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JournalISSN: 1470-2266

Global Networks-a Journal of Transnational Affairs 

Wiley-Blackwell
About: Global Networks-a Journal of Transnational Affairs is an academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Transnationalism & Globalization. It has an ISSN identifier of 1470-2266. Over the lifetime, 726 publications have been published receiving 36890 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a historical tour d'horizon of the development of the notion of transnational communities is presented, showing that this mainstream concept has developed in close interaction with nationstate building pro- cesses in the West and the role that immigration and integration policies have played within them.
Abstract: Methodological nationalism is understood as the assumption that the nation/state/society is the natural social and political form of the modern world. We distinguish three modes of methodological nationalism that have characterized main- stream social science, and then show how these have influenced research on migra- tion. We discover parallels between nationalist thinking and the conceptualization of migration in postwar social sciences. In a historical tour d'horizon, we show that this mainstream concept has developed in close interaction with nation-state building pro- cesses in the West and the role that immigration and integration policies have played within them. The shift towards a study of 'transnational communities' - the last phase in this process - was more a consequence of an epistemic move away from methodo- logical nationalism than of the appearance of new objects of observation. The article concludes by recommending new concepts for analysis that, on the one hand, are not coloured by methodological nationalism and, on the other hand, go beyond the fluidism of much contemporary social theory. After the first flurry of confusion about the nature and extent of contemporary pro- cesses of globalization, social scientists moved beyond rhetorical generalities about the decline of the nation-state and began to examine the ways in which nation-states are currently being reconfigured rather than demolished. That nation-states and nationalism are compatible with globalization was made all too obvious. We wit- nessed the flouring of nationalism and the restructuring of a whole range of new states in Eastern Europe along national lines in the midst of growing global interconnec- tions. The concomitance of these processes provides us with an intellectual opening to think about the limitations of our conceptual apparatus. It has become easier to under- stand that it is because we have come to take for granted a world divided into discrete and autonomous nation-states that we see nation-state building and global inter- connections as contradictory. The next step is to analyse how the concept of the nation-state has and still does influence past and current thinking in the social sciences, including our thinking about transnational migration. It is our aim in this article to move in this direction by exploring the intellectual potential of two hypotheses. We demonstrate that nation-state building processes have fundamentally shaped the ways immigration has been perceived and received. These perceptions have in turn influenced, though not completely determined, social science

2,393 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the handling of "neoliberalism" within three influential strands of heterodox political economy: the varieties of capitalism approach, historical materialist international political economy; and governmentality approaches.
Abstract: Across the broad field of heterodox political economy, ‘neoliberalism’ appears to have become a rascal concept – promiscuously pervasive, yet inconsistently defined, empirically imprecise and frequently contested. Controversies regarding its precise meaning are more than merely semantic. They generally flow from underlying disagreements regarding the sources, expressions and implications of contemporary regulatory transformations. In this article, we consider the handling of ‘neoliberalism’ within three influential strands of heterodox political economy – the varieties of capitalism approach; historical materialist international political economy; and governmentality approaches. While each of these research traditions sheds light on contemporary processes of market-oriented regulatory restructuring, we argue that each also underplays and/or misreads the systemically uneven, or ‘variegated’, character of these processes. Enabled by a critical interrogation of how each approach interprets the geographies, modalities and pathways of neoliberalization processes, we argue that the problematic of variegation must be central to any adequate account of marketized forms of regulatory restructuring and their alternatives under post-1970s capitalism. Our approach emphasizes the cumulative impacts of successive ‘waves’ of neoliberalization upon uneven institutional landscapes, in particular: (a) their establishment of interconnected, mutually recursive policy relays within an increasingly transnational field of market-oriented regulatory transfer; and (b) their infiltration and reworking of the geoinstitutional frameworks, or ‘rule regimes’, within which regulatory experimentation unfolds. This mode of analysis has significant implications for interpreting the current global economic crisis.

1,375 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that any understanding of the global economy must be sensitive to four considerations: (a) conceptual categories and labels carry with them the dis- cursive power to shape material processes; (b) multiple scales of analysis must be incorporated in recognition of the contemporary'relativization of scale'; (c) no single institutional or organizational locus of analysis should be privileged; and (d) extrapolations from specific case studies and instances must be treated with caution.
Abstract: A vast and continually expanding literature on economic globalization continues to generate a miasma of conflicting viewpoints and alternative discourses. This article argues that any understanding of the global economy must be sensitive to four considerations: (a) conceptual categories and labels carry with them the dis- cursive power to shape material processes; (b) multiple scales of analysis must be incorporated in recognition of the contemporary 'relativization of scale'; (c) no single institutional or organizational locus of analysis should be privileged; and (d) extrapolations from specific case studies and instances must be treated with caution, but this should not preclude the option of discussing the global economy, and power relations within it, as a structural whole. This paper advocates a network method- ology as a potential framework to incorporate these concerns. Such a methodology requires us to identify actors in networks, their ongoing relations and the structural outcomes of these relations. Networks thus become the foundational unit of analysis for our understanding of the global economy, rather than individuals, firms or nation states. In presenting this argument we critically examine two examples of network methodology that have been used to provide frameworks for analysing the global economy: global commodity chains and actor-network theory. We suggest that while they fall short of fulfilling the promise of a network methodology in some respects, they do provide indications of the utility of such a methodology as a basis for under- standing the global economy.

1,007 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors address transnational intergenerational relations between Filipino migrant mothers and their young adult children and examine how families achieve intimacy across great distances by identifying and examining the transnational communication methods Filipino migrant families use to develop intimacy, in other words familiarity, across borders.
Abstract: In this article I address transnational intergenerational relations between Filipino migrant mothers and their young adult children and examine how families achieve intimacy across great distances. I do this by identifying and examining the transnational communication methods Filipino migrant families use to develop intimacy, in other words familiarity, across borders. In my analysis, I address how political economy and gender shape the dynamics of transnational communication. By showing how economic conditions and gender shape transnational family com- munication, I provide a socially thick lens through which to understand the formation of transnational intimacy and emphasize how larger systems of inequality shape the lives of the children left behind by the global migration of women. Migration engenders changes in a family. This is particularly so in the Philippines where a great number of mothers and fathers emigrate to sustain their families economically. There are no reliable government statistics on the number of mothers and fathers leaving their children behind in the Philippines, but non-governmental organizations estimate there are approximately nine million of these children growing up physically apart from a migrant father, migrant mother or both migrant parents (Kakammpi 2004). 1 This figure represents approximately 27 per cent of the overall youth population. The formation of transnational households poses challenges to the achievement of intimate familial relations between migrant parents and the children they leave behind in the Philippines. In this article, I address transnational inter- generational relations between Filipino migrant mothers and their young adult children and examine how families achieve intimacy across great distances. I do this by identifying and examining the acts of transnational communication that Filipino migrant families use to develop intimacy, in other word familiarity, across borders. By transnational communication, I refer to the flow of ideas, information, goods, money and emotions. Contemporary transnational households have a different temporal and spatial experience from the binational families of the past. New technologies 'heighten the immediacy and frequency of migrants' contact with their sending communities and

637 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore reasons for the continuing debate on the subject of transnationalism and persistent scepticism about the significance of the topic and explore these various problems seeking to clarify the actual scope of the phenomenon and its novel character, and indicate the multiple forms adopted by this phenomenon among immigrant groups in Europe and the United States.
Abstract: This introduction explores reasons for the continuing debate on the subject of transnationalism and persistent scepticism about the significance of the topic. The basis for such disagreements has to do less with the actual existence of the phenomenon than with methodological shortcomings that led to its overestimation in the early literature and the conceptual failure to distinguish between cross-border activities conducted by major institutions and by private actors in civil society. I explore these various problems seeking to clarify the actual scope of the phenomenon of transnationalism and its novel character. Despite recent findings that point to limited numerical involvement of immigrant groups in transnational activities, the latter remain significant because of their prospective growth and their impact on both immigrant adaptation in receiving countries and the development prospects of sending nations and communities. The evidence presented in the following articles document in detail these various aspects and indicates the multiple forms adopted by this phenomenon among immigrant groups in Europe and the United States.

596 citations

Performance
Metrics
No. of papers from the Journal in previous years
YearPapers
202324
202270
202160
202041
201927
201831