ABSTRACT
When immigrants settle in a new and different society, the most common response to assimilation pressures is to combine some of the social and cultural elements of their home country with those encountered in the host country. Advances in global communication have allowed immigrants to retain many elements of their “former” everyday life and remain in close contact with family members, friends, and associates who remain in their home country. The ease of opportunity for immigrants to inhabit both worlds – their old home and that of the new – has led to what scholars refer to as binational societies, where ties between home and host countries remain strong and sustainable. These ties are maintained in large part due to the ease of global travel and communication, the importance of migration to the economies of sending countries, the relocation services provided to migrants, and the marginal statuses immigrants tend to occupy in their new host countries. As the connections between sending and receiving countries strengthen, a transnational public sphere develops. In this reading, sociologist Peggy Levitt examines the concept of social remittance – the flow of cultural ideas, behaviors, social identities, and social capital from communities in receiving or host countries to those in sending or home countries. Social remittance, she argues, plays an important role in promoting immigrant entrepreneurship in cities across North America, in adjusting to new demands on community and family formation, and in the political integration of immigrants in their new home societies. By focusing on flows of social remittance, we can see firsthand how transnational the process of immigration has become in the global age
