ABSTRACT

Globalization and transnationalism are without doubt, two of the most contemporary topics in the social sciences and studies of migration. Globalization is what happens as economic exchanges and goods intersect with worldwide migration, and ideas, communication, political, economic, and social activities unfold (Held, Mc Grew, Goldblatt, Perraton, 1999). Th ese processes tend to become intensifi ed at global levels of interaction, interconnectedness across regions and continents, and between societies and states. Transnationalism according to Bauböck (2008, p. 2) “refers to the processes and activities that transcend international borders” and which have to do with phenomena that takes place within limited social and geographic spaces, non-state actors, and the unfolding of migrant associations as well. However, transnationalism involves multiple defi nitions. Basch, Glick-Schiller, and Blanc-Szanton’s seminal defi nition focuses on “the process by which transmigrants, through their daily activities, forge and sustain multi-stranded social, economic, and political relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement, and through which they create transnational social fi elds that cross national borders” (1994, p. 6). Morawska (2003) stresses the structure and agency of transnationalism as critical, Guarnizo (1997) focuses on the transnational social formations, and Sorensen and Fog Olwig (2002) defi ne the ways that transnationalism produces social spaces and practices that unfold from such migration as transnational livelihoods. While globalization and transnationalism may become “de-linked from specifi c national territories,” Levitt, in agreeing with Kearney, stipulates they remain “anchored in and transcend one or more nation-states” (2001, p. 14).