Transnational Understanding Research Articles

Comparing the South African and Brazilian student uprisings (2015–2016): Similarities, Circulations, and Distance

ABSTRACT South Africa and Brazil are notorious for having some of the highest levels of (racialised) inequality on the planet, and dysfunctional education systems failing millions in their aspirations for a better life. Over 2015-16, student protests erupted across Brazilian and South African schools and universities, challenging these conditions through strikes, occupations, on-campus and street protests, and intellectual production. This paper builds on a World-Systems theoretical framework to understand the similarities, circulation, and distance between the two contemporaneous movements. In Brazil, the ‘Primavera Secundarista' high school occupations dealt primarily with local political dynamics, such as school closures, and intersectional forms of oppression. In South Africa, the ‘Fallist' university mobilisations demanded free, decolonised education, alongside addressing issues of outsourcing and institutional racism. In the first section, I give a comparative overview of these student movements’ similarities, situating them in their context and highlighting the key concerns and political and pedagogical practices of student activists in each. While these movements did not generally engage with each other, there were some important points of interaction, discussed in the second section. While highlighting these points of connection, I also advance an argument in the third section for why there was nevertheless relatively little direct engagement between these contemporaneous movements that otherwise had so much in common. The points of connection and disconnection between these similar movements offers insights about the functioning of the contemporary World-System and the modes of transnational circulation between movements therein, with lessons for transnational understandings of social movements, especially South-South movements.

Unpacking the pornographic paradox: a multimodal critical discourse analysis on the anti/pro porn binary in Flemish news media

ABSTRACT The increasing prevalence of pornographic imagery in Western popular cultures has sparked public debates, with mostly moral panic as a result. Dominant discourses on pornography are mainly concerned with porn’s negative effects on white, male, and heterosexual consumers, whilst often sensationalizing its alleged outcomes. Rooted in the media effects paradigm and drawing from a dominant anglophone anti/pro porn rhetoric, these debates contribute to a transnational understanding of porn as an inherently negative or positive media text. By exclusively focusing on causal–effect relationships, this dominant discourse leaves little room for porn consumers’ unique intersecting identities, experiences, and contexts. The current article maps to what extent local discourses on pornography reflect this binary perspective, by performing a multimodal critical discourse analysis of four Flemish newspapers. By doing so, the article contributes to a move towards more critical perspectives in discourses on pornography.

Understanding and Promoting School Climate, Bullying, and Social-Emotional Learning: Transdisciplinary and Transnational Science Advancing Positive Youth Outcomes

School climate is an important part of school improvement efforts, capturing student engagement, connectedness, safety, and relationships. A positive school climate is associated with more prosocial behaviors, academic achievement, reduced engagement in risky behaviors, teacher retention, and reduced burnout. With growing interest and attention to the research of social and emotional learning (SEL), the definitions and conceptualizations of social and emotional learning have expanded significantly across the past few decades. Understanding the intersection between students’ identities, their educational experiences and their academic, social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes is a necessary precursor to being able to strategically and systematically identify and implement universal and targeted supports to meet the overlapping and unique needs of students. To achieve true equity in education, interventions supporting the needs of all students, including those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds must be identified and appropriately vetted. A transnational understanding of the structural patterns and the association between these variables is critical for both the development of culturally sensitive SEL and bullying prevention programs and the transnational adaptation and applications of effective programs that promote a positive school climate. Articles featured in this special issue advance transdisciplinary and translational research by contributing high-quality studies focusing on the impact of bullying and/or SEL programs and interventions on school climate. These articles bridge the research-to-practice gap, including empirical papers with important implications for theory, research, practice, and policy. Impact Statement Promoting school climate and social and emotional learning are important to support student success at school and beyond. Transdisciplinary and transnational research provides valuable information to understand and implement supports that are culturally sensitive and responsive. While school climate and social and emotional learning are often studied separately, both are necessary for students to thrive.

Exploring ‘place-based’ initiatives in philanthropic community development: A transnational examination of Canadian and US Foundations

ABSTRACT Though the concept of place-based philanthropy is common parlance in community development scholarship and practice, there is still uncertainty around its meaning due to the multidisciplinary nature of its study and definitional variation among and between scholars and practitioners. This article presents findings from a recently edited volume created by a binational research team. Ten cases of philanthropic initiatives were explored to develop a transnational understanding of foundation engagement in place-based philanthropy. Place-based philanthropy was explored by considering collaboration with other stakeholders, initiative evaluation, systems change efforts, and issues of power, equity, and justice. Our findings suggest that place-based philanthropy among foundations is heterogeneous. While some foundations adhere to traditional forms of place-based philanthropy, others are pushing the boundaries of this type of work. This article urges both academics and practitioners to reimagine place-based philanthropy for transformative purposes.

PORT CITIES AS TRANSNATIONAL CONCEPT IN THE SPATIAL LANDSCAPE; TRANSNATIONAL TRANSPORTATION NETWORKS IN BATAM AND SINGAPORE

Transnational orientation is very important, especially how people view the transnational world and their perception of social distance between countries and regions. The concept of transnational is also understood as a form of social networks between communities and between countries. This paper seeks to see the transnational understanding between the two countries by looking at the connectivity of the relationship between the two countries which is limited by sea crossings. By using the quantitative and qualitative approaches as a form of multidisciplinary study, this paper attempts to conduct a transnational inventory, especially between the two countries, Indonesia and Singapore, specifically between Singapore and Batam. In addition, there is also similarities between the two countries with transnational background on the basis of proximity of border sea crossing transportation between countries. By using some sea ports as spatial landscape to connect the two countries which has social networks in many sections

Mapping methodological nationalism in Middle Eastern studies: Toward a transnational understanding of the 2011 Arab uprisings?

AbstractThis article assesses the prevalence and implications of the research foci methodological nationalism, methodological globalism, and transnationalism in publications regarding the 2011 Arab uprisings. We propose a new typology that contrasts state‐centered methodological nationalism with the cosmopolitan lens of methodological globalism as two opposite ends of a spectrum. Transnationalism is conceptualized in between these two, due to its sensitivity to multiple localities and cross‐border variables. We compare the merits and limits of these three research foci through quantitative research and content analysis. Our systematic review of one decade of scholarship on the Arab uprisings suggests a consistent trend toward the dominance of methodologically nationalist research approaches in Middle Eastern studies. This is surprising because the multilocal nature of the Arab uprisings suggests that it can best be analyzed transnationally. This article, therefore, critically discusses the methodological nationalist bias to better understand and illustrate the trend. We conclude by highlighting some comparative advantages offered by transnational perspectives on actors and processes in the Arab uprisings and its aftermath.

Re-bordering UK Feminist Video in the 1980s. Cross-border Exchanges and Reflexivity in a Digital and Archive-based Project

This article discusses the benefits and limitations of the use of digital humanities tools in the context of transnational research in women’s film and television history, with a particular attention to issues of positionality, cross-border circulation, and exchange. To do so, it details on the methodology and results of a research project reconstructing the transnational impact of the collaborations between women producers and practitioners and UK broadcasters in the context of the UN Decade of Women (1975-1985). The investigation, funded by FIAT/IFTA (International Federation of Television Archives), analyses a group of programmes from the BFI archives by producing data-visualisations such as maps and network analysis generated through the collection of geographical, biographical, and chronological information. The goal of the study is offering a deeper understanding of transnationalism in the context of local television productions, while avoiding risks of fragmentation and methodological nationalism. However, while digital tools and data visualisations helped the identification of recurring tropes and transnational collaborations, the process of data collection and the visual aids themselves made evident the persistence of problematic geographies of knowledge and representation, that would require a broader assessment through collaborative, cross-national investigations.

Review

Art can be particularly an effective means of building transnational understanding across cultural divides. Specifically, the act of making art to express conflict, sexuality and identity is significant as Arab women have frequently been marginalised and excluded from such a site of visibility and meaning. Contemporary Arab women artists not only contribute to global feminist theory but also deal with their aesthetic, visual and personal concerns. The Body in Twilight: Representation of the Human Body, Sexuality and Struggle in Contemporary Arab Art is a book by the Syrian professor of visual art and design Fassih Keiso. In this book, Keiso explores the representation of the human body in contemporary Arab art and its relationship to issues of sexuality and struggle. He argues that the representation of the body in Arab art reflects broader societal changes and struggles and that the use of the body as a site of resistance and political commentary is a common theme in contemporary Arab art. Despite the lack of images of artworks by the artists discussed in this book, the book provides a compelling contribution to comparative gender and feminist art and the broader international art on the centrality of sexuality in politics and society.

Complex intersections of language and culture: the importance of an ethnographic lens for research within transnational communities

ABSTRACT A growing body of work exploring transnational interaction has brought to light the importance of awareness of multilingualism in research contexts, yet little consideration has been given to researchers working in a later learned language (LX) or the process of investigating linguistically diverse communities. This research takes place within a multilingual social space, a transnational Spanish language group in London, against the backdrop of a globalized and mobile world. The work explores the complexities of conducting research in a multilingual, international, and transient context where sharing all language varieties and/or cultures with participants may not be practical, possible, or even preferable. The data, collected by myself (a participant-researcher), includes recordings of informal social conversations, ethnographic observations, and interviews with key participants. Their analysis highlights linguistic adaptation to facilitate transnational understanding, demonstrates the value of interviews in a common LX, and considers how language ideologies and norms affect transcription of multiple language varieties. The paper argues that utilizing an ethnographic lens, particularly when working in an LX, allows for a deeper understanding of localized multilingual interaction through closeness to the participants and advocates a slow, detailed approach to data analysis.

Global Oncology Medical Diplomacy Working Group Inaugural Meeting: Defining Worldwide Barriers to Germline Genomics in Cancer Prevention and Management.

We convened an international working group to examine the issues that challenge equity and inclusion in genetic medicine. Specifically, 72 internationally known experts in oncology and cancer genetics from 34 countries (the Global Oncology Medical Diplomacy Working Group), gathered virtually on January 4-5, 2022, for the "Humanity Cancer Germline Convergence and Divergence Cancer Predispositions" conference hosted by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, in collaboration with the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Health and the Al Jalila Foundation. The goal of the conference was to broaden transnational understanding of the current state of genetics in preventive and therapeutic cancer medicine, and to define barriers to increased uptake of germline genomics to decrease the international burden of cancer. Here, we highlight the overarching barriers that were defined through this effort. These global barriers to incorporating germline genomics into optimal cancer care can inform ongoing research, collaboration, and advocacy for equitable, cost-effective genomic medicine for populations worldwide.

New Faces of God in Latin America: Emerging Forms of Vernacular Christianity

Virginia Garrard is a specialist in twentieth-century political and religious history who has written extensively on Guatemala. In New Faces of God in Latin America she has set out to write an overarching history of the present for Latin America that situates the region in the academic literature on world Christianity. This is an ambitious task, and Garrard states clearly from the outset that this study will not be in any way exhaustive. It privileges the analysis of Protestantism over Catholicism, particularly Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal churches and movements. This focus leads her to Guatemala (chapter 2), Mexico (chapter 3), Haiti (chapter 4), and Brazil and Colombia (chapter 5), but she moves nimbly between a nation-centric view of what she terms vernacular religion and a dynamic transnational understanding of the cases. This comparative lens also leads her frequently to the United States but also to Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, and Korea, to name some pertinent and recurring points of reference. This is not simply due to missionary work, although it is often noted; but immigration is important, as is what Garrard refers to as the “transfluvial” and “polylocative” realities of ideas, methods, theology, and communications (p. 27). Set against this grand array of possibilities, Garrard wants to tease out the local uses, rituals, traditions, and histories that provide the context for religious faith, sometimes in great tension but other times in fascinating synergy with spiritual power. This insistence on what she refers to as “glocal” religion—the ongoing dialectic between global phenomena and local practice (p. 28)—allows Garrard to focus carefully on certain cases, whether Almolonga, Guatemala; the Mexico City barrio of Tepito; the nearly apocalyptic destruction of the Haitian capital; or São Paulo's Temple of Solomon, the heart and headquarters of one of the world's greatest megachurches.It stands to reason that such a grand intellectual project will present serious challenges in terms of sources and method. Garrard relied on a diverse set of sources, some conventional for a historian and others decidedly more comfortable among cultural studies specialists. They include archival research, interviews, and documentation including religious pamphlets, theological debates, tracts, sermons, and prayer cards. Less conventional sources among historians included films, religious websites, YouTube videos, blogs, and social media. The contemporary nature of the project led her to apply interdisciplinary methodology, moving between historical context, ethnographic description, and sociological interpretation.At the heart of Garrard's quest is an argument about the role of faith—in fact, proudly ecstatic, everyday religion, a lived faith requiring constant commitment—deployed against the modernity of a neoliberal capitalist and postmodern world. What does it mean to be Christian in the Maya highlands or Haitian slums in such a context? Garrard takes her cue for how to handle this question from an unlikely source. Following a skillful and intellectually robust introduction, chapter 1 is entirely dedicated to a nominally Catholic theological phenomenon of the Vatican II era called inculturation, a concept that purports to seek out the “seeds of the Word,” particularly in pre-Christian Indigenous religions (p. 35). The idea here is that one may catch glimpses of God and the possibility of holiness in other faiths, such as those of America's Indigenous peoples. Garrard follows inculturation theology through the Mexican bishop Samuel Ruiz and other Catholic and Protestant thinkers, including Antonio Otzoy, a Kaqchikel Maya Presbyterian minister; Tomás García, a K'iche’ Maya Catholic priest; and two African theologians, John Mbiti of Kenya and Kwame Bediako of Ghana. The work of these men and others is consciously postcolonial, an attempt to uncouple Christian theology from its overdetermined Western cultural references and reposition it in what Garrard describes as an Indigenous telos.Garrard is most clearly in her element when writing about Guatemala but offers strong description and analysis of the Haitian and Brazilian cases as well. The Mexico chapter is uneven, stronger in its presentation of the Santo Toribio Romo and Santa Muerte cultos but weaker in its treatment of Juan Soldado and Jesús Malverde, for example. However, it is of little use to focus too closely on one case or another; in many ways this is a book about the forest of Pentecostalism. Garrard does a valiant job of pulling together many separate and disparate threads to weave a compelling tapestry that represents world Christianity across Latin America—indeed, across the American continent. That is the major contribution of this book, and at the level of her many case studies, one is simultaneously pulled into the stories of local—or glocal—religion and constantly challenged to formulate questions about further research. This book will be popular with specialists and students of disciplines across the social sciences and with readers interested in faith, religion, Christianity, and postcolonial perspectives.

Italian Detective Fiction in a European Context: National, International, Transnational

Abstract: Detective fiction and place have always been tightly connected, both within the fiction itself and within the criticism. In this article, I look at French, Scandinavian and Italian crime fiction, with an eye not only to what a comparative analysis shows (traditionally rooted in a relatively static notion of national literatures that are assumed to be more or less “comparable” and thus in some sense equivalent) but—more importantly—to what an analysis attentive to a transnational understanding shows. The notion of the international and the idea of comparative are remarkably close in locating themselves in an abstract space between two objects of attention. Those objects are, in their abstracted state, more or less equal. What is lost in those abstractions is precisely what is not lost in the space of the transnational, since transnational movements are always from one specific place to another. Transnational studies should always capture the question of the asymmetric and differential power between nations and cultures—what makes it easy to go to some places, hard to go to other. Broadly speaking, I look at two very different kinds of crime fiction. First, the international thriller, in which the detective moves effortlessly around the world, the movement of Bauman’s “liquid modernity”—a genre that is, unsurprisingly, strongly associated with an invisible privilege and prestige. This subgenre is perhaps most tightly associated with the Anglophone world but certainly appears in France and Scandinavia as well. Second, what I call the “Euro-procedural”, a form that was pioneered by the Swedish authors Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöo in the 1960s but that has particularly flourished in the age of globalization, perhaps particularly in Italy. The Euro-procedural stresses, like all procedurals, the grinding and unpleasant day to day work of the detective, caught between a hostile public and a decaying European state; not every crime in the Euro-procedural involves other nations but, when they do, their transnational or transcultural nature is clearly marked, as human capital and valuable illicit materials like drugs are trafficked from the (relative) periphery to the (relative) center. Broadly speaking, the Euro-procedural insists on the boundaries that demarcate national spaces but does so in order to stress both the weakness of the nation state in an era of global crime and movements of capital, material and persons and also to stress the asymmetric relations of power between different nations or cultural spaces.

Covid-19 and Global Networks: Reframing our understanding of globalization and transnationalism.

Covid-19 and Global Networks: Reframing our understanding of globalization and transnationalism.

The Transregional Illustrated Magazine Al-Arabi

Abstract This article investigates the transregional cultural magazine Al-Arabi (al-‘Arabi) during the late 1950s and 1960s under its first editor, the Egyptian scientist Ahmad Zaki. Founded in Kuwait, the magazine’s establishment and sociocultural-political agenda are reconstructed within the context of Kuwait’s cultural diplomacy and pan-Arabism during decolonization and early Cold War politics. Al-Arabi offered timely discussions on Arab cities, gender, literature, politics and science, and readily embraced color photography for illustrations as a way of stimulating transnational understanding during times of substantial change in the region. Consequently, an analysis of Al-Arabi provides insights into historical strategies for re-imagining the region from within. Overall, the magazine can be situated in a long-standing tradition of Arab printing and publishing, while also forming part of a global illustrated magazine culture. Using a transdisciplinary approach, the article combines archival research and interviews with the media-historical and art-historical analyses of text, image and graphic design.

Learning to love ourselves again: Organizing Filipinx/a/o scholar-activists as antiracist public health praxis.

A critical component for health equity lies in the inclusion of structurally excluded voices, such as Filipina/x/o Americans (FilAms). Because filam invisibility is normalized, denaturalizing these conditions requires reimagining power relations regarding whose experiences are documented, whose perspectives are legitimized, and whose strategies are supported. in this community case study, we describe our efforts to organize a multidisciplinary, multigenerational, community-driven collaboration for FilAm community wellness. Catalyzed by the disproportionate burden of deaths among FilAm healthcare workers at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying silence from mainstream public health leaders, we formed the Filipinx/a/o Community Health Association (FilCHA). FilCHA is a counterspace where students, faculty, clinicians, and community leaders across the nation could collectively organize to resist our erasure. By building a virtual, intellectual community that centers our voices, FilCHA shifts power through partnerships in which people who directly experience the conditions that cause inequities have leadership roles and avenues to share their perspectives. We used Pinayism to guide our study of FilCHA, not just for the current crisis State-side, but through a multigenerational, transnational understanding of what knowledges have been taken from us and our ancestors. By naming our collective pain, building a counterspace for love of the community, and generating reflections for our communities, we work toward shared liberation. Harnessing the collective power of researchers as truth seekers and organizers as community builders in affirming spaces for holistic community wellbeing is love in action. This moment demands that we explicitly name love as essential to antiracist public health praxis.

Inventer l’acteur. Émotions et spectacle dans l’Europe des lumières by Laurence Marie

Reviewed by: Inventer l’acteur. Émotions et spectacle dans l’Europe des lumières by Laurence Marie Jeffrey S. Ravel Laurence Marie, Inventer l’acteur. Émotions et spectacle dans l’Europe des lumières (Paris: Sorbonne université presses, 2019). Pp 477; 25 color illus. €26 paper. This admirable book provides a panoramic view of changes in acting theory in western and central Europe from the mid-eighteenth century into the early-nineteenth century. Laurence Marie focuses primarily on printed treatises on acting theory during this period, supplemented by contemporary assessments [End Page 406] of celebrity actors. The major strength of this work, particularly in the context of increasingly transnational approaches to Enlightenment Studies, is that it does not focus exclusively on one national context. English and French-language texts and English and French-speaking actors play the leads in the story Marie tells, but there is also important material from the German-speaking lands of the Holy Roman Empire, from the Italian peninsula, and, to a lesser extent, from Spain. Juxtaposing developments in these various areas over two generations suggests new perspectives on the stages of the Enlightenment and the Revolutionary period at the end of the century. Marie’s tale begins around 1750, when new assessments of acting styles began to appear in several European languages. These texts shared a common, innovative insight: critics and audiences were increasingly attentive to the physical aspects of stage representation, as opposed to the oratorical and declamatory styles of acting they had previously valued. In other words, pantomime, tableaux, and the embodiment of the dramatic text by stage performers were now appreciated as much or more than the recitation of printed theatrical texts. These issues famously led to debates among French theorists and critics about the nature of theatrical representation. Did actors truly experience the emotions they portrayed on stage, or did they coolly, rationally simulate them? In other words, were they faking it, and if so, was that desirable from a moral and technical point of view? Marie demonstrates that theorists in England and across the continent considered this issue, often drawing their examples from the performances of leading players in London, Paris, Berlin, Venice, and elsewhere. Furthermore, performers such as David Garrick, Henri Lekain, Michel Sticotti, and Conrad Eckhof traveled broadly during the period. They performed in many public, private, and courtly venues across the continent, engaging with authors, audiences, and critics in ways that led to evolution in acting styles. In a second phase of her story, beginning roughly in the 1780s and continuing into the first decades of the 1800s, theorists and performers moved beyond earlier questions of corporality on the stage to assess the ability of actors to evoke notions of beauty based in nature. Some critics advocated for the “beautiful,” or beau idéal, over a “truthful” replication of reality, while others looked to painting, sculpture, or music for representational techniques that might be adapted to the stage. Some even urged a return to the oratorical model of the pre-1750 period, wagering that words themselves were still sufficiently evocative to sustain the theatrical illusion. Throughout, Marie insists that there was no single, triumphant mode of theatrical representation that satisfied all audiences and critics, nor should there have been for an art form as closely allied with lived experience as the stage. Different modes emerged at different times and places in a dynamic, dialectical process that suited the most widespread form of public entertainment in the eighteenth century. In her conclusion, Marie sums up her investigation by reminding us of the general movement from theatrical imitation to artistic expression. It was a trend that increasingly shifted emphasis from the author to the player, and from the reader to the spectator. In this newly emerging performative space, players became celebrities, as Antoine Lilti has demonstrated elsewhere, and paying spectators with particular political, social, and cultural agendas became more important arbiters of nightly performances.1 In a coda, Marie provocatively asserts that modern debates about the merits of realism versus illusion in the theater, and about acting techniques, first took shape in the period she has studied. This book, as important as it is in advancing our transnational understanding...

Populism and the politicisation of foreign policy

Populists in power often resort to the politicisation of foreign policy to generate domestic support. This article explores this process. First, it conceptualises populist politicisation of foreign policy. Second, it develops expectations on how such politicisation will take place: the distinctive features of populism (the intensity of populist discourse, the relative weight of anti-elitism and people-centrism, and a transnational understanding of the ‘people’ or the ‘elite’) will have an impact on how foreign policy is politicised. The empirical analysis focuses on selected public speeches and tweets by two populist leaders from the Global South: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Narendra Modi. The analysis reveals huge differences: the more populist Erdoğan emphasises anti-elitism and extensively resorts to the politicisation of Turkish foreign policy by constructing foreign threats. Modi is less populist and his discourse emphasises people-centrism; as expected, he only marginally politicises foreign policy, highlighting the greatness of the Indian nation.

People in Motion: Introduction to Transnational Movements and Transwar Connections in the Anthropological and Genetic Study of Human Populations

People in Motion: Introduction to Transnational Movements and Transwar Connections in the Anthropological and Genetic Study of Human Populations

Transnacionalismus, integrace a identifikace: Diskuse o proměnlivosti a dynamice sociálních procesů na příkladu studentské migrace z Ukrajiny

This article deals with Ukrainian student migration and the convergence of integration and transnationalism. Its main focus is the self-identification of young Ukrainians studying in the Czech Republic. The authors explore and describe international students' different integration and transnational dispositions and also discuss whether these dispositions could be seen as part of antagonistic or synergetic processes. The interconnection between transnationalism and integration is widely discussed in both sociological and anthropological literature, and most scholars identify them as synergetic processes. In the case of Ukrainian students in the Czech Republic, however, the authors argue that these processes can be understood as both synergetic and antagonistic because what matters is the students' self-identification. Most of the analysis presented in this article is based on in-depth interviews with Ukrainian students conducted between 2012 and 2019. The results of qualitative research are also compared to and discussed in relation to the findings from an on-line survey conducted among 258 Ukrainian students in 2018. The article suggests that Ukrainian students themselves could incline in both directions, towards an antagonistic and a synergetic understanding of integration and transnationalism, because it depends on their self-expressed dispositions. However, most participants most of the participants in the research express the synergy.

Transnational Cultural Migration. Mexico-U.S. Border Experiences: A Case Study

This paper looks at the transnational cultural experiences of a Cantonese migrant while border crossing the United States and Mexico. Specifically, we explore his experiences while residing in transnational spaces (Mexico, the United States, and Canton (Guangzhou)). Fieldwork including participant observation and qualitative data were collected through ethnographic interviews carried out during the period 2014-2016, at a Chinese food restaurant in Puebla, Mexico. Our goal is to understand the border crossing experience as a confluence of activities, which contribute to the construction of epistemologies from below and the understanding of transnationalism from a cultural approach.