Transnational Social Spaces Research Articles

The impact of transnationally mobile migrants on immigrants’ educational perception and practice: the case of Koreans and Korean Americans

ABSTRACT New waves of Asian migration to the US are comprised of not only new first-generation immigrants but also transnationally mobile migrants – temporary migrants that move between the home and host countries, spending significant pre-planned periods of time in the host country for specific purposes such as education and employment. Focusing on Korean and Korean American perception and usage of private supplementary education, I examine how the contemporary homeland norms and practices transnationally mobile Koreans transmit impact immigrant Koreans’ education. Drawing on 51 in-depth interviews with Korean American and transnationally mobile Korean students and parents, I find that transnationally mobile Koreans have become a significant reference group for Korean Americans in assessing their education. While education of Asian Americans is often measured against that of white Americans, or native-born Americans as a whole, transnationally mobile migrants from Asian Americans’ ethnic homelands provide a different reference group for Asian American education. In response to the educational norms and practices transnational Koreans transmit, Korean Americans reevaluate their education and formulate educational strategies accordingly. These findings consider how transnational replenishment impacts immigrant experiences in the host society and illuminates the significance of accounting for interactions among different transnational migrants in transnational social spaces.

Connecting Memory with Transnational Space Making: The Case of German-Kyrgyz Relations

Abstract In the 19th century, Mennonites of German origin began to found numerous settlements in Central Asia. Of the once large number of German settlers, only a few remain in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan today, most having emigrated to Germany after the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, the village of Rot-Front in Kyrgyzstan is an exception: there are still German-Mennonite families living there who maintain a relationship with those who once left. The aim of this article is to investigate these relations with regard to the creation of transnational spaces. Memory can play a central role in the process of formation of such transnational spaces. This article explores these processes through the lens of cultural geography, applying insights of theories of practice to the study of memory landscapes using the case of the village of Rot-Front in Kyrgyzstan. The study is based on a case study approach, including field observation, qualitative interviews, biographical records and discourse analysis. The results of the study unfold in four ways: First, the formation of a collective identity is the main characteristic associated with the village of Rot-Front. Second, the role of artifacts play a minor role in memory practices. Third, the individual memory of Rot-Front is idealized by today’s ‘senior’ generation and fourth, the close exchange between those who emigrated and those who stayed is the basis of a transnational social space of Rot-Front, which will exist only as long as the generations have a personal bond with Rot-Front.

Migratory encounters, common idiom, and the king: The relationship between two Roma groups from Poland in transnational social space

Roma ethnicity presents scholars with plenty of conceptual and methodological challenges, which in the light of the increased mobility of that largest European minority after EU enlargements has additionally perplexed academics and policymakers alike. This article presents our fieldwork data derived from encounters and conversations with Roma individuals in Poland and England. Our approach to this issue is rooted in the emic perspective, examining how Roma people navigate and cope with their own heterogeneity. By focusing on the relationship between two Roma groups from Poland, namely Polska Roma and Bergitka (or Carpathian) Roma, we shed light on Roma’s practical approaches to their group identity. We explore what is at stake when boundaries are encountered, negotiated, and occasionally bridged, in particular when it comes to gender and conflict resolution strategies. In the article, we account for the two groups’ interconnections through the history of migrations and current modes of transnational living. We show how, interestingly, nationality or common country of origin may become the binding factor. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0 .

From the “Republic of Cousins” to foreign spouses: Transnational marriages in Türkiye

AbstractMarriage in Türkiye, as in many societies, is of great importance in the reproduction of life, and the choice of a spouse often involves the intervention of families and society. Within this structure, it is seen that marriages usually occur between extended family members or the same ethnic/sectarian groups. Nevertheless, mixed marriages between migrants with different ethnic, racial, religious, and cultural identities and settled people have increased in the last 30 years. The fluidity of the transnational social space created by marriages is effective in this increase. This paper reviews the current studies on mixed marriages in Türkiye from the perspective of transnational social spaces, which express a way of life somewhere between two communities and provides a link between them. It reflects the ways in which this fluidity affects the political and social positioning of mixed marriages and the agency of marriage migrants.

Transnational Market Navigation: Living and Consuming across Borders

Abstract Prior research has investigated global mobility through the lenses of consumer acculturation, identity, and possessions with a focus on consumers’ socialization and identity management in the host consumer culture. It has neglected, however, the ways that globally mobile consumers simultaneously navigate the multiple, cross-border markets in which they are embedded. We adopt the social network perspective to investigate the transnational consumer lifestyles of people who live and consume simultaneously in two or more countries and sustain multiple relationships of a diverse nature (e.g., market, social, financial, professional) across borders. Through a qualitative study, we dimensionalize the transnational social space inhabited by transnational consumers and demonstrate how it shapes their consumption. We introduce the concept of transnational market navigation, defined as the process of strategically and pragmatically selecting and leveraging social networks to engage simultaneously with multiple cross-border markets. We identify three transnational market navigation strategies: clustering consumption, embracing commercial lock-ins, and developing cluster-based competency. By mobilizing a network perspective to examine consumption in global mobility, we show that globally mobile consumers are also motivated by ways of being (the actual social and commercial relationships and consumption practices with which consumers engage), in addition to the identities associated with their consumption.

Digital Transnational Social Spaces of Romanians and Moldovans in Berlin

This study focuses on the online community of Romanian speaking mobility migrants who live or regularly return to Berlin. Engaging with theories on transnationalism and social media, this article addressed the question of how digital transnational social spaces contribute to international migration, focusing on the integration into the host society. It is argued that social media groups of Romanian speaking migrants are community spaces which strengthen ties between members, thus facilitating international migration. Quantitative data was collected using open-sourced tools and analyzed employing descriptive statistics. Moreover, qualitative data was included stemming from the interactions with users of the observed Facebook groups. Data was gathered between 2020-2021, during Covid-19 pandemic and social distancing. It is concluded that digital transnational social spaces carry meaning to the migrant community, state institutions, social networks, and the state of research. For migrants, the existence of Facebook groups lowers the threshold of integration and allows the strengthening of social ties. Engaged institutions could rethink their communication strategy by considering a more active presence on social media, while the platforms could use digital communities as targeted audiences. Finally, the research has been enriched with a deeper perspective of not only if, but how social media impacts international migration.

The transnational dimension of the Pakistani ethnic economy in Barcelona

ABSTRACT The city of Barcelona has become a nodal point of the transnational social space of the Pakistani diaspora. Despite being quite invisible, Pakistanis stand out for their entrepreneurial activities, especially in the food and telecommunication sectors. This paper aims to shed light on the transnational dimension of Pakistani ethnic businesses of Barcelona through the lens of ‘transnational mixed embeddedness’ and a multi-level approach that combines analytical levels (macro, meso and micro) and territorial levels (local/national and transnational). This is within the theoretical debate around globalization from below, immigrant entrepreneurship and transnational entrepreneurship, and by using a mixed-methods design. The results show how migrant entrepreneurs can be placed in a ‘continuum of transnational embeddedness’, depending on the interrelation of agency and micro-sociological processes entailing in-group differences with meso-market and macro-structural factors from a dynamic point of view.

Digital transformation social spaces of Romanians and Moldovans in Berlin

This study focuses on the online community of Romanian-speaking mobile migrants who live or regularly return to Berlin. Engaging with theories on transnationalism and social media, this article addresses how digital transnational social spaces contribute to international migration. On the basis of both quantitative and qualitative data collected during 2020-21, it is argued that the social media groups of Romanian-speaking migrants are community spaces which strengthen ties between the members, thus facilitating international migration. Digital transnational social spaces carry meaning to the migrant community, state institutions and social networks, as well as to researchers; while, for migrants, the existence of Facebook groups lowers the threshold of integration and allows the strengthening of social ties. Engaged institutions could rethink their communications strategy by considering a more active presence on social media, while the platforms could use digital communities as targeted audiences. Finally, the research is enriched with a deeper perspective on the impact of social media on international migration.

Transnationalism as theory and practice

The article examines transnationalism as a new approach to the study of migration processes. Globalization has led to the political and economic changes and required the creating of a new approach to the study of migration, capable of analyzing its impact on both receiving and sending states. The transnational approach to migration studies considers migration as a model in which migrants create transnational social spaces and influence political, social and economic processes in both sending and receiving countries.

‘It's just a natural human thing to do, to go and visit your family… but it's not easy for us’: Gender and generation in Bangladeshis’ transnational visits between London and Sylhet

AbstractIn the title to this paper, Maya, a British‐Bangladeshi woman, expresses her frustration at the refusal of the Home Office to grant her father in Sylhet a visa to come and fulfil his role as family head at the wedding of his son, Maya's brother, in London. The case illustrates well the intersection of gender and generation that fundamentally shapes the pattern of visits, in both directions, across this long‐distance transnational social and family space. Bangladesh is a patriarchal society, with marked gender divisions layered across generations, which are largely reproduced among the migrant community in London and are manifested, in various ways, in the phenomenon of transnational visiting. Based on 61 in‐depth interviews in London and Sylhet, supplemented by participant observation, we delineate the gendered and generational structures framing the visits, both of migrants to the homeland and of non‐migrants to their relatives in London.

Cross-border methods: the challenge of methodological nationalism and the prospects of transnational methodology

A transnational perspective on cross-border migration and its consequences reaches far beyond the immigration countries. It encompasses all those places which are criss-crossed by the ties of persons, groups and organizations, and the social structures connecting them. Based on a wide range of knowledge generated by the transnational perspective in the field of migration, this article explores how we can study cross-border social formations and their consequences. A step towards a transnational methodology needs to address three challenges: methodological nationalism, group essentialism, and the positionality of researchers. In order to tackle these issues, this article gives an overview of methodological tools for studying transnationality and transnational social spaces. Drawing on selected examples, this overview also includes discussion of how relevant research techniques are applied.

Multilingualism in Migrant Contexts in Pakistan and the UK: Transcending Physical, Social and Symbolic Borders in Transnational Social Spaces

This paper is based on a four-year ethnographic study of multilingualism in transnational Mirpuri families in Azad Kashmir (Pakistan) and Lancashire (United Kingdom). Data were collected in a range of physical settings in Pakistan and the UK as well as social spaces online. Migrants’ literacy practices are often related to the standard language variety of the country to which the migrant is moving. However, this paper suggests that migration requires different kinds of literacies, not all of which relate to standard writing system use. The study sought to understand how these literacies are shaped in Pakistan before they are taken up in the UK, by seeing them as part of migrants’ everyday translanguaging. This perspective involves exploring how different language varieties (such as Punjabi, Urdu and English) and different linguistic resources (such as scripts, styles and registers) are appropriated by migrants at different stages of their migration trajectories alongside migrants’ own perspectives on these practices. The findings demonstrate how migrant families counter discrimination in their everyday multilingualism as part of the translingual practices which transcend physical, social and symbolic borders.

The transnational continuum of conditional inclusion: from marginalized immigrants to rejected returnees

ABSTRACT Research on Dominican migration to the United States ranges from analyses emphasizing incorporation to those exploring diaspora formation and the weaving of transnational ties. Based on a juxtaposition of ethnographic research conducted among Dominican families in New York City in the early 1990s with a recent fieldwork with deported nationals in Santo Domingo, this article approaches conditional inclusion in transnational social space. I examine the structural conditions that shaped the criminalization of Dominican migrant youth in the United States and later let to their deportation. More particularly, I illustrate how the crack pandemic in New York City in the late 1980s affected ongoing processes of conditional inclusion. By focusing on how conditional inclusion manifests itself from departure to arrival, through settlement and marginalization, to deportation and struggles for (re)integration in the Dominican Republic, the article aims to contribute insights to the comparative development of the concept in this special issue.

“I Don’t Want You in My Country”: Migrants Navigating Borderland Violences between Colombia and Chile

Through the lens of “navigating borderlands,” this article brings together the anthropology-derived concept of social navigation (Vigh 2006) with a feminist geography approach to borderlands, enriching both. It is based on ethnographic research with Colombian and Venezuelan migrants along the 4,500-km migration route from the Valle del Cauca, Colombia, to Antofagasta, Chile, and additionally informed by further multisited ethnography in Antofagasta and the Valle del Cauca. The borderlands perspective bridges gaps between migration, border, and mobility studies by combining feminist scholarship on transnational social spaces and borders and violence with a reflexive migration trajectories methodology. It considers how the shifting space of the often violent borderland is constructed through interactions between diverse actors. Paying greater attention to the construction of space enhances the analytical potential of social navigation. In turn, analyzing actors’ negotiations of the borderland in terms of navigation illuminates how they move in and through unpredictable spaces. Specifically, this article considers how actors including border officers, transport providers, scammers, and nongovernmental organization workers “police,” “move,” and “reroute” in the borderland. It also reveals how migrants navigate interactions with these varied actors to aguantar (endure/cope/hold on); although not resistance per se, aguantar may sometimes be a form of defiance.

Migrants’ wellbeing and use of information and communication technologies.

The number of migrants is increasing worldwide coupled with an ever-expanding entrenchment of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the fabric of daily life. There has been little attention in the health disciplines to the unique ways migrants adopt and are influenced by ICTs across multiple local and transnational social spaces. This scoping review explores the current evidence on migrants’ ICT-mediated transnational social activities and related influences on wellbeing. The review was conducted using Arksey and O'Malley’s (2005) methodological framework and a total of 37 articles were included for the final study. Key findings highlight barriers and facilitators of ICT use in transnational contexts, types of ICT-mediated transnational social activities; and reported influences on migrants’ wellbeing. Migrants’ ICT use facilitates reciprocal channels of social support and continuation of valued social roles. Social role disruption, unequal exchange of social support, and mismatch between migrants’ expectations around ICT use and that of left-behind communities are some of the negative processes with psychological, social, and emotional consequences identified in the review. Main review conclusions emphasize the need to further explore the quality and intensity of ICT-mediated social influences on migrants’ wellbeing and to incorporate a transnational lens in the design of digital learning interventions targeting vulnerable migrant populations.

Bricolage in labor organizing practices: Spanish and Italian migrant activists in Berlin

This article analyzes how Southern European workers create bricolage by combining creatively organized practices of collective action, such as those of conventional labor unions, with self-created practices when facing oppressive labor relations and widespread downgrading of social mobility. We compare two cases of networks formed by Spanish and Italian migrant workers in Berlin: the Grupo de Acción Sindical and Berlin Migrant Strikers. Drawing on an ethnographic study of these groups, the article argues that the networks have different logics of action and political strategies. Their dissimilarities are manifested in different outcomes and organizational dimensions. Key factors include their founding members' social and activist backgrounds and leaders' countries of origin. It can be argued that, through these networks, migrants produce and reproduce political practices and collective actions, shaping a transnational social space that connects migrants and non-migrant individuals and organizations from both origin and destination countries.

Traversing: Familial Challenges for Escaped North Koreans

Abstract This research contributes to the development of migration theories by examining the challenges and opportunities faced by UK-resident migrants from North Korea in maintaining transnational family ties. Particularly, it reflects critically on the role played by ‘place’ as a regulatory apparatus in shaping the migrants’ experiences of family relationships in a transnational social space. The findings are drawn from thematic analysis of data from life history interviews with 14 North Korean defectors. In the light of the prevalence of back-and-forth stepwise migration for the defectors and their families across multiple nation states, I propose the concept of ‘traversing’ to describe the strenuous transnational familial experiences and complex mobility trajectories of North Korean escapees, which goes beyond a linear journey from the sending to the host place. While existing migration research has capitalized on the host place in selectively enabling and stratifying migrants’ access to transnational family rights, I argue that, instead of assuming forced migrants have free access to their home countries, it is important to consider the interplay between multiple places in understanding the challenges for vulnerable migrants to access essential family rights and maintain transnational family relationships.

Intersecting categories in the dissolution of transnational marriages: A socio‐legal perspective

AbstractAs divorces take place increasingly across national borders, many former partners find themselves in complex situations entangled in more than one state during which some categories of difference intersect, (re)creating inequalities and precarity. Through a socio‐legal perspective combined with transnational and intersectional approaches, the present study elucidates the link between these intersections and the legal aspects of divorce. Examining Filipino migrant women's divorces in transnational social spaces, it unveils that social class, gender, legal statuses, and filiation intersect in specific situations: when the legal problem arises or implicates communal properties in another country; when a family member residing abroad interferes in the divorce settlement; and when the divorce process occurs in the context of domestic violence and involves an institution espousing women's spatial mobility to protect them. In such situations, the social class differences between partners become particularly pronounced (rather than their supposed cultural differences) and intersect with other categories.

Social innovation within transnational flows of knowledge: The example of student mobility from Bulgaria

AbstractTaking the example of Bulgarians who studied abroad, this paper explores the motives and practices of graduates regarding socially innovative knowledge transfer in order to deliver social benefits for the local community. The paper shows how both stayers and returnees act within a transnational social space, which develops and deepens during and after student mobility. Engaging in socially innovative knowledge transfer is motivated by altruistic stances, by a feeling of loyalty towards the home country and by the desire to lead a meaningful life. The effectiveness of knowledge transfer is related to framing conditions such as local knowledge and the existence of social networks, notably transnational social networks. The results show that the mobility of highly qualified young adults from and to Bulgaria aligns with major European mobility regimes, with an increase of circulatory mobility processes and thus an increase of circulating knowledge and social innovation.

Migrants’ Social Positioning Strategies in Transnational Social Spaces

This article examines the nexus of spatial and social mobility by focusing on how migrants in Germany use cultural, economic and moral boundaries to position themselves socially in transnational social spaces. It is based on a mixed-methods approach, drawing on qualitative interviews and panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey. By focusing on how people from different origins and classes use different sets of symbolic boundaries to give meaning to their social mobility trajectories, we link subjective positioning strategies with structural features of people’s mobility experience. We find that people use a class-specific boundary pattern, which has strong transnational features, because migrants tend to mix symbolic and material markers of status hierarchies relevant to both their origin and destination countries. We identify three different types of boundary patterns, which exemplify different ways in which objective structure and subjectively experienced inequalities influence migrants’ social positioning strategies in transnational spaces. These different types also exemplify how migrants’ habitus influences their social positioning strategies, depending on their mobility and social trajectory in transnational spaces.