even when their countries of orign and settlement are geographically distant. To describe this new way of life, some social scientists have begun to use the.
Towards a Definition of Transnationalism Introductory Remarks and Research Questions NINA GLICK SCHILLER, LINDA BASCH, AND CRISTINA BLANC-SZANTON In the course of the past few years, anthropologists have increasingly noted that immigrants live their lives across borders and maintain their ties to home, even when their countries of orign and settlement are geographically distant. To describe this new way of life, some social scientists have begun to use the term “transnational.” However, this term is being used loosely and without specificity. Much conceptual work needs to be done to move fiom the perception that “something new is happening here” to the development of a new conceptual framework within which to discuss contemporary international migration. As part of an effort to conceptualize and analyze transnational migration in May of 1990 we brought together a group of researchers who had found in their own field work evidence of a new pattern of migration and who had each been trying to grapple with the implications of what they were seeing all around them. The decision to have a workshop was a result of an odyssey that we had embarked upon several years before. When comparing our observations of the social relations of immigrants to the United States from three dfferent areas- the eastern Caribbean, Haiti, and the Philippines-we found that migrants from each population were forging and sustaining multistranded social relations that linked their societies of origin and settlement. We called this immigrant experience “transnationalism” to emphasize the emergence ofa social process in which migrants establish social fields that cross geographic, cultural, and political borders. Immigrants are understood to be transmigrants when they develop and maintain multiple relations- fimilial, economic, social, organizational, religious, and political- that span borders. We came to understand that the multiplicity of migrants’ involvements in both the home and host societies is a central element of transnationalism. Transmigrants take actions, make decisions, and feel concerns within a field of social relations that links together their country of origin and their country or countries of settlement. Having identified and defined transnationalism, we sought to locate this process historically and theoretically. Was transnationalism actually a new imix
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migration experience or was it rather that previous conceptualizations of immigrants and migration had precluded us from perceiving the manner in which immigrants, as they settle in a new society, extend their social fields to include their home societies?A research agenda developed: 1) to examine the manner in which transnational migration is shaped by and contributes to the encompassing global capitalist system; 2) to examine the analytical categories with which social scientists have approached the study of migration; and 3) to analyze the manner in which transmigrants-caught between the experience of transnationalism and the dominant discourse on migration -construct their racial, ethnic, class, national, and gender identities. We hypothesized that transnational migration differs significantly from previous migration experience and is becoming increasingly a global phenomenon as populations in capital-dependent countries are everywhere forced to migrate to centers of capital in order to live. However, the manner in which transmigrants conceptualize their experiences, including their collective identities, is very much shaped by both the political and economic context of the country of origin and the countries of settlement of the transmigrants. In order to pursue this research agenda we formulated an initial conceptual framework (Glick Schiller, Basch, and Blanc-Szanton, this volume), continued our own comparative studies (Basch, Glick Schiller, and BlancSzanton, n.d.), and organized a workshop with others who were embarked on similar explorations. Although the perspective of the workshop was global, to keep the scope of analysis manageable we confined our focus to migration to the United States. The workshop was jointly sponsored by the Anthropology Section of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Research Institute for the Study of Man, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. It advanced our research agenda in many ways by providing invaluable documentation of the transnational migrant experience and by honing and shaping the nature of the theoretical inquiry. The papers and discussion presented in this volume are the fruits of that process. The papers prepared for this workshop can be grouped around three themes, which we have used in the organizational structure of this book. In Part I, the Introduction, we propose a transnational perspective on migration. We argue for a global perspective, linking the emergence of transnationalism to recent changes in the world economy, especially the extensive penetration of capital into the third world. We suggest that the transnational lives of contemporary migrants call into question the bounded conceptualizations of race, class, ethnicity, and nationalism which pervade both social science and popular thinking. The papers in Part I1 proceed by discussing the ways in which the identity of the new transnational subject is currently being constructed. Transformations of class practices and racial categories and the restructuring of women’s and men’s lives in the deployment of cultural capital are
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all detailed. In Part 111, the relationship between transnational populations and nation states is examined, and the challenge posed to nationalism by the existence of these transnational populations is described. The discussion at the workshop was far-ranging, touching both on the specifics of the papers and on the global perspective in which the presenters placed their data. Although we have located the discussion papers at the end of the book, they serve not so much as a summary but as a springboard for further thought. The papers and discussion in this book represent some of the first steps in what is proving to be a fruitful journey. >>
