Description
Book SynopsisThis book is the first of a work in two parts addressing the relations between the transnational society and the state. It is dedicated to the analysis and conceptualisation of transnational societies. This work moves beyond the mere depiction of transborder socialities by shedding light on the fundamental structures underpinning them. It investigates the mechanics of their formation and evolution, their demise or transformation into diasporas. It theorises transmigrants as plural humans embedded and socialised in multiple settings, and whose activities are sustained and framed by three key social institutions: transnational families, businesses and associations. It sheds light on the construction of an intersubjective moral framework regulating the relations between migrants and non-migrants. Finally, it examines the space-time continuum of transnational societies.
Table of ContentsTable of Contents
Introduction. 4
Chapter 1: The dynamics of transnationalism.. 11
Family, businesses, organisations: migrant social institutions. 15
Transnational families. 16
Organisations: from community service to public mobilisations, from local to transnational commitments 19
The businesses of migrants. 25
Diaspora and ‘assimilation’: the afterlife or end transnational fields. 28
The ‘diaspora’ scenario. 30
Chapter 2 : Institutionalising the transnational 35
Migrants as ‘plural humans’ 36
Polyphonic transnational practices. 44
Transnational emergence: the infra-politics of transnationalism.. 46
Institutionalization of the lifeworld. 50
The problem of convergence. 50
Chapter 3: Transnational spaces. 60
Ecotones: the spatial imprint of a transnational society. 60
Defining ecotones. 61
Insular spaces. 62
A relational space. 73
Transnational domestic space. 74
Resonating public spaces. 75
Chapter 4: The transnational lifeworld: moral geography and lived time. 79
Territoritoriality or how space forms an underpinning to power relations. 80
The moral geography of transnationalism.. 80
Transnational lived time. 90
Defining lived time. 90
From a transnational space-time to a diasporic space-time. 93
Conclusion. 99
Cited references. 102
Index. 112
