Transnationalism and Immigration

Transnationalism and Immigration

Transnationalism and Immigration

Introduction

Simply defined, transnationalism is the continuous communication and exchange of ideas as well as transaction of relationships that occur across spaces of separation. Transnationalism can be understood as the ways in which immigrants, or members of Diaspora cultures, import idioms, conventions, and resources of communication to continue to maintain the identity that they acquired in their home countries even as their identities are open to the vast unknown of identity-scapes in their new country of settlement. This entry discusses the conceptual framework of and debates surrounding transnationalism (Foner, 2007, pp. 355).

Conceptual Differences and Theoretical Framework

To understand transnationalism in the most precise ways, one must distinguish it from colonialism, post-colonialism, nationalism, and globalism. Colonialism was and is a process by which different countries and cultures came into assault by a foreign power known as an empire. This resulted in a state of siege for those experiencing colonial relations. Colonialism can be said to have resulted in the erosion of culture, language, symbolisms, and psychic unity of those who experienced its traumatic effects. However, colonialism also resulted in uprisings, revolution, and transformation of colonial oppression into conditions for freedom and liberation. A clear-cut example is British rule in India and the subsequent nonviolent freedom movement spurred by Mohandas Gandhi and his followers. The ways in which people who were formerly colonized expressed their sense of liberation as well as critique of colonialism can be called post-colonialism (Sowell, 2006). The possible continuation of former process of domination and subordination also falls under the rubric of post-colonialism. An extensive and exhaustive undertaking of this concept is beyond the scope of this entry. Post-colonialism is associated with the spaces of colonialism, the vigorous transformation of home turned colony to nationhood.

Nationalism is the construction and constitution of identity through processes of nation building as well as the ideologies and discourses that constitute nationhood. Nationalism is not a unified construct but rather an imagined one of unification. Nationhood can be rife with the conflicts and tensions that accompany it, such as gender, race, class, and ethnicity, as well as religion. Nevertheless, insofar as nation building in a postcolonial context was a response to the excesses of colonialism, it can be said to be an identity-conferring process, a means by which individuals and groups come to identify under the umbrella of nationhood (Tambiah, 2000, pp. 163).

Although these are broad brushstrokes of the building blocks of a conceptual and theoretical framework within which to understand transnationalism, it is important to grapple with the historical processes of change undergone by individuals living under colonialism and its aftermath. Postcolonial individuals may engage in migratory behavior as a means to seek better opportunities for themselves and their families in an ironic sense in the metropole or centers of capitalism and commerce. However, it has become evident that immigration is not a unidirectional movement. It is not about leaving never to return, though this option is limited to those who leave under voluntary conditions rather than ...