Transnational Processes Research Articles

Re-Contextualising Oregon’s Urban Growth Boundary to City-Regional Planning in Tampere, Finland: The Need for Strategic Bridge-Building

ABSTRACTExtant literature on travelling planning ideas has been focusing on the need to understand the specificities of both origin and destination contexts, and the need to utilise ‘thick descriptions’ to tie the contexts closer together for a reflective policy learning process. This article builds on these ideas by connecting the concept of strategic bridge-building (SBB) to the current debate to shed light on the importance of collaborative bridging activities between the planning contexts. The empirical case of the transnational policy learning process in Tampere city-regional planning illustrates the need for SBB activities by presenting the case of a negatively connoted although well-intentioned transfer process.

Active Borders and Transnationalization of the Public Sphere in Europe: Examining Territorial and Symbolic Borders as a Source of Democratic Integration, Positive Identity, and Civic Learning

This article suggests that both territorial and symbolic borders ought to be treated as specific cultural forms enabling the exercise and practice of cross-border communication. The notion of active border is introduced as a nexus of the transnationalization of public spheres and identities in Europe. Active border is interpreted as a border that supports and produces both public criticism and social integration without generating antagonism toward those from “over borders.” Contrary to active border, passive border entrenches stereotypical negative identities and cognitive foreclosures and is a significant hindrance in positive identities formation. The concept of active border contributes to the broad sociological context of Europeanization and transnational public spheres and identities formations in which questions about cultural change and plurality should be discussed. It tries to offer a novel interpretative perspective on processes of transnationalization in Europe and beyond. This article draws inspiration mainly from Edward Shils’s typology of collective identities, Erik Erikson’s concept of identity formation, and Gerard Delanty’s typology of cultural encounters.

Transnationalizing Rights: International Human Rights Law in Cross-Border Contexts

International human rights law (IHRL) is still largely state-centred. This is an obstacle when it comes to making cross-border problems such as transboundary environmental harm and transnational surveillance amenable to human rights claims. The state-centredness of IHRL is challenged by three phenomena associated with transnationalization processes: by extraterritorial harmful effects; by complex (multi-stage, multi-level and public–private) cross-border cooperation impacting the enjoyment of rights and, finally, by cross-border conduct of non-state actors with an adverse impact on rights abroad. The central argument defended in this article is that existing IHRL can accommodate these challenges if some of its core concepts are given a ‘transnational interpretation’, thus by complementing the traditional state-centred conception of IHRL. The article discusses transnational interpretations of three core doctrinal concepts, namely jurisdiction, interference and human rights obligations. It is shown that examples for transnational interpretations of international human rights can be found, for example, in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and some recent European Union and US cooperation treaties.

Transnationalizing bureaucracies through investment promotion: The case of Informest

This paper uses Bourdieu’s notion of field to discuss the historical process of transnationalization in national and local-level bureaucracies, due to the promotion of firms’ internationalization and value chains restructuring. By drawing on the case study of a single Italian state agency, Informest, analyzed within a larger field of public and private actors promoting Italian firms beyond borders, this paper makes the following contributions: (a) it critiques the too narrow notion of the “political” in political geography by claiming the need to include transnational firms and entrepreneurs among the actors shaping changes to the spatial reach of certain state bureaucracies, allowing them to operate across national borders to better serve firms; (b) it argues that Bourdieu’s notion of field is an effective theoretical tool to analyze synergies and mutual influences between bureaucracies and firms value chains; (c) in so doing, it places firms alongside foreign policy and domestic political struggles to explain the emergence of outward investment promotion as a field of transnational bureaucratic practice; (d) It highlights the need to not take bureaucratic organizations for granted; instead, it focuses on the broader (geo)political processes leading to the birth, growth, and occasional death of transnational bureaucracies. In so doing, it places the transnationalization of Italy’s bureaucracy in a specific geohistorical context.

The transnational dynamics of local remembrance: The Jewish past in a former shtetl in Poland

This article presents an example of how the transnational production of memory is at work in a small Polish town that, prior to the Holocaust, was a “shtetl.” The author uses transnational optics to take an in-depth look at how local memories of Jews and the Holocaust are formed in this particular locality and discusses the effects of transnational mnemonic encounters. She highlights the multiscalarity of transnational processes as well as the continuing resilience of national frameworks.

Cartelización de empresas y centralización del capital la lógica del desarrollo capitalista

El surgimiento de empresas mundiales con el correspondiente poder que ostentan en lo económico y político, invita al análisis del funcionamiento del sistema capitalista y de la libre competencia. En este artículo se argumenta que el proceso de transnacionalización y mundialización de empresas no es una falla del mercado sino el resultado lógico de la centralización del capital, como un proceso que se desarrolla en la esfera de la circulación. Y que de manera paralela a este proceso ocurre la cartelización de empresas que resulta de la concentración y la monopolización en la esfera de la producción. En este sentido, los autores describen la interrelación de estos procesos y encuentran en la teoría económica explicaciones heterodoxas que respaldan sus argumentos

Transnational and local entanglements in the ‘cycle of violence’ of Central American migration

ABSTRACTViolence in Central America has become one of the reasons for leaving the region. Recent scholarship tends to understand violence within local and regional processes, while neglecting the larger transnational processes. Focusing on the case of Hondurans seeking asylum in the United States, this article argues that the phenomenon of violence that has forced Hondurans to leave is a result of a combination of local and transnational processes. Conceptually, this article draws on the notion of the ‘cycle of violence’ to understand the different forms of violence that forcibly displaces Central Americans. The notion has been used to understand how early exposure to violence is linked to future violent behaviour. However, it is limited to local processes. This article expands this notion by considering transnational factors, such as migration and the global agenda of crime control, in the contribution to the reproduction of the ‘cycle of violence’ of Central Americans.

Globalización y regionalización en la economía política internacional contemporánea: aportes para nuevas teorizaciones sobre las regiones fronterizas

Con excepción o en presencia de relaciones de conflicto entre Estados sudamericanos, las regiones fronterizas son consideradas áreas de intercambio, interconexión, integración y cooperación. Estas constituyen espacios de un tipo de regionalismo específico, el regionalismo fronterizoo regionalismo de fronteras, inscrito en el concepto más abarcador de regionalismoque, como tal, forma parte de los procesos contemporáneos que se dan en la economía política internacional. Con base en esta visión, el objetivo del artículo es aportar elementos analíticos y conceptuales para la teorización sobre esta moderna expresión del regionalismo. Se concluye que el regionalismo de integración fronteriza, en el caso de países en desarrollo, depende también de dinámicas derivadas del carácter de economías extrovertidas, que forman parte de nuevos procesos y espacios de regionalización.

Migración y movilidad académica de mujeres colombianas cualificadas, transnacionalización de los afectos y asuntos de intimidad

Este artículo pretende visibilizar los asuntos afectivos al interior de la migración y de la movilidad trasnacional femenina calificada. Se analiza desde un enfoque cualitativo el proceso de transnacionalización de los afectos a la luz de dos grupos diferentes de mujeres colombianas: el primero con siete mujeres que migraron sur-norte para conformar una unión binacional con personas del norte global. El segundo, con siete mujeres que optaron por una movilidad académica sur-sur en pareja o familia al Brasil. En ambos casos, el análisis hace énfasis en las negociaciones sobre cuestiones de afectos, dinero y carrera profesional que ellas entablan consigo mismas y con sus parejas antes y durante la migración/movilidad; también se pone especial atención a cómo estos asuntos referidos a la intimidad se interrelacionan con aspectos globales como las políticas migratorias para las primeras y las políticas científicas para las segundas. Adicionalmente, se develan importantes marcos de agencia femenina en relación con las limitaciones globales, nacionales y personales que afrontan.

Policy mobilities as comparison: urbanization processes, repeated instances, topologies

Abstract Following on from calls to reformat comparative urban methods to support global urban studies, this paper draws inspiration from policy mobilities to explore how the genetic interconnectedness of urban processes and outcomes can be mobilised methodologically to critique and extend concepts in urban theory through comparison. What might be the scope and tactics for a practice of comparison through connections, which can start anywhere and build comparisons and analytical insights across a very great diversity of urban experiences? This paper explores three possible ways to take this forward. Firstly, tracing a specific connection, such as a policy link, from one context to another or across a number of different contexts contributes to understanding specific urbanization processes. Secondly, following connections brings into view the range and variety of processes and outcomes in different contexts. In the highly transnationalised world of urban policy this method potentially links a very wide variety of diverse urban contexts and draws attention to a multiplicity of repeated instances of urban forms. Finally, the paper considers the potential to work with the array of transnational processes shaping distinctive policy outcomes and development paths as they come together in one specific place - to explore how “elsewhere” is folded in to localised growth paths. Thus, comparative practices could follow policy mobilities to explore the potential of a more topological imagination of thinking across different contexts, and bringing a diversity of urban contexts into analytical conversation. Along these lines, the invention of concepts and understandings of the urban might emerge anywhere, and perhaps find wider relevance across different situations. Following the trajectories of policy mobilities is thus not only a pathway to inventing new methods but also potentially new grounds for theorizing the urban.

The Strike that Made a Difference

Abstract Commenting on three activist documents on the global women's strike published by the Italian network Non Una di Meno and by the collective ∫connessioni precarie, this text reads the March 8 strike in Italy as part of a transnational process that was both deepened and accelerated by the use of the strike as a feminist practice. The March 8 strike was a political and social strike. It made a difference because it allowed feminism to go beyond the borders of the “woman question,” to become both a mass political practice and a means by which to question the whole neoliberal order at the very moment in which patriarchal violence had begun to be recognized as fundamental to it.

FEATURES OF INVESTMENT PROVIDING OF THE TOURISM SPHERE IN THE CONDITIONS OF TRANSNATIONALIZATION OF THE WORLD BUSINESS PROCESSES

В даній науковій статті розкрито особливості інвестиційного забезпечення туристичної сфери в умовах транснаціоналізації світогосподарських процесів. Зокрема, встановлено тенденції, рівень та окреслено транснаціональний вектор функціонування туристичної сфери; представлено особливості розвитку туристичних ланцюгів. Проаналізовано рівень капіталізації країн і обсягів інвестицій у світовий ринок туристичних послуг; умови та засади нарощення бізнес–діяльності ТНК і туристичних ланцюгів; виокремлено стратегії фінансового забезпечення розвитку, що реалізуються готельними ТНК, та чинники зростання обсягів реалізованих туристичних послуг. Сформовано та згруповано фактори покращення інвестиційного клімату, що виступають як засадничі умови розвитку інвестиційного забезпечення туристичної сфери в умовах транснаціоналізації світогосподарських процесів.

The Trans-Pacific Status Seekers across the Straits: American suburban status United Taiwan and China

Disregard the divided national status, this paper explores in more depth the role status plays in the transnational process of suburbanizing Taiwan and China. It describes how the social homogenous American suburb is becoming the most influential force within new developments in Taiwan. It records the stories of astronaut engineer families and these new 'model developments' and how status objects like lower density suburbs, homogeneity segregated and gated enclaves removed from existing city centers have arisen in Hsinchu, Taiwan and Shanghai, China.

Re-examining English and/in the Geography of (World) Literature

Re-examining English and/in the Geography of (World) Literature

Vilhelm Lundstedt’s ‘Legal Machinery’ and the Demise of Juristic Practice

This article aims to contribute to the academic debate on the general crisis faced by law schools and the legal professions by discussing why juristic practice is a matter of experience rather than knowledge. Through a critical contextualisation of Vilhelm Lundstedt’s thought under processes of globalisation and transnationalism, it is argued that the demise of the jurist’s function is related to law’s scientification as brought about by the metaphysical construction of reality. The suggested roadmap will in turn reveal that the current voiding of juristic practice and its teaching is part of the crisis regarding what makes us human.

Payments and Intimate Ties in Transnationally Brokered Marriages

AbstractHow do women make sense of marriages that start with payments and brokers? This study explores the sustenance of connected lives through relational work by analyzing how women from Asia who marry South Korean men in transnationally brokered marriages understand money and marriage. Evidence from 31 in-depth interviews elucidates the different ways in which women manage their social and economic relations in their home country and their destination country, and how the negotiation of those ties impacts marriage decisions and experiences. The case extends our understanding of relational work by uncovering its dynamic nature as women’s changing expectations reconfigure their relations with family, brokers and husbands, and, in turn, reformulate their monetary practices. Examining women’s relational work also reveals micro-processes that underlie macro-level trends in the flow of money, information and people in Asia, lending an understanding of broader transnational processes.

The secret life of non-recognition: EU-Israel relations and the obligation of non-recognition in international law

ABSTRACTThe European Union (EU) is undertaking a prolonged, slow-burning revision of its relations with Israel, driven by the need to avoid recognition of an illegal situation. This article reviews these ongoing developments from the perspective of international law. As compared with the EU's response to the annexation of Crimea by imposing sanctions on Russia, its measures vis-à-vis Israel aim at protecting the EU internal legal and political order from the illegal situation created by Israel's institutional practice with regards to the Palestinian territory. The EU's approach to non-recognition is a rule-based cornerstone of its external relations law and foreign policy, and provides insights on the otherwise opaque workings of this obligation in international law and the transnational legal enforcement process in which it manifests.

“BE CAREFUL WITH THE GERMAN!”: transnationalization process of capoeira, identity, cultural negotiation, and subjectivity

“BE CAREFUL WITH THE GERMAN!”: transnationalization process of capoeira, identity, cultural negotiation, and subjectivity

Современные транснациональные процессы и национальная безопасность страны

Современные транснациональные процессы и национальная безопасность страны

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.