ABSTRACT
A common feature of most migration fl ows is the continued contact between migrants and their place of origin. A substantial literature bears witness to this phenomenon (Charbit et al., 1997; Grasmuck and Pessar, 1991; Massey et al., 1987) and reveals how, after emigration, links are maintained more or less intensively, via remittances of money and goods and often through short visits to the ‘home country.’ Generally such links have been seen to indicate attachment to the place of origin and understood to demonstrate that return remains an option. This is one of the explanations of return that has been explored throughout migration literature. However, more recently other approaches to the function of such links, emphasising the ‘single social experience’ (Basch et al., 1994, p. 6) that they depict, explicitly embrace the increasingly popular term ‘transnationalism’ to analyse and interpret their observations (Basch et al., 1994; Wimmer and Glick Schiller, 2003; Vertovec, 2003). Transnationalism is defi ned by Basch et al. (1994, p. 7) as ‘the processes by which immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement.’ Individuals are thus seen to participate simultaneously in two societies, in the process crossing cultural geographical, cultural, and political borders, rather than in each in turn according to the place of usual residence. The form of participation may of course differ, as one place, for example, may be the principal location of work and bringing up offspring, the other being the location of housing investment, of care for older relatives, or of assisting a relative in setting up a small business.
