews with transnational mothers conducted between 2008 and 2014, the authors raise questions about how changes in mothering due to migration come to be constructed as troubles and how mothers who emigrate to work abroad while their children remain living in the country of origin engage in mothering display. The authors bridge Goffman’s theoretical ideas with the current frame of family display suggested by Finch to extend the understanding about the ways the scripts of ‘good mothering’ are both referenced and transformed through multi-local interactions. The analysis of the portrayal of transnational mothers in mass media demonstrates how mothering across borders is scripted. The cases discussed by the authors show the way transnational mothers respond to the discrediting scripts and normalize troubles, investing in bringing new meanings to mothering. The analysis of newly emerging transnational practices gives empirical evidence to the assumption that transnational mothers do not simply ‘follow’ scripts but also shift them and create new stories of mothering.

Countering insurgency: Turkey’s policy toward the PKK’s transnational dynamics in Europe

ABSTRACTInsurgents often develop international connections and benefit from external assistance from a variety of sources. Support from diaspora communities has long been considered one of the critical external factors in the persistence of insurgent groups. Yet how the counterinsurgent state addresses external support from transnational ethnic communities and what factors influence the state's policies remain understudied. By focusing on the transnational political practices of the Kurdish community and the PKK in Western Europe, this paper examines how Turkey has addressed the diasporic support for the PKK since the 1980s. It shows that three major factors – the composition of foreign policy decision-makers, their ideological contestation over the Kurdish question, and the European political context – have affected Turkey's policy regarding the PKK's transnational dynamics in Europe.

The ‘European Turks’: identities of high-skilled Turkish migrants in Europe

Using exceptionally rich qualitative data coming from the FP7 EUCROSS project on the ‘Europeanization of the Everyday Life’, this paper focuses on high-skilled and highly transnational Turkish migrants who reside in the UK, Romania and Italy. The article analyses participants’ discursive constructions of Europe and Europeanness and shows how specific images and symbols of Europe and Turkey influence their own relationship to Europe. We argue that understanding Turkish migrants’ identification with Europe requires a comprehensive analysis of the development of a Westernization discourse in Turkey that has framed people’s identities. This discourse symbolizes the desire for being part of the Western world, and especially Western Europe, but, at the same time, the fear of being dominated by the very same world. We show that we need to grasp the values, images, symbols and discourses that underline transnational practices to understand the making of European identity among migrants.

World brotherhood colonies: A preview of Paramahansa Yogananda's understudied vision for communities founded upon the principles of yoga

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) founded the Yogoda Satsanga Society (YSS) of India in 1917. With the blessings of his guru Sri Yukteswar, he then traveled to the United States in 1920 where he eventually established the American branch of the YSS known as the Self-Realization Fellowship to teach Kriyā-yoga and “original Christianity.” Tracing the history of the World Brotherhood Colony movement as it made its way from India to America and back to India, this article shows how Yogananda's colonies today continue to provide a space for members of the growing global middle class to live a simpler life grounded in yogic principles. Scholars concerned with yoga's historical transmission and entrance into transnational practice will find this article useful for understanding the implications of Paramahansa Yogananda's World Brotherhood Colonies in the history of modern yoga.

Manifestations of emotional deprivation of Ukrainian labour migrants' children

The article is devoted to the problem of children growth in the families of labour migrants. The children of labour migrants is a special social-demographic category of children who remains without full parental care as the result of parents’ labour migration aboard. Thansnationality is one of the most considerable characteristic of modern Ukrainian labour migration. Transnational family is one of the consequences of such migration. This model of family implies parents or one of them is involved in the upbringing of their child not in full due to living for a long time aboard. At the same time direct care is reassigned to other members of the family. The article is aimed at the detection of elements of emotional deprivation of children due to (temporary) absence of parents working abroad. The method of semi-structured interviewing was used to collect information, and the target sample was used to search respondents. The main outcomes of the survey are as follows. The media revolution provides migrants with a real opportunity to maintain close and constant contact with their home through transnational practices (i.e. verbal communication: migrant’s visiting the home and family, migrant’s reletives’ visiting migrant in the host society, telephone calls, Internet connection; non-verbal communication: money transfers and transfers of various goods to home). However, this does not reduce the distance between parents and children living in sending state, and the spatial variance between them has a significant impact on family life and on the process of upbringing. In particular, the discourse analysis of interviews shows that the transnational family is an environment that carries certain risks, namely, it is a factor that can cause the elements of emotional of deprivation children. According to the results of the authors’ research, the most pronounced is the feeling of loneliness and the lack of emotional proximity by children, which, according to respondents, is caused by the physical absence of parents in their lives.

Towards Global Xiqu Studies: Situating Latin America on the Trans-Pacific Circuit

Xiqu (Chinese opera) studies have been increasingly considering transnational history and practice. New scholarship has improved the understanding of trans-Pacific connections in Cantonese opera between Asia and North America. This article recovers Cuba and Peru (especially Havana and Lima) as major nodes of Cantonese opera in the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, showing how it was practiced and sketching out its reception and legacy. This contributes to the elaboration of a global perspective in xiqu studies, while laying the groundwork for future critical approaches surrounding Chinese and transnational performance in later 19th and earlier 20th-century Latin America.

The Arab Uprisings and the Politics of Contention Beyond Borders: The Case of Egyptian Communities in the United States

The article draws on the case of the Egyptian uprising between 25 January and 11 February 2011, and maps the transnational practices in which Egyptians in the United States engaged to sustain political ties with Egypt during this period and its direct aftermath. Tracking the involvement of US-based Egyptians through the lens of digital, civic, and epistemic fields, it relates how US-based Egyptians wove a transnational field of contention to boost the uprising’s momentum and renegotiate understandings of political participation. While transnational engagement is credited for refashioning the politics of participation and expanding it beyond territorial sites of governance, it has not had concrete implications for Egypt’s political transition. Transnational non-state activism lost much of its appeal in the US-Egyptian transnational space with the return of the so-called “deep state” after 2013 and the fear of repression. By relating activist strategies to shifting political opportunities, the article provides a broader understanding of the complex interrelationships between emigration and political dynamics within the Arab state. Cover Image: Drummer Evokes the Joyous, Hopeful Mood of the 2011 Uprising. Image by Hamada Elrasam for Voice of America, https://tinyurl.com/y8v49z5c.

Papel de los procesos transnacionales en la integración y desarrollo de Paraguay en el MERCOSUR

Este artículo analiza el papel de los procesos y actividades transnacionales para la integración y desarrollo socio-económico de Paraguay en el Mercado Común del Sur (MERCOSUR). Elaborado dentro del marco teórico del campo del transnacionalismo, este trabajo, investiga los lazos forjados y mantenidos por personas con dos o más países. En particular, este trabajo enfoca en los procesos migratorios y prácticas transnacionales de personas que residieron en la región este de Paraguay en frontera con el estado de Mato Grosso do Sul en Brasil. Los procesos migratorios y practicas transnacionales entre esa región fronteriza de Paraguay con el estado de Mato Grosso do Sul, llevaron al desarrollo del concepto de transnacionalismo próximo. El argumento principal de este artículo, considerando dos factores esenciales, es que Paraguay desempeña un papel clave en los procesos presentados aquí como transnacionalismo próximo. El primero está relacionado con los procesos migratorios desde región este de Paraguay hacia la región sur del entonces estado de Mato Grosso en Brasil, ocurridos entre el fin de la Guerra contra la Triple Alianza (1864-1870) y la primera mitad del siglo XX, posteriormente ocurriendo cuando las políticas agrarias paraguayas atrajeron agricultores de Brasil, especialmente en las décadas de 1960 y 1970. El segundo factor está relacionado con la habilidad de las personas en fácilmente circular entre los dos países. El concepto transnacionalismo próximo es resultado de una etnografía multilocal realizada en la frontera entre Brasil y Paraguay, entre el 2013 y 2016, concluida en 2017.

Reproductive Desires and Disappointments

ABSTRACTIn this introduction we consider how people who have difficulties achieving “natural” parenthood seek to form families, and their experiences of reproductive negotiations and losses in this pursuit. We highlight gaps in the literature on infertility and loss globally, and identify how the special edition addresses the dearth of research in this field with men, with non-elites and on loss. We consider the key insights drawn from studies conducted in divergent geographical, cultural, socioeconomic and political contexts, including perspectives from Ghana, Indonesia, Romania, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In these contexts we explore both high tech and no tech reproductive strategies, encompassing assisted reproductive technologies, third party donation, surrogacy, as well as intra-family and transnational adoption. We illuminate how people attribute meaning to their lived experiences of reproductive disappointments ranging from failed conception (primary and secondary infertility), miscarriage, stillbirths, neonatal death, and failed adoption. We reflect on both local and transnational practices embedded in family making, highlighting the complexity and dynamism of reproductive opportunities, and how these opportunities are embedded in multifarious power relations. We articulate a range of important themes for the anthropology of reproduction, including: the sociality of reproductive desires and disappointments; gender sexuality and emergent masculinities; migration, practices of belonging, and kinship; reproductive stratification and leveling; and reproduction and relationality.

The monarchical engagement of Portuguese immigrants in Brazil: A case of nineteenth-century transnational politics

ABSTRACTThis article examines the transnational political practices of the Portuguese immigrant community in Brazil during the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. In the light of fresh empirical evidence, it aims to prove the true impact of the political engagement of those Portuguese living abroad during the course of late nineteenth-century political changes in Portugal. It focuses particularly on the struggle between Portuguese monarchist and republican parties to captivate the political sympathy of the emigrants and, later on, on the transatlantic monarchical counter-revolutionary network created after the republican revolution in 1910. It argues that this sort of migrant political activity can be analyzed beyond the framework of the diffusion of domestic politics and acknowledged as a truly transnational phenomenon. Therefore, it seeks to demonstrate how the transnational nature of these Portuguese migrants’ action was decisive to their success on seriously compromising the first republican experience in Portugal.

Coercive Transnational Governance and Its Impact on the Settlement Process of Eritrean Refugees in Canada

This article will examine the transnational practices of the Eritrean government, and their impact on the settlement of Eritrean refugees in Canada. The focus is on actions by the Eritrean regime that have a negative effect on refugees’ capacities for successful integration, and undermine Canadian sovereignty. The concept of coercive transnational governance (CTG) is introduced, to highlight this neglected aspect of refugee resettlement, with illustrations from 11 interviews, including eight Eritrean refugees, one Eritrean community activist, and two Canadian law enforcement officers, about the impact of CTG on Eritrean refugees’ lives.

Transnationalism and intra‐European mobility among Europe's second generation: review and research agenda

AbstractMost studies on second‐generation transnationalism focus on transnational practices that connect the country of residence to the ancestral home. The second generation, however, is likely to develop other forms of mobility and different destination countries. Particularly in Europe, where citizens have a right to free movement, connecting research on migrant transnationalism to that on intra‐European mobility and the emergence of collective identities allows us more fully to capture second‐generation transnationalism and alternative forms of mobility, including their determinants and consequences. By way of a literature review and a research agenda, I point out the merits of connecting the two research traditions by focusing on the link between transnational ways of being and belonging, national and local contexts that act as push and pull factors for transnationalism and mobilities, and the potential for methodological innovation.

The Territoriality of Ethnic Enclaves: Dynamics of Transnational Practices and Geopolitical Relations within and beyond a Korean Transnational Enclave in New Malden, London

This article looks at how the territoriality of transnational enclaves is constituted by interactions among the lives and the discourses of three groups of ethnic Korean—South Korean, North Korean, and Joseonjok (Korean Chinese)—transnational migrants in New Malden, London. Based on longitudinal mixed ethnographic research, the article focuses on the power relations between longer settled South Korean migrants and newcomers, the latter of whom are disadvantaged in terms of legal status, linguistic abilities, and economic capital. By criticizing the concept of ethnic enclaves as bounded, homogeneous, and static areas, the research puts geopolitical approaches into focus, bringing concepts of transnationalism and territoriality geopolitics into conversation. The empirical findings demonstrate, first, that the geopolitical hierarchy and tensions among the origin societies of Joseonjok, South Korean, and North Korean migrants constituted part of the reterritorialization of the ethnic enclave of transnational migrants. “The home society” was extended into territories where these ethnic Koreans have resided in the past, particularly South Korea. Second, the transnational enclave is being constantly reterritorialized by conflicting and adapting interactions between longer settled South Korean migrants and newcomers. Third, the power relations of origin societies have penetrated through individual migrants' lives by means, in part, of different religious and ethnic organizations. This research demonstrates the importance of transnational practices and geopolitical relationships within and beyond transnational enclaves among migrant communities and how these create a territorialized and relational space within ethnic enclaves.

Transnational South America: Experiences, Ideas, and Identities, 1860s–1900s

Transnational South America: Experiences, Ideas, and Identities, 1860s–1900s

Transnational habitus: Educational, bilingual and biliteracy practices of Chinese sojourner families in the U.S.

Grounded in the perspectives of language socialization and transnational habitus, this one-year ethnographic case study explores two middle-class Chinese sojourner families’ educational, bilingual and biliterate practices after their arrival in the U.S. It addresses the process that their middle childhood children experienced, from the excitement of the new English-speaking environment to linguistic and social isolation, to their adaptation to the environment and, finally, to transnational uplift. The families’ transnational practices throughout the four phases are shaped by their economic, educational and sociocultural dispositions that link together their country of origin and the U.S. They tend to cross national borders in language, literacy and education as well as to circulate glocalized English–Chinese biliteracy. This study reveals the disjunction between the families’ “imagined world” of the U.S. and the reality of a language barrier and ideological conflicts underpinned in an English-only society. The families’ transnational migration is an educational practice with access to their children’s “imagined world”. This study suggests that ESL learning should be considered as a socialization practice, which is tied to and structured by transnational fields in today’s globalized world.

Uprooted belonging: the formation of a ‘Jumma Diaspora’ in New York City

ABSTRACTA growing number of so-called indigenous ‘Jumma’ people from the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in Bangladesh are migrating to New York City (NYC) in search of a ‘better life’, an attempt to escape from a situation defined largely by deprivation and exclusion. This paper asks how these migrants navigate the new terrain, which often does not comply with their expectations but instead fuels a deep sense of disappointment. It will be shown that their transnational practices and belonging are not only extensions of the global ‘Jumma’ network, but also that the formation of a diaspora community and the maintenance of cultural boundaries simultaneously create attachment to NYC. Making NYC a home is shaped by their dreams and aspirations, and by the ambiguous ways in which they relate to both the CHT and NYC, places where they find themselves torn between feelings of longing and detachment.

Revisiting Iraqi Cultural Heritage from “Outside” in Times of Looting and Destruction: Al-Mutanabi Street in Motion

Comment penser la question de l’héritage dans une société caractérisée par la destruction et la dispersion de son patrimoine matériel et immatériel ? En mars 2007, une bombe a explosé dans la rue Al-Mutanabi, quartier rassemblant historiquement les bouquinistes de Bagdad. Survenant quatre années après les pillages des musées de la capitale irakienne, cet événement meurtrier incarne la destruction de la vie culturelle à Bagdad. Des artistes irakiens en exil réagissent rapidement de l’extérieur, ressuscitant par leurs créations l’atmosphère d’une ville perdue. Entre hommage et testament, leur travail interroge la notion d’héritage comme processus en (de) construction à travers un ensemble de pratiques transnationales. À partir d’entretiens conduits auprès d’artistes irakiens en exil et d’analyse de certaines de leurs productions liées à la rue Al-Mutanabi, cet article met en lumière des processus simultanés d’abstraction et de matérialisation de pratiques patrimoniales, fragilisant l’idée d’héritage défini comme trace d’authenticité.

Transnational Practices and Irishness in Post-Celtic Tiger Irish Theater: Focused on Interculturalism and Performativity

Transnational Practices and Irishness in Post-Celtic Tiger Irish Theater: Focused on Interculturalism and Performativity

The Ruggie Framework, Tort Law and Business Human Rights Self-Regulation: Increasing Standards through Mutual Impact and Learning

This article discusses the relationship among John Ruggie's 'Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework' and the the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, tort law and transnational business human rights self-regulation. In a first step, it highlights the parallels between the recent attempts to impose human rights obligations on transnational corporations, as laid down in the Ruggie Framework and Guiding Principles, and tort law principles, doctrine and interpretation, in light of recent development related to the specific responsibilities of parent companies for their subsidiaries' activities and of core companies for their supply chains. In a second step, it analyses the potential for progressive mutual impacts and mutual learning not only between tort law and public international soft law but especially with regard to the legal effects of transnational (self-regulatory) regimes and best practices. The article argues that these transnational (self-regulatory) regimes and best practices constitute legal minimum standards, particularly with respect to corporation-wide or supply chain-wide tortious responsibility. Thus, the interplay between the Ruggie Framework and Guiding Principles, transnational business self-regulation and tort law could lead to an upward helix development of the consideration of human rights in corporate practice and in raising legal requirements for parent and core companies.