ABSTRACT
A transnational discourse and research associated with the phenomenon were initially established in the Americas and, later, Asia-Pacific. But, particularly if also judged by press coverage and public debate, this is perhaps less so within Europe. This may be surprising given the region’s long history of various non-national social and cultural formations, including the classic diasporas. Attempts to refine a social scientific definition and analysis of transnationalism have mostly taken the Americas as their starting point. This raises the question of just how ‘transnational’ transnationalism is. This chapter proposes both that there is scope for a more macro-regional approach to transnationalism, and that there are good grounds for expecting European space to differ from the Americas. Using the concepts of migration order and migration configuration, it suggests some basic distinctions derived from history, politics and geography. Eastern and Western European varieties of transnationalism can be distinguished, and within the European Union there are both internal and external forms. The chapter, then, considers whether these several kinds can, in fact, be considered part of a single process, an emerging European mobility order described by a geography of concentrically defined regions that stretch beyond the continent itself and shaped, above all, by the economic and geopolitical aspirations of the European Union.
