Transnationalism: Migration Theory

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Transnationalism Migration Theory

• Lecture 8, Part II
• Geog 313

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Evolution of Transnationalism

• Migration Laws- Ravenstein contributed to
  migration theory by establishing the first
  theoretical framework in migration studies, by
  analyzing the 1871 and 1881 census of England.
• This study was important because it identified
  tangible push and pull factors that contribute to
  an individuals decision to migrate.
• Secondly, Ravenstein concluded that migration
  takes place within well-defined flows/routes, and
  for every major migration stream, a counter
  stream emerges.

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Evolution of Transnationalism

• Assimilation Theory-
• a process of interpenetration and fusion in
  which persons and groups acquire the memories,
  sentiments, and attitudes of other persons and
  groups and, by sharing their experience and
  history, are incorporated with them in a common
  culture life (Park and Burgess, 1969, p. 735).
• Assimilation theory originated in the Chicago
  School of thought and from the work of Robert E.
  Park.
• Parks second contribution to assimilation theory
  is his belief that assimilation occurs when
  immigrants are part of a race-relation cycle of
  contact, competition, accommodation, and eventual
  assimilation (Park, 1950, p.138).

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Evolution of Transnationalism

• Milton Gordon further investigates Robert E. Park
  concepts of incorporation and assimilation in
  his book Assimilation in America Life (1964).
• He introduced a multidimensional and temporal
  model that examines how immigrants initially
  become incorporated by learning the host
  country language and in the final stage
  assimilating to the host country values and
  desires.
• Gordon believed that immigrants need to become
  assimilated by adapting the middle-class, White
  Protestant, and Anglo-Saxon cultural patterns of
  the United States (p.74).
• Lastly, Gordon like Park believed that it was
  necessary for immigrants to abandon their ethnic
  identity before gaining an American identity.

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Evolution of Trasnationalism

• Throughout the decades, assimilation theory has
  continued to evolve with the work of T. Shibutani
  and K. Kwams (1965) and their belief that
  immigrants assimilate at various levels depending
  on their ethnic identity.
• Similarly, Gans (1973) and Sandberg (1973)
  popularized the concept of straight-line
  assimilation in which immigrants follow a
  sequential assimilation through generations.
• Furthermore, Massey (1985) introduces the concept
  of residential or spatial assimilation, the
  view that spatial distribution of immigrants is a
  reflection of their human capital and their
  willingness to assimilate to the American
  culture.

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Evolution of Trasnationalism

• Two cornerstones of assimilation theory have been
  the belief that immigrants have to become
  incorporated into American culture and
• Secondly, that immigrants have to abandon their
  ethnic identity in order to become Americanized.
• Recently, assimilation theorists such as Alba and
  Nee (1997), Brettell Hollifield (2000), and
  Hirschman (1983)
• have begun to challenge these cornerstones on the
  basis that assimilation theory focuses on the
  inevitable assimilation of immigrants
• is not willing to accept that new immigrants
  retain and incorporate elements of their culture
  in the host country.

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Evolution of Trasnationalism

• The groundbreaking research by Schiller, Basch,
  and Blanc-Szanton (1992),
• provides the first in-depth research,
• the first conceptual theoretical framework,
• the first comprehensive definition of
  transnationalism.
• How they defined it?
• They defined transnationalism as the process by
  which immigrants build social fields that link
  together their country of origin and their
  country of settlement (p. 1).

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Theoretical Framework
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Theoretical Framework

• Transnationalism
• is a process.
• creates economic, political, social, or cultural
  networks.
• manifests itself through various scales, over
  time, and across space.

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Elements of Transnationalism

• Memory
• Circular Migration
• Network
• Ethnic Identity
• Cultural Spaces

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Transnationalism

• Travel theory?
• Travel theory is the concept by which memories
  travel from person to person, from place to
  place, and from one period to another in stages
  (Said, 1983, p. 226).
• In the first stage, there needs to be a point of
  origin (home country) where memories originate
  and enter into practice (host country).
• Secondly, agents such as transmigrants transport
  memories across space where they go through a
  process of detachment.
• Lastly, a time of acceptance is needed wherein
  memories can be incorporated into a new
  environment.

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Transnationalism

• Memory
• - is the collective memories (nostalgia) of
  immigrants about their home country.
• - is the desire to be both here and there It
  stimulates, transfers, transforms, and
  incorporates old memories into new memories in
  the host country.
• -a memory of a transmigrant will trigger the
  need to manifest his/her ethnic identity.
• (Duany, 2000 Rutherford, 1990 Said, 1983 and
  Vertovec, 1999 )

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Transnationalism

• Circular Migration
• - The ability of immigrants to travel or
  communicate back and forth across space and time.
• Airplane
• Telephone
• Internet
• -Circular migration, like memory, needs time to
  occur.
• (Baia, 1999 Dunay, 2000 Levitt, 1998 and
  Vasquez, 1999)

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Transnationalism

• Circular Migration
• - Transmigrants (agents) are those migrants who
  participant in circular migration by either
  moving themselves or bringing goods, cultural
  traits, and ideas across space.
• -the research by Bailey and Hane (1995)
  describes the transnational community of
  Salvadoran as different because it has three
  types of migrants émigrés, circulators, and
  return migrants.

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Transnationalism

• Circular Migration
• - Emigrés immigrants that left El Salvador
  and did not return (1980s and illegal status)
• - Circulators Those Salvadorans who traveled
  when their migration status changed and those
  who continue to, and who expect to continue to,
  shuttle back and forth between the home and the
  host country.
• - Return migrants those who leave and who
  return, repatriate and resettle in El Salvador

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Transnationalism

• Networks
• Economic Network can be an immigrant sending
  remittances back to their home country
  (Funkhouser, 2001 and Montez and Vasquez, 1988).
  
• Cultural network is the establishment of a
  church in the host country that has its
  foundation in the home country (Chong, 1998 and
  Yang and Ebaugh, 2001).
• Social network is the creation of hometown
  associations in the host country to improve
  communities back home (Levitt, 1998, 2001 and
  Zilberg, 1997).
• Political network is forming political
  organization to influence the host and home
  governments (Itzigsohn, 2000 Kivisto, 2001 and
  Landolt, 2002).

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Transnationalism

• Networks
• - are linkages created by immigrants between
  their home country and their host country.
• - are strengthened when there is a continual
  interaction between the home country.
• - creates and expands pre-existing ethnic
  community over time in the host country.
• (Faist, 2000 Itzigsohn, 2000 Kearney, 1995
  Kivisto, 2001 Levitt, 1998, 2001 Verderary,
  1998 and Vertovec, 1999)

Economical
Cultural
Social
Political
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Transnationalism

• Ethnic Identity
• William V. Flores (1997) defines the process of
  identity construction as "cultural citizenship.
• Cultural citizenship is how groups form, define
  themselves, define their memberships, claim
  rights, and develop a vision of the type of
  society that they want to live in" (Flores, 1997,
  p. 263).
• Manuel A. Vasquez (1999) examines how religion,
  in this case how Pentecostal ideas, practices,
  and forms of organization help construct an
  ethnic identity among Salvadorans in Washington
  D.C. and a collective identity among Peruvians in
  Paterson, New Jersey.

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Transnationalism

• Ethnic Identity
• - is a cultural construction shaped by the home
  countrys memories (internal process), and the
  host countrys experiences (external process)
• - as well as the individuals self-identification
  of what ethnicity is, versus what others might
  think is your ethnicity.
• - Cultural citizenship allows ethnic groups the
  ability to construct cultural spaces in a new
  society by incorporating cultural symbols or
  practices into their new environment.
• (Baia 1999 Brettel, 2000 Chong 1998 Duany,
  2000 Flores, 1997 Vertovec, 1999 Warner, 1997
  and Yang, 2001)

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Transnationalism

• Cultural Spaces
• - cultural spaces begin when immigrants
  incorporate into their daily life in the host
  country their cultural activities, customs, or
  symbols, that remind them of home.
• -when immigrants claim cultural space, they
  do so not for the purpose of being different, but
  rather simply to create a place where they can
  feel a sense of belonging, comfortable, and at
  home" (Flores, 1997, p. 262).
• (Bailey, et all, 2002 Brettell and Hollifield,
  2000 Duany, 2000 Flores, 1997)

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Transnationalism

• Cultural Spaces
• -When transmigrants establish their ethnic
  identity, claim their cultural citizenship, and
  engage in cultural activities in the host country
  that is when the space becomes a cultural space.
• -the process of constructing and claiming
  cultural spaces is of extreme importance because
  it becomes the base by which a transnational
  community and cultural spaces can be established,
  built, and identified (Luna, 2001).

Levitt, 1998 Luna, 2001 Warner, 1997 and Yang,
2001).
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Cultural Spaces

• Shared/ Multi-ethnic

• Transform

• Permanent
• or temporary

• Manifestation of
• ethnic identity

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