Transnationalism Research Articles

El estudio del paisaje lingüístico de la migración en Milán. Perspectiva etnográfica y localización espacial

Abstract – The Linguistic Landscape (LL) of Milan reflects the trends of global international migration in this city, which since the 90s has received a massive wave of immigrants from over 150 countries seeking economic opportunity. The city, thus, is characterized by the transnationalization of the labour force (Sassen 2005), which has created translocal communities and identities, spatially mixed in a polycentric pattern. Over time, a growing number of immigrants started their own shops, becoming participants in the LL and building a complex network of relationships with their communities, the host society and other migrant groups. In this superdiversity context (Vertovec 2007), the bottom-up texts on the storefronts demonstrate how shop owners affirm their identities and the relative status of their communities within the LL (Landry, Bourhis 1997; Bagna et al. 2007; Blommaert 2013), creating new linguistic, symbolic, cultural and social spaces (Cenoz, Gorter 2006; Calvi 2016). This paper builds on a previous analysis of the main communication strategies deployed in the commercial LL of migrants in three neighborhoods of Milan (Uberti-Bona 2016), furthering the study of the variables implied. Actors compose their multimodal displays through consideration of their shops’ positions, both in terms of spatial localization on the street and of social relation to the surrounding urban, demographic, and commercial context. The respective roles played by these and other factors can be better ascertained investigating the actors’ intentionality through interviews about their migratory and working experiences, and about their choices in the production of the LL. The paper thus combines the previous etic analysis of two examples of LL with the study of their spatial context and with the emic point of view expressed by the shop owners in three one-on-one, unstructured, interviews.

Le figlie dell’immigrazione: soggettività di confine nella contemporaneità

The growth of global migration flows does not only reshape territories towards superdiversity and transnationalism (Crul et al 2012) ; it also influences peopleʼs everyday life in an educational way (Tramma 2015). The merging of different cultural systems, together with the multiplication of opportunities for women and the increasing insecurity of the life course, challenges the traditional dichotomies – native/foreigner, man/woman, adulthood/youth – and requires from everyone the capability of building a self-made biography (Beck 1998) in a system of multiple belongings. The biographies of young women with a migrant background seem to be an important object of attention: these stories are an example of the intersectionality of gender-based, generational and intercultural dynamics. Furthermore, these youngsters are involved in a permanent renegotiation of meanings and in the daily crossing of real and symbolic borders: they grew up juggling different cultural expectation and racialized gender norms (Pyke, Johson 2003). The domain of educational sciences is challenged by this population: because the girls need to develop some specific skills – of syntheses, creativity and negotiation – in order to actively participate within their social context; and because institutions providing formal education, such as schools and social care services, need to re-discuss their traditional models and praxis, in order to recognise and promote the value of these mixed biographies.

A Century of Transnationalism: Immigrants and Their Homeland Connections

A Century of Transnationalism: Immigrants and Their Homeland Connections

Norwegian “Innvandrerlitteratur” and the Spell of Transnationalism

Norwegian “Innvandrerlitteratur” and the Spell of Transnationalism

A Century of Transnationalism: Immigrants and Their Homeland Connections

A Century of Transnationalism: Immigrants and Their Homeland Connections

Reflection, understanding, and empathy: a conversation between Carol-Ann Davids and Patrick Flanery

A conversation between writers Carol-Ann Davids and Patrick Flanery, covering their respective novels, transnationalism, representation, censorship, and politics.

Transnationalism, Diaspora and Migrants from the Former Yugoslavia in Britain

MunroGayle, Transnationalism, Diaspora and Migrants from the Former Yugoslavia in Britain, London et al.: Routledge 2017. 121 pp., ISBN 978-1-138-69778-2, £ 45.00.

Dwelling over China: Minor Transnationalisms in Karen Tei Yamashita’s I Hotel

Dwelling over China: Minor Transnationalisms in Karen Tei Yamashita’s I Hotel

On the Production of Localities in/near Metropolises in the United States: Transnationalism from Below/Margin and the Literary Representation of Minorities’ Lives

On the Production of Localities in/near Metropolises in the United States: Transnationalism from Below/Margin and the Literary Representation of Minorities’ Lives

Rediscovering the Umma: Muslims in the Balkans between Nationalism and Transnationalism, written by Ina Merdjanova

Rediscovering the Umma: Muslims in the Balkans between Nationalism and Transnationalism, written by Ina Merdjanova

Fielding Transnationalism

Fielding Transnationalism

Transnationalism Reconsidered: The Dialectic of Immigration and Emigration

Transnationalism Reconsidered: The Dialectic of Immigration and Emigration

A Democracia Global Decorrente da Transnacionalização do Estado Moderno: A (Im)possibilidade da Criação de Sistemas Democráticos Internacionais Segundo Robert Dahl, David Held e Anne Peters

The present paper has as its main goal to analyze the possibility of the transition of democratic institutes present in the domestic system towards the global arena. The idea of an international democracy is evaluated as a potential formal solution to the democratic deficit resulting in the low citizen participation in the global sphere. In this sense, using a comparative model, three theories represented by DAHL, HELD and PETERS are proposed and analyzed together before proposing a final composition. First, a description of the modern State and its transnationalization is proposed, where democracy is adja- cent to this creation and development. Next, the potential of the transnationalization of democracy is studied, and its result is that even though it is seen as possible and desirable, the system still needs to evolve so that it can be attainable.

Cosmopolitanism, Migration, and Transnationalism: An Interview with Nina Glick Schiller

Cosmopolitanism, Migration, and Transnationalism: An Interview with Nina Glick Schiller

Transnationalism, Xicanosmosis, and the U.S.-Mexico Border: An Interview with William Nericcio

Transnationalism, Xicanosmosis, and the U.S.-Mexico Border: An Interview with William Nericcio

Book review: Britta Schneider, Salsa, Language, and Transnationalism

Book review: Britta Schneider, <i>Salsa, Language, and Transnationalism</i>

A Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus: ação social além-fronteiras

Este trabalho traz o exercicio inedito de explorar algumas praticas sociais da Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD) na Namibia, Africa do Sul, Angola, Mocambique e Portugal. Atenta as contingencias de cada regiao, a IURD tenta atrair e/ou vincular fieis por meio de acoes organizadas principalmente pelas irmandades de mulheres Sisterhood e Woman in Action, e pela Associacao Beneficente Crista, organizacao ja fechada no Brasil. De um lado, sao estabelecidas parcerias com instâncias governamentais locais com vistas a sustentar a imagem da igreja como instituicao religiosa promotora de bem-estar social. De outro, as irmandades oferecem vias de ganho emocional e suposta reestruturacao social, incitando compromisso com as rotinas da igreja e desempenho de uma disciplina que permite obtencao de destaque e funciona como veiculo de certo empoderamento e transformacao. O material etnografico utilizado e composto por artigos e reportagens encontradas pelo mapeamento de jornais, revistas, portais, sites e blogs produzidos pela igreja, e que relatam a acao social nos anos de 2009 e 2010. Palavras-chave: Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus, acao social, transnacionalizacao, genero.

Routes et sens postcoloniaux de la transnationalisation religieuse (Relitrans)

EnglishWe propose in this article to conduct a critical revision of the distinction between North and South: or, to put it another way, to compare the institutional and epistemological positions that provided a framework for our research. The project, Religious Transnationalization of the Souths: Between Ethnicizing and Universalizing (Transnacionalizacion religiosa de los Sures: entre la etnizacion y la universalizacion, Relitrans), which brought together 22 researchers from seven countries, aimed to test a methodology which included various innovative elements, such as the production of multi-situated ethnographies, in which students of “the Souths” could counduct their field work operations in the “North”, thus following a trajectory in the opposite direction to that taken by the colonization and Christianizing of African and American populations; to establish the dynamics of working together in an attempt to break with polarizations of the North and different types of South, and thematic and national specializations, preferring to emphasize transversal processes rather than specific objects; and finally, to direct attention towards the consequences of transnationalization on the decentralizing of production, and on the circulation and validation of religious practices. However, during our research we came up against difficulties deriving from the historical direction taken by colonialism, which, like the religions focused on, still produces effects on the “opposite directions” of transnationalization, and these difficulities now lead us to ask the following questions: to what extent does the distinction between the North and various Souths still permeate the conceptual categories and epistemological positions of our researchers ? Is academic discourse capable of overcoming or recomposing these interpretations ? And how are we to find a common language, a “multicentrism” in the production of knowledge, according to the example set by the actors we have observed ? francaisCe texte propose une revision critique de la distinction Nord / Suds, c’est-a-dire des postures institutionnelles et epistemologiques qui ont servi de cadre a notre recherche. Le projet Transnationalisation religieuse des Suds : entre ethnicisation et universalisation (Relitrans), qui a reuni 22 chercheurs de 7 nationalites differentes, s’etait donne pour objectif de mettre a l’epreuve une methodologie qui comportait plusieurs elements novateurs : la realisation d’ethnographies multisituees, ou les chercheurs des « Suds » ont pu mener des terrains au « Nord », suivant en cela une trajectoire opposee a celle de la colonisation et de la christianisation des populations africaines et americaines ; l’etablissement d’une dynamique collaborative tentant de rompre avec la polarisation Nord / Suds et les specialisations thematiques et nationales, en privilegiant les processus transversaux et non les objets specifiques ; enfin, l’attention portee aux consequences de la transnationalisation sur le decentrement de la production, de la circulation et de la validation des pratiques religieuses. Cependant, au cours de la recherche, nous nous sommes heurtes a des difficultes qui nous amenent aujourd’hui a formuler les questionnements suivants : de meme que le sens colonial de l’histoire des religions continue de produire des effets sur les « sens contraires » de la transnationalisation religieuse contemporaine, dans quelle mesure la distinction Nord / Suds traverse-t-elle encore les categories conceptuelles et les postures epistemologiques des chercheurs ? Le dialogue academique est-il capable de depasser ou de recomposer ces signifies ? Comment alors trouver un langage commun, un « polycentrisme » dans la production des connaissances, a l’instar des acteurs que nous avons observes ?

The Languages of Transnationalism: Translation, Training, and Transfer

The Languages of Transnationalism: Translation, Training, and Transfer

Transnationalism, Ireland, and The Bell

Transnationalism, Ireland, and The Bell