300097 Transnational Studies and Migration (S) (WiSe 2011/2012)

This seminar introduces to transnational studies with a particular focus on cross-border mobilities, above all migration. In the first part of this course we will read the draft of a textbook which takes a transnational perspective on cross-border migration. The students will have a chance to critique the book manuscript before it goes to print (Thomas Faist, Margit Fauser and Eveline Reisenauer, 2012: The Transnational in Migration. Oxford: Polity Press). In the second part of the course the students will engage in designing a study with a focus on cross-border aspects of civil society.
The content of the book is as follows: “Transnationalism” entered the lexicon of migration studies in the early 1990s (e.g. Basch et al. 1994), over a century after earlier generations of migration researchers had introduced and made extensive use of the concept of assimilation. It did so in rather different circumstances, for whereas assimilation gained currency with relatively little reflection or debate at the moment that migration research was in its early formative period, ideas about the “transnational” entered a well-developed sociological subfield dealing with migrant integration, here interchangeably called incorporation. Several principal advocates assertively promoted a transnational perspective, and many scholars rather quickly embraced it. However, it also confronted critics and skeptics. The result is that the concept has undergone substantial revision since its earliest formulations, the consequence of an often-spirited dialogue (for an updated summary, see Levitt and Jaworsky 2007).
Those scholars who initially embraced the idea of transnational migration did so because of a conviction that it was necessary to capture the distinctive and characteristic features of the new immigrant communities that have developed in the advanced industrial nations at the core of the capitalist world system (e.g. Portes et al.1999, Vertovec 1999, Faist 2000). The term has emerged and evolved at a time characterized by high levels of labour migration from economically less developed nations to the most developed and from similarly high levels of political refugees fleeing conflicts and instability in former communist and developing states (Castles and Miller 2009). The recent influx of these labour migrants and refugees has reshaped the ethno-cultural mixes, not only of nations with long histories of immigration, the settler states of the United States, Canada, and Australia, but also of states that have not been notable as immigrant receiving nations in the earlier phases of industrialization, those of Western and Southern Europe and to a lesser extent, Eastern Europe and Japan (Kivisto 2005). The high levels of immigration, the new locales of settlement, changes in the nature of capitalist economies in a new industrial epoch, changes in the meaning and significance attached to the idea of citizenship, and the potency of a globalized popular culture have contributed to the conviction that what is novel about the present requires equally novel conceptual tools if we are to make sense of the impact of the new migration on the regions of origin, destination and transition.
The main concern in this book is with the implications of transnationalism – or, as used here to avoid the allusion to an ideology (‘ism’): transnationalization (cross-border processes), transnational social spaces (structures of cross-border social formations: kinship systems, networks, communities, organizations) and transnationality (cross-border social and symbolic ties entertained by persons, groups and organizations along a continuum from low to high) – for development in countries of origin, for migrant integration, for citizenship – and for research methodology. In order to adequately answer these questions, the book starts with an introduction into the topic and a discussion of the relevance of transnationalization, transnational social spaces and transnationality. Chapter 2 then portrays the wide range of cross-border practices involving migrants and their significant others in the socio-cultural, economic, political and social realms. Such practices are part of social formations called transnational social spaces, as shown in chapter 3. Transnational practices have implications, as chapter 4 suggests, for what is called political and economic development in the countries of origin. Also, in chapter 5 the book discusses the consequences of transnationality for migrant incorporation in the countries of immigration and emigration. Chapter 6 is devoted to the discussion of the politics of incorporation which emphasises issues of membership (citizenship). Chapter 7 introduces into the main methodological questions raised by researching transnational transactions. It presents an overview of the main problems (methodological nationalism, essentialism, power asymmetries) and gives an overview of important methods, such as multi-sited research, survey research and panel studies. Finally, chapter 8 addresses the meaning of transnationalization, transnationality and transnational social spaces for civil society by discussing how civil society has transnatoinalized in the course of international migration and integration.
Wherever possible the text relates the material to more fundamental sociological concepts, such as power, citizenship, social formations and social mechanisms, such as reciprocity and solidarity, and civil society. Since the book aims at a North American and European audience, it will include reference to work done in these areas. Since the book includes attention to development, it will also draw on work done on Turkey and Mexico, and on various co-development programs in Spain, France and the UK.

Literaturangaben

SELECTED REFERENCES
Basch, Linda, Nina Glick Schiller, and Christina Szanton Blanc. 1994. Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments, and Deterritorialized Nation-States. Longhorne, MA: Gordon and Breach.
Castles, Stephen and Mark J. Miller. 2009. The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World. 3rd Edition. New York: The Guilford Press.
Faist, Thomas. 2000. The Volume and Dynamics of International Migration and Transnational Social Spaces. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Luin Goldring and Sailaja Krishnamurti (eds.). 2007. Organizing the Transnational: Labour, Politics, and Social Change. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Keane, John. 2003. Global Civil Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kivisto, Peter. 2005. Incorporating Diversity: Rethinking Assimilation in a Multicultural Age. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.
Khagram, Sanjeev and Peggy Levitt (eds.). 2008. The Transnational Studies Reader: Intersections and Innovations. London: Routledge.
Levitt, Peggy and B. Nadya Jaworsky. 2007. “Transnational Migration Studies: Past Developments and Future Trends.” Annual Review of Sociology, 33: 129-156.
Portes, Alejandro, Luis E. Guarnizo, and Patricia Landolt. 1999. “The Study of Transnationalism: Pitfalls and Promise of an Emergent Research Field.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22(2): 217-237.
Vertovec, Steven. 1999. “Conceiving and Researching Transnationalism.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22(2): 447-462.