Showing papers in "Global Networks-a Journal of Transnational Affairs in 2001"

Chains and networks, territories and scales: towards a relational framework for analysing the global economy

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.

Introduction: the debates and significance of immigrant transnationalism

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.

Transnational migration: taking stock and future directions

Abstract: Increasing numbers of sending states are systematically offering social and political membership to migrants residing outside their territories. The proliferation of these dual memberships contradicts conventional notions about immigrant incorporation, their impact on sending countries, and the relationship between migration and development in both contexts. But how do ordinary individuals actually live their lives across borders? Is assimilation incompatible with transnational membership? How does economic and social development change when it takes place across borders? This article takes stock of what is known about everyday transnational practices and the institutional actors that facilitate or impede them and outlines questions for future research. In it, I define what I mean by transnational practices and describe the institutions that create and are created by these activities. I discuss the ways in which they distribute migrants’ resources and energies across borders, based primarily on studies of migration to the United States.

Salvadoran economic transnationalism: embedded strategies for household maintenance, immigrant incorporation, and entrepreneurial expansion

Abstract: This article presents a case study of the transnational economic practices linking two Salvadoran settlements in the United States and El Salvador. It considers the relationship between economic transnationalism, immigrant settlement and econ- omic development in the country of origin. Four processes are examined including: (1) the creation of border-spanning social networks by migrants and their home country counterparts; (2) the construction of transnational economic activities and institutions; (3) the broader transnational social formations in which these are embedded; and, (4) the cumulative and unintended consequences of economic trans- nationalism for migrant households, the immigrant community, and El Salvador. The article applies the concepts of social network, social capital, and embeddedness, to explain the sources and determinants of individual- and community-level variation in types of transnational economic practices. The conclusions drawn are that economic transnationalism is both part of a transnational settlement strategy and holds potential for economic development in the country of origin. First forged by refugees fleeing political violence in the late 1970s, circuits of transnational obligations and interests have proliferated and now link together a broad spectrum of Salvadoran society across the borders of multiple nation states. Over the course of close to three decades, border-spanning social networks have moved beyond the household sphere to include a variety of institutions such as enterprises, political parties, charitable organizations, and youth groups. Migrants' increasingly strategic participation in home country affairs has also prompted a policy response from the Salvadoran state and a reorientation of business plans by some sectors of private enterprise. Such contact and interaction has consolidated an elaborate series of transnational social arrangements and institutions (Landolt et al. 1999; Landolt 2000; Lungo 1997; Mahler 1995; Menjivar 2000). In this article, I draw on primary data from a multi-sited project on the causes and consequences of migrant transnationalism to explore the economic dimensions of Salvadoran transnational migration. I focus on two themes. First, I examine the relationship between economic transnationalism and immigrant settlement. Immigrant settlement involves a multiplicity of processes including labour market insertion, ethnic identity formation, and the acquisition of citizenship rights. Prevailing interpretations portray settlement as a process that involves a break with home

Transnational political practices and the receiving state: Turks and Kurds in Germany and the Netherlands

Abstract: This article examines how the social and political contexts in receiving countries affect the transnational political practices of migrants and refugees, such as their mobilization around political events in their homeland. The case study explores the political participation of Turks and Kurds in Germany and the Netherlands in its full complexity, that is in both the immigration country and in homeland politics. The findings suggest that transnational political practices should not be reduced to a function of the political opportunity structures of particular receiving countries for two main reasons: (a) more inclusive political structures, which provide for more participation and co-operation on immigrant political issues, may at the same time, and for that very reason, serve to exclude dialogue on homeland politics; (b) homeland political movements may draw on a different range of resources than their immigrant political counterparts, including those outside the local political institutional context.

Globalization, the knowledge society, and the Network State: Poulantzas at the millennium

Abstract: In State, Power, Socialism, Nicos Poulantzas conceptualized a state that materializes and concentrates power and displaces the class struggle from the economic to the political arena. In the past twenty years, much has changed. We argue that economic relations have been transformed by economic globalization, work reorganization, and the compression of space, time, and knowledge transmission through an information and communications revolution. Knowledge is far more central to production, and the locus of the relation between power and knowledge has moved out of the nation state that was so fundamental to Poulantzas’ analysis.

Transnational communities and business systems

Abstract: The paper examines the concept of ‘transnational communities’ as a way of understanding globalization practices in business and management. It argues that ‘transnational communities’ are emergent properties of the internationalizing of economic activity. Three specific aspects of this process are considered in detail: the development of multinational companies; the development of international regulatory bodies; and the development of cognitive and normative frameworks through the practices of business education, management consultancies and other global professional service firms. It is argued that in each case, transnational spaces are emerging; within these spaces, transnational communities are developing. The article calls for more research into the diverse nature of these spaces and communities as a way of avoiding the sterile polarities of what Held et al. (1999) refer to as the ‘hyperglobalists’ and the ‘sceptics’.

NGOs’ transnational advocacy networks: from ‘legitimacy’ to ‘political responsibility’?

Abstract: NGOs that operate as part of transnational advocacy networks face a number of ‘legitimacy challenges’ concerning their rights to participate in the shaping of global governance. Outlining the legitimacy claims that development NGOs make, the article argues that ‘legitimacy’ is a socially constructed quality that may be ascribed to an NGO by actors and stakeholders with different viewpoints. NGOs operating transnationally link disparate communities and conceptions of legitimacy, and undermine the discourse and practice of sovereignty. Therefore such NGOs will find it difficult to be universally regarded as legitimate, especially by states that hold a sovereignty-based conception of legitimacy. However, relationships are the building blocks of networks, and efforts to improve them should not be abandoned simply because ‘legitimacy’ is too closely connected with sovereignty. In particular, NGOs ought to improve their relationships with the poor and marginalized communities whose interests they claim to promote. To this end, the concept of ‘political responsibility’ is suggested as a pragmatic approach to understanding power relations as they arise in transnational advocacy networks and campaigns.

The role of migrant networks in linking local labour markets: the case of Asian Indian migration to New York and London

Abstract: Social networks have long been identified as crucial to migration flows and the economic behaviour of immigrants. Much of the literature on international migration and economic sociology specifically focuses on the role of interpersonal ties in influencing migration and economic action, such as finding employment. Using the case of Gujarati Indian migration to New York and London, the life histories of these immigrants illustrate that specific configurations of network ties result in different migration flows and occupational outcomes. These configurations include organizational, composite, and interpersonal ties that link local labour markets transnationally and channel immigrants to particular destinations and into particular occupations. The findings clarify the role and meaning of networks as they affect different types of migration and the occupational outcomes of migrants. The prominence of these network mechanisms also challenges the role of human capital in producing distinct outcomes for immigrants.

Place, space, networks, and the sustainability of collective action: the Madres de Plaza de Mayo

Abstract: This article provides a framework for analysing social movements and explaining how collective action can be sustained through networks. Drawing on current relational views of place and space, I offer a spatialized conception of social networks that critically synthesizes network theory, research on social movements, and the literature on the spatial dimensions of collective action. I examine the historic and contemporary network geographies of a group of human rights activists in Argentina (the Madres de Plaza de Mayo) and explain the duration of their activism over a period of more than two decades with regard to the concept of geographic flexibility. To be specific, first I show how, through the practice of place-based collective rituals, activists have maintained network cohesion and social proximity despite physical distance. Second, I examine how the construction of strategic networks that have operated at a variety of spatial scales has allowed the Madres to access resources that are important for sustaining mobilization strategies. Finally, I discuss how the symbolic depiction of places has been used as a tool to build and sustain network connections among different groups. I conclude by arguing that these three dimensions of the Madres’ activism account for their successful development of geographically flexible networks, and that the concept of geographic flexibility provides a useful template for studies of the duration and continuity of collective action.

Migration, mobility and globaloney: metaphors and rhetoric in the sociology of globalization

Abstract: Books reviewed in this article: John Urry, Sociology beyond societies: mobilities for the twenty-first century, New York and London: Routledge Nikos Papastergiadis, The turbulence of migration: globalization, deterritorialization and hybridity Stephen Castles and Alastair Davidson, Citizenship and migration: globalization and the politics of belonging

Between universalism and particularism: the historical bases of Muslim communal, national, and global identities

Abstract: In recent decades there has been an extraordinary flourishing of transnational and global Islamic movements. Most of these are religious reform and missionary movements; some are political networks working to form Islamic states. Yet on closer examination we find that universalistic Islamic movements are almost always embedded in national state and parochial settings. Muslim, and national, ethnic, tribal and local identities blend together. This blending of universalistic and particularistic affiliations has deep-rooted precedents in Islamic history. The original Muslim community of Medina represented a monotheistic vision encadred in a community of clans. The universal empire of the Caliphate gave rise to schools, brotherhoods, and sectarian communities. Sufi reform teachings of the late seventeenth to the twentieth century defined Islamo-tribal movements. In the twentieth century universalistic Islamic reformism inspired nationalism and anti-colonialism. The paper concludes with some comments on the mechanisms by which historical and cultural precedents are carried into modern times.

Development, the state, and transnational political connections: state and subject formations in Latin America

Abstract: Focusing on the processes of making and sustaining transnational political ties between actors, international actors and states, this paper reviews recent work from a number of disciplines on globalization and politics, and outlines an agenda for future research. Rather than seeing transnational political linkages merely as forerunners to the loss of local sovereignty, the paper argues for a wider conceptualization of transnational connections, embedded within processes of state formation in Latin America. Using a variety of examples, it is argued that transnational networks are associated with a wide range of meanings and a variety of responses by diverse actors. Drawing on recent work in political science, post-structuralism and anthropology, it is suggested that geographical concepts - related to scale, process and networks - offer a means through which to analyze and ‘map out’ these transnational political processes.

Regrounding the 'Ungrounded Empires': localization as the geographical catalyst for transnationalism

Abstract: The emerging literature on transnationalism has reshaped the study of immigration in the USA from 'melting pot' and later 'salad bowl', to 'switching board', which emphasizes the ability of migrants to forge and maintain ties to their home countries. Often under the heading of 'transnationalism from below', these studies highlight an alternative form of globalization, in which migrants act as active agents to initiate and structure global interactions. The role of geography, and in particular, localization in transnational spaces, is central to the transnationalism debate, but is yet to be well articulated. While it has been commonly claimed that transnationalism represents deterritorialized practices and organizations, we argue that it is in fact rooted in the territorial division of labour and local community networks in immigrant sending and receiving countries. We examine closely two business sectors engaged in by the Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles: high-tech firms and accounting firms. Each illustrates, respectively, the close ties of Chinese transnational activities with the economic base of the Los Angeles region, and the contribution of local-based, low-wage, small ethnic businesses to the transnational practices. We conclude that deeper localization is the geographical catalyst for transnational networks and practices. At Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), it is easy to spot Chinese travellers heading to, or coming back from, Asia. Many are family bound. A good proportion of them, however, come and go with suitcases full of sample products to market either in Asia or the USA. These are Chinese business people. Through jet flight, telephone, fax, and the Internet, they weave a worldwide business network that encompasses ethnic strongholds in the heart of American metropolitan areas and industrial cities in Asia. Unlike immigrants who left Europe for America in the late nineteenth and early the twentieth centuries, to whom the Old World represented treasured, yet fading memories, 1 this paper focuses on a new type of immigrant entrepreneur whose well being in the New World depends heavily on their connections to the Old World. The article engages the emerging literature on transnationalism as a framework to study international migration. Transnationalism recognizes the concurrent nature of immigrant connections with home and host countries, thereby introducing a critical social field in which nation states are not ultimately restraining factors, but provide an arena to be transgressed, evaded, and taken advantage of by migrants. Transnationalism

On the trail of the global green bean: methodological considerations in multi‐site ethnography

Abstract: The need to demystify and ‘ground’ globalization has spurred many calls for multi-site fieldwork. This article discusses how such fieldwork was used to examine the contemporary restructuring of fresh food commodity chains between Africa and Europe, at a time of increasing European concerns about food safety and quality. Drawing on convention theory and actor-network theory for conceptual guidance, qualitative fieldwork was conducted at sites of production, import and export in ‘anglophone’ (Zambia–London) and ‘francophone’ (Burkina Faso–Paris) commodity chains. The article also discusses the challenges posed by multi-site research, especially in realms where secrecy and deception are standard tools of the trade.

Gender, class, and network: social structure and migration patterns among transnational Israelis

Abstract: A growing body of research and theorising explores the experience of groups who maintain ties to multiple nations. However, this research often overemphasizes the fluidity and freedom available to migrants and neglects the differential access to networks available to co-nationals who vary in their class, ethnic, gender and affiliational characteristics. Drawing on fieldwork and in-depth interviews with Israeli migrants in the USA and Britain, and returnees in Israel, this study considers how social characteristics and settlement contexts shape access to the networks through which migrants acquire resources and information. Findings suggest that highly educated Israelis of European origins often maintain distinct social networks from their less educated and Middle Eastern or North African co-nationals. Further, middle-class Israelis have greater legal and economic access to migration and return than those with less human and financial capital. Israeli men and single women often prefer life abroad, while married women, especially those with children, wish to return. Finally, destinations influence migrants’ relations with the country of origin: Los Angeles fosters greater assimilation than London. In conclusion, because Israeli migrants are a diverse population, they maintain multiple networks and exhibit dissimilar patterns of connection to both the country of origin and places of destination.

Ariadne’s thread: Cape Verdean women in transnational webs

Abstract: This article is about Cape Verdean women who make a living through engaging in regular transnational petty trade. They buy consumer goods in West African countries, in Portugal and elsewhere in Europe, in Brazil and in the USA, to sell back in Cape Verde, either in open-air markets or in their own shops. Women perform most of this kind of trade and they operate on the border between the formal and informal economies. Drawing on interview material, the article shows how their self-presentation as autonomous self-reliant economic agents relates to gender and family roles and to a strategic balance between personal freedom and embeddedness in multi-territorialized networks.

Transnational politics at the edges of sovereignty: social movements, crossings and the state at the US–Mexico border

Abstract: This article documents the history of border crossings among a group of social movement activists located in southern Arizona. By comparing two types of US–Mexico border crossings separated ten years apart, the article explores how political groups become ‘transnationalized’ and in relation to what kinds of ‘states’. By contrasting the shift from a state-centric movement to a transnational coalition, the case study analyses why, in the later period, political activists were no longer able to identify the same kind of state. In chronicling the disappearance of one kind of state formation and the emergence of a transnational one, this research argues that globalization—rather than simply reflecting a decline of the nation state—is a process entailing not only new forms of transnational political activism but also new forms of the state.

Transnational women’s activism in Japan and Korea:the unresolved issue of military sexual slavery

Abstract: This article is about the transnational links formed between the Korean and Japanese women‘s movements in their campaign on behalf of the victims of ‘military sexual slavery’ during the Second World War. There is a growing literature that examines such networks. Yet, a deeper understanding of the emergence and activities of transnational advocacy networks is needed, particularly in the context of political opportunity structures. Social scientists who have developed the concept of political opportunity structures have, however, not provided a gender-specific analysis of these. Of particular interest is the exploration of the role played by gender in an international human rights discourse as a political opportunity structure for women’s groups in Korea and Japan. This article, thus, explores the ways in which the feminist movements in Korea and Japan have made use of transnational legal means in politicizing and popularizing the issue of ‘military sexual slavery’ at both regional and global scales.

‘Intercourse in every direction’: America as global phenomenon

Abstract: In news magazines and scholarly journals a wide-ranging ‘globe-talk’ has arisen since the 1970s in response to recent transformations in the world Much of the discourse reflects a growing international concern about US dominance of the world’s economy and cultural production Understandably, the discourse is about agency The United States has dominated global affairs since the Second World War and especially since the end of the Cold War - militarily, economically, and culturally It is sometimes forgotten, however, how much America is a product of the internationalizing processes it has come to symbolize This essay argues that the United States is as much a product as an agent of globalization and that, if we accept the logic of globalization, the United States as a national culture is being undermined in much the same ways as other countries The title of the paper is borrowed from the Communist Manifesto, an ironically prescient document that 150 years ago outlined the processes of globalization that characterize America’s global history and forecast the transformations we experience worldwide today