ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter we have looked at various prominent attempts which try to make sense of the growing interconnectedness of national societies. As we have seen, there is no agreement on how these new linkages are to be conceptualized. Moreover, there is a strong tendency to highlight macro-structural changes rather than to look at the role of actors within this process. As we are interested in the expanding spaces of mobility and interaction of individuals, i.e. those entities which actually constitute a society, we now turn to the concept of transnationalism (Pries 1996; Faist 2000b, 2000c; Sklair 2001; Vertovec 2004). This concept, developed against the background of migration research, has a micro-sociological focus since it is interested in how transnational social spaces are constituted by migrants and migrant organizations. Therefore, this approach suggests a stronger subject-and action-oriented perspective than many of the other popular accounts. By and large, transnationalism refers to the relational and horizontal character of the political, economic and social processes taking place today, and is interested in social actions and transactions which make the walls of the nation-state appear porous and increasingly permeable (Smith 2001).
