This introductory article defines the concept of transnationalism, provides a typology of this heterogeneous set of activities, and reviews some of the pitfalls in establishing and validating the topic as a novel research field. A set of guidelines to orient research in this field is presented and justified. Instances of immigrant political and economic transnationalism have existed in the past. We review some of the most prominent examples, but point to the distinct features that make the contemporary emergence of these activities across multiple national borders worthy of attention. The contents of this Special Issue and their bearing on the present understanding of this phenomenon and its practical implications are summarized.

The study of transnationalism: pitfalls and promise of an emergent research field

Community ties with friends and relatives are a principal means by which people and households get supportive resources. Quantitative and qualitative data from the second East York study are used to evaluate six potential explanations of why different types of ties provide different kinds of supportive resources: tie strength, contact, group processes, kinship,network members' characteristics, and similarities and dissimilarities between network members in such characteristics. Most relatioships provide specialized support. The kinds of support provided are related more to characteristics of the relationship than to characteristics of the network members themselves. Strong ties provide emotional aid, small services, and companionship. Parents and adult children exchange financial aid, emotional aid, large services, and small services. Physically accessible ties provide services. Women provide emotional aid. Friends, neighbors, and siblings make up about half of all supportive relationships. The ensemble o...

Different Strokes from Different Folks: Community Ties and Social Support

In this innovative book, a well-known feminist and sociologist-who is also the founding editor of Gender & Society-challenges our most basic assumptions about gender. Judith Lorber argues that gender is wholly a product of socialization, subject to human agency, organization, and interpretation, and that it is a social institution comparable to the economy, the family, and religion in its significance and consequences. Calling into question the inevitability and necessity of gender, she envisions a society structured for equality, where no gender, racial ethnic, or social class group is allowed to monopolize positions of power.

Paradoxes of gender

A provocative and disturbing look at the ways new economic facts are shaping our personal and social values. The distinguished sociologist Richard Sennett surveys major differences between earlier forms of industrial capitalism and the more global, more febrile, ever more mutable version of capitalism that is taking its place. He shows how these changes affect everyday life-how the work ethic is changing; how new beliefs about merit and talent displace old values of craftsmanship and achievement; how what Sennett calls "the specter of uselessness" haunts professionals as well as manual workers; how the boundary between consumption and politics is dissolving. In recent years, reformers of both private and public institutions have preached that flexible, global corporations provide a model of freedom for individuals, unlike the experience of fixed and static bureaucracies Max Weber once called an "iron cage." Sennett argues that, in banishing old ills, the new-economy model has created new social and emotional traumas. Only a certain kind of human being can prosper in unstable, fragmentary institutions: the culture of the new capitalism demands an ideal self oriented to the short term, focused on potential ability rather than accomplishment, willing to discount or abandon past experience. In a concluding section, Sennett examines a more durable form of self hood, and what practical initiatives could counter the pernicious effects of "reform."

The Culture of the New Capitalism

The intention of this work is to show that European expansion not only transformed the historical trajectory of non-European societies but also reconstituted the historical accounts of these societies before European intervention. It asserts that anthropology must pay more attention to history.

Europe and the People without History

Give Us Your Poor ...@@@The Mobility of Labor and Capital: A Study in International Investment and Labor Flow.

In this article we explore the variability of US-Mexico migration, positioning the emerging discourse on transnational migration within a migration systems approach Looking at factors in the social and economic structures of Mexico and the US, we evaluate the prevalence of transnational migration patterns among Mexican migrants in conjunction with past patterns of temporary and permanent migration Transnational migration and the communities it creates are conceived of as a different path of adjustment for migrants and, using Hirschmans's concept of the Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, we illustrate the reasons underpinning the predominance of transnational migrant communities among migrants of rural origin Finally, we introduce original fieldwork that explores the prevalence of different migration patterns among urban migrants and validates the highly differentiated nature of Mexican migration

Transnational migrant communities and Mexican migration to the US

We examine the evolution of Latin American cities in the last two decades of the twentieth century and in the first years of the twenty-first on the basis of comparable data from six countries comprising over 80 percent of the region’s population These years correspond to the shift in hegemonic models of development in the region, from import-substitution industrialization to neoliberal “open markets” adjustment We examine how the application of the new policies correlates with change patterns in four areas: urban systems and urban primacy; urban unemployment and informal employment; poverty and inequality; and crime, victimization, and urban insecurity We present detailed analyses of each of these topics based on the latest available data for the six countries We conclude that significant changes in patterns of urbanization have taken place in the region, reflecting, in part, the expected and unexpected consequences of the application of the new model of development Implications of our findings for each of the four areas examined and for the future of the region are discussed

Bryan R. Roberts

Papers

Give Us Your Poor ...@@@The Mobility of Labor and Capital: A Study in International Investment and Labor Flow.

Transnational migrant communities and Mexican migration to the US

The free-market city: Latin American urbanization in the years of the neoliberal experiment

Informal Economy and Family Strategies

Cities of peasants: The political economy of urbanization in the Third World