Transnationalism in Question

This article seeks to critically engage the new literature on immigrant transnationalism. Connectivity between source and destination points is an inherent aspect of migrations, but migration networks generate a multiplicity of “imagined communities,” organized along different, often conflicting principles. Consequently, what immigration scholars describe as transnationalism is usually its opposite: highly particularistic attachments antithetical to those by-products of globalization denoted by the concept of “transnational civil society.” Moreover, migrants do not make their communities alone: states and state politics shape the options for migrant and ethnic trans-state social action. International migrants and their descendants do repeatedly engage in concerted action across state boundaries, but the use, form, and mobilization of the connections linking “here” and “there” are contingent outcomes subject to multiple political constraints.