Ethnic and Racial Studies
ISSN: 0141-9870 (Print) 1466-4356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rers20
Migrant organizations, transnationalism, and incorporation José Itzigsohn To cite this article: José Itzigsohn (2017) Migrant organizations, transnationalism, and incorporation, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40:3, 466-472, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2017.1249493 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1249493
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Date: 19 April 2017, At: 15:27
ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES, 2017 VOL. 40, NO. 3, 466–472 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1249493
Migrant organizations, transnationalism, and incorporation José Itzigsohn Department of Sociology, Brown University, Providence, USA
ARTICLE HISTORY Received 13 June 2016; Accepted 27 September 2016
This book is an important contribution to the study of migration, incorporation, and development. It addresses two key questions: What is the role of migrant communities in development processes in their country of origin? And what is the relationship between involvement in the country of origin and incorporation in the country of reception? The book addresses these questions from a transnational perspective. Describing it in this way, the reader could think that there is not much new in this book. Those questions have been addressed many times and the transnational perspective is, by now, two decades old. That, however, would be a thoroughly mistaken impression. What is unique about this book is that it addresses these questions by focussing consistently on the actions, not of individual immigrants, but of immigrant organizations. Moreover, an innovative aspect of the book is that it systematically explores the relations between immigrant organizations, the states of origin, and the states of reception. This is an original and productive take on foundational questions. The book shows the importance of transnational organizations for development in the home country and for the integration of migrants in the country of reception. As Alejandro Portes’ previous research has shown, only a limited number of migrants engage consistently and continuously in transnational practices. Yet, the book demonstrates that the organized action of small groups of people, who participate in transnational organizations, has an important effect in shaping the everyday lives of migrants and of people in the country of origin. Furthermore, the different chapters show in detail the large variation in configurations of transnational organizations and in their relationships with the sending states.
CONTACT José Itzigsohn
[email protected]
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
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The State and the Grassroots is an edited book composed of ten different case studies, conducted and written by different researchers on the role of immigrant organizations in development and incorporation. Yet, there is considerable unity and comparability between the different chapters. The first six chapters are case studies of different immigrant groups in a number of cities in the United States. These studies all follow the same methodology: They map the organizations of the immigrant group in the city or cities where the study was conducted, interview the leaders of the immigrant organizations, and conduct interviews in the sending country with the counterparts of the immigrant organizations and with government officials in charge of working with the migrant communities. The last four chapters are studies of immigrant organizations in four different European countries. These chapters follow a methodology similar to that of the U.S.-based chapters, but they do not include interviews in the sending countries. They do, however, incorporate assessments of the impact of migrant organizations in the sending countries, based on the interviews with the leaders of the migrant organizations. All chapters then address similar questions following a shared methodological approach. The introduction, written by Alejandro Portes, sets the different studies in the context of theoretical debates on migration and development. In the conclusion, Patricia Fernandez-Kelly develops the theoretical implications of the individual chapters’ findings. One of the most commendable elements of the book is the richness and nuance of the empirical information presented. The different chapters portray the transnational field as a dynamic one: This is a field in which organizations pursue different strategies, sometimes engaged in cooperation and sometimes in contention with other organizations and the state, and sometimes working by themselves. The book shows that it is precisely this dynamic combination, the tensions and the transnational organizations’ different strategies, that makes the transnational field so diverse and creative. One of the developments addressed in the different chapters is the multiple ways in which sending states have embraced the work of transnational migrant organizations. Sending states have gone from ignoring migrants, to valuing their remittances, to trying to engage them in development programmes. For example, Min Zhou’s and Rennie Lee’s chapter on China shows how the Chinese state adopted active policies toward the Chinese diaspora and how these policies have changed over time. At the beginning, the Chinese state was interested in remittances and investment by the diaspora. But in the last decades it shifted its policy, moving from attracting foreign capital to nurturing social relations and assisting overseas Chinese to explore potential opportunities in China. (45)
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This chapter effectively portrays the evolving relationship between transnational organizations and the Chinese state; a relationship that had important consequences in terms of mobilizing capital for Chinese development. Similarly, Natasha Iskander’s chapter on Mexico argues that we cannot think of hometown associations (HTAs) as independent voluntary associations. Iskander argues that HTAs, rather than being freestanding civic organizations, are in fact arenas of contestation, where migrants, state officials, and local communities on both sides of the U.S-Mexico border wrestle with questions of identity, belonging, political power, and resources. (112–113)
Furthermore, Iskander shows that the forms of contestation between different stakeholders in migrant transnational projects vary by local histories. Her chapter shows that the forms of organization and the relationship between HTAs and the state are very different in the states of Guanajuato and Zacatecas and that these distinctions are the result of varying organizational histories and different patterns of engagement between migrants and the state. The book shows how the migrant organizational field changes and acquires new organizational goals. For example, Thomas Lacroix’s and Anthony Dummont’s chapter on Moroccans in France shows how the changing relationship between migrant organizations and the Moroccan state went from confrontation to cooperation. The authors state While working-class organizations used to directly confront state authorities, the new coalitions endorse a consensus-based approach to improve the rights of emigrants within the Moroccan political system. (232)
The chapters on the European cases also highlight a major difference between the transnational organizational field in Europe and the United States. While the U.S. policy towards the developmental work of immigrant organizations can be best described as one of benign neglect, the European states have embraced policies of co-development. That is, they have partnered with migrant organizations to develop economic and infrastructure projects in the sending countries. These policies have the goal of improving the living conditions in sending areas so people would not migrate. Several chapters also report that, at first, migrant organizations direct their actions towards the integration of migrants in the receiving communities. It is only when this process achieves a certain maturation that migrant organizations shift their energies to development projects in the country of origin, indicating that there is no contradiction between incorporation and transnational engagement. On the contrary, the two processes are related, because those who are more integrated in the country of reception are the people who can best engage in transnational projects. For example, Hector
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Cebolla-Boado and Ana López-Sala, the authors of the chapter on Spain, state that Three reasons explain this renovated interest among civic associations in the field of development: first, the emergence of codevelopment as an important issue in the official Spanish agenda; second, a relative maturation of migration inflows that lessened the importance of activities oriented toward newcomers; and third, the ambition of organization leaders whose careers pushed them toward politics in the country of origin. (282–283)
The latter point is also made in the chapter on China. The chapter shows how individuals use their work in transnational organizations to achieve access to the Chinese state bureaucracy. Engagement in transnational organizations is not always and not necessarily an altruistic action. Zhou and Lee argue that In many cases, leaders voluntarily form nonprofit civic organizations and claim leadership roles in order to advance these self-interests. (51)
They also document the emergence of a new type of immigrant association among Chinese migrants. These new associations are not linked to town or village, but to region. In these new associations, people do not even speak the same dialect. Iskander makes a related point concerning the emergence of new organizational forms. She shows that, increasingly, the organizations that matter are federations of associations rather than individual ones. This is so because the Mexican federal authorities and the local states choose to engage with federations of associations in the implementation of their development plans. The shape of the transnational organizational field, though, varies greatly by country. In the chapter on Dominican and Colombian organizations, Cristina Escobar shows how different historical contexts can lead to different organizational configurations. Colombian organizations are more middle class than the Dominican ones. The Dominican organizations in the US are more oriented towards action in the US, but at the same time, they have stronger organizational contacts with the Dominican political parties than the Colombian organizations. Colombian civil society NGOs seek access to the resources of the Colombian community in the United States and there is no parallel development in the Dominican Republic. On the other hand, a Dominican foundation linked to a former president has an active presence in the US Dominican community, and there is no parallel organization within the Dominican community. What is very interesting in these two cases is that development action is not the result of a strong engagement with the state of origin. Escobar described the Colombian case as … characterized by a mix of a weak state and a dynamic civil society that has often taken the lead in establishing linkages with communities abroad. (70)
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She points to the presence of two major Colombian foundations that engage in development work. One of them was created by migrants in the United States and the other by the private sector in Colombia. On the other hand, in the Dominican case, Escobar tells that … it has not been the state or civil society but rather the political sector that has been in a position to extend itself beyond territorial boundaries. (70)
Nevertheless, the Colombian and Dominican states have established policies designed to attract remittances and investments and to provide services to the migrant community. But Escobar argues that, in neither of these cases, state policies manage to structure and direct the economic and development activities of the migrants. All chapters show that migrants build organizations that engage, both in work for their own incorporation in the receiving society, and in making some kind of difference in the country of origin. Furthermore, the distinct chapters argue convincingly that incorporation in the receiving society and transnational engagement are not contradictory. As Lacroix and Dumont state in their chapter on Moroccan immigrants in France Evidence shows that transnational commitments and national integration are not in a zero sum relation. The incorporation of immigrants in areas of destination has provided them with social and economic resources to engage in cross-border activities. Similarly, as integration problems become less pressing, immigrants find time to invest in homeland concerns. (228)
As Patricia Fernandez-Kelly masterfully summarizes in the concluding chapter, assimilation and globalization are … mutually constitutive processes connected by transnationalism. (315)
The beauty of the different chapters is that they portray the migrant transnational organizational field in its evolving historical context and its full organizational complexity. The book shows that the migrant organizational transnational field can take many forms, and can have diverse effects. One weakness of the book, perhaps, is that it lacks a chapter or appendix that summarizes and contrasts the rich empirical data presented. This would have been helpful because the chapters are very rich in information, and also because the findings do not always point in the same direction. In the introductory chapter, Alejandro Portes asserts that the action of transnational organizations and states supersedes old debates concerning migration and development. He argues that … the debate is resolved by separating permanent from circular migration flows and, especially, by noting the long-term potential and actual contributions of transnational organizations and entreprenerus. (19)
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Portes suggests that the circular flows of people and resources involved in transnational migration yield positive developmental results. I agree with his assessment that the chapters suggest that, in general, the action of transnational organizations and their engagement with the state have positive effects. But I do not think that the results are conclusive in terms of ending the debates on migration and development. For example, Rina Agarwala asserts in the chapter on Indian migrants that The results in terms of effectiveness in altering economic and political development in India have been decidedly mixed. (105)
Agarwala shows that the action of transnational organizations in some cases increases local inequalities or widens the gaps between public and private education. This ambivalence is also portrayed in Lacroix’s and Dumont’s chapter on Moroccans in France. They assert that the Moroccan government has directed collective remittances into infrastructure projects and, as a result, it has achieved the complete electrification of rural villages. They state that This impressive result and its swift achievement would not have been possible without the support of overseas hometown associations. (219)
At the same time, they remark that HTAs almost do not engage in economic projects. The latter require technical skills that are beyond the capacity of the migrant associations. I would then caution against making transnational organizations and practices the silver bullet for development, or for solving questions of poverty and inequality. In my reading, the different chapters suggest that the developmental effects of the migrant associations’ actions are positive in general, but mostly minor and localized. Perhaps the exception is China, where the state actively engaged the diaspora for raising capital for a massive state-led process of economic growth. Under those conditions, the resources of migrants abroad contributed to fast economic growth. But the key, in this case, is the Chinese state-led massive developmental project. The Chinese diaspora was only part of this larger push for economic development. Moreover, as Portes alerts in the introductory chapter, this kind of cooptation by the state poses the problem of silencing the voices of civil society. As Patricia Fernandez-Kelly suggests in the concluding chapter, the different case studies portray with clarity the current pattern of globalization, in which migration is a necessity for the subsistence of families, and states’ access to foreign currency. Given this larger order, states rely on the voluntary organization and action of migrants, to gain resources in order to conduct some forms of welfare and amelioration policies. Those policies are indeed very important to improve the living conditions of many people, but they are uneven – based on the presence of well-organized migrant associations from certain regions – and the results are limited. They are a replacement
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of sorts for welfare policies that the state cannot or chooses not to implement. Furthermore, in some cases, as Argawala points out, they may also have mixed effects on the lives of people in the sending country. As Portes suggests, in the context of the very unequal contemporary world the organizational activities of migrants and their collective remittances have become important for local development initiatives. This is indeed important for the people who are part of these initiatives. But the actions of immigrant organizations do not undo the context or global inequalities that generates migration in the first place, neither do they create the conditions to change that context. To sum up, this book is in many ways a treat. The State and the Grassroots is a very rich empirical portrayal of the multiple organized efforts of migrants, on behalf of their incorporation in the receiving countries, and for improving the conditions in the place they left behind. The book presents a plethora of empirical information and the different chapters address a set of common key questions in the field of migration, incorporation, and development. It shows the possibilities for action for migrant organizations in coordination with the state, and also with civil society, but it also points, in my reading, to the limitations of such action. This is a very important addition to the field of migration studies and I recommend it to all scholars and students in the field.
