ABSTRACT
THE ROLE OF TRANSNATIONALISM and diaspora in historical migration studies tends to be under-theorized and problematic. The term “transnational” began to be used by sociologists and anthropologists in the mid-1990s, having been coined by Linda Basch et al. in 1992. It is taken to refer to processes by which immigrants “forge and sustain multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement,” making the sending and receiving communities a single area of action. 1 Whether we refer to transnational social spaces, transnationalism, or transnational social formations, we are talking about sustained ties of persons, networks, and organizations bound across “international” borders in the name of ethnic, racial, religious, linguistic, locality, occupation or nation-state of origin, class, gender, or any other factor. 2 These phenomena are characterized “by a high density of interstitial ties on informal or formal levels,” linking “a community in its present place of residence and its place of origin, however distant, and between the various communities of a diaspora.” 3 However, it has become apparent that not all modern migrants engage in such high-level transnational connections. Some engage with their communities of origin sporadically or not at all. Indeed, Ewa Morawska has noted that assimilation and transnationalism often coexist in the lives of immigrants and their children. 4
