ABSTRACT
206Offering a political optic on transnationalism, this ethnographically based chapter shows how the Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) from Guanajuato, Mexico, seeks to reconstitute Guanajuatense transnational migrants as clients and funders of state policies, as political subjects with “dual loyalty” but limited political autonomy. To co-opt migrants into local development projects designed by the state but financed by the migrants, party elites reconfigure the meanings of “migrant,” “region,” and “citizen.” This is contested by migrant leaders whose views of extraterritorial citizenship, trans-local community, and party loyalty differ from views of the party elites. The migrants see the state as diverting their energies from true civil society and local development initiatives across borders. The study originally appeared in a fuller form in the journal Politics & Society, in 2003. It is based on research conducted as part of a transnational field study supported by UC-MEXUS in cities and villages in California and Guanajuato in 2000–2002.
