Transnationalism
Encyclopedia
Transnationalism is a social movement
and scholarly research agenda grown out of the heightened interconnectivity between people
and the receding economic and social significance of boundaries among nation states.
The term was coined in the early 20th century by writer Randolph Bourne
to describe a new way of thinking about relationships between cultures.
Transnationalism as an economic process involves the global reorganization of the production process, in which various stages of the production of any product can occur in various countries, typically with the aim of minimizing costs. Economic transnationalism, commonly known as Globalization
was spurred in the latter half of the 20th century by the development of the internet and wireless communication, as well as the reduction in global transportation costs caused by containerization
. Multinational corporations could be seen as a form of transnationalism, in that they seek to minimize costs, and hence maximize profits, by organizing their operations in the most efficient means possible irrespective of political boundaries.
Proponents of transnationalism seek to facilitate the flow of people, ideas, and goods among regions. They believe that it has increasing relevance with the rapid growth of globalization. They contend that it does not make sense to link specific nation-state boundaries with for instance migratory workforces
, globalized corporation
s, global money flow, global information flow, and global scientific cooperation.
Transnationalism also refers to a recent shift in migration patterns since the 1980s. Migration used to be a rather directed movement with a point of departure and a point of arrival. It is nowadays increasingly turning into an ongoing movement between two or more social spaces or locations. Facilitated by increased global transportation and telecommunication technologies, more and more migrants have developed strong transnational ties to more than one home
country, blurring the congruence of social
space
and geographic space.
Diaspora
s, such as the overseas Chinese
, are a historical precursor to modern transnationalism. However, unlike people with transnationalist lives, most diasporas have not been voluntary. The field of diaspora politics
does consider modern diasporas as having the potential to be transnational political actors.
Examples of internationalism include United Nations
, international treaties, international customs and tariffs regulations. Examples of transnationalism include NGOs such as Greenpeace
or Médecins sans Frontières
, global financial activities, global science research, and global environmental concerns.
Social movement
Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change....
and scholarly research agenda grown out of the heightened interconnectivity between people
People
People is a plurality of human beings or other beings possessing enough qualities constituting personhood. It has two usages:* as the plural of person or a group of people People is a plurality of human beings or other beings possessing enough qualities constituting personhood. It has two usages:*...
and the receding economic and social significance of boundaries among nation states.
The term was coined in the early 20th century by writer Randolph Bourne
Randolph Bourne
Randolph Silliman Bourne was a progressive writer and "leftist intellectual" born in Bloomfield, New Jersey, and a graduate of Columbia University...
to describe a new way of thinking about relationships between cultures.
Transnationalism as an economic process involves the global reorganization of the production process, in which various stages of the production of any product can occur in various countries, typically with the aim of minimizing costs. Economic transnationalism, commonly known as Globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
was spurred in the latter half of the 20th century by the development of the internet and wireless communication, as well as the reduction in global transportation costs caused by containerization
Containerization
Containerization is a system of freight transport based on a range of steel intermodal containers...
. Multinational corporations could be seen as a form of transnationalism, in that they seek to minimize costs, and hence maximize profits, by organizing their operations in the most efficient means possible irrespective of political boundaries.
Proponents of transnationalism seek to facilitate the flow of people, ideas, and goods among regions. They believe that it has increasing relevance with the rapid growth of globalization. They contend that it does not make sense to link specific nation-state boundaries with for instance migratory workforces
Labor force
In economics, a labor force or labour force is a region's combined civilian workforce, including both the employed and unemployed.Normally, the labor force of a country consists of everyone of working age In economics, a labor force or labour force is a region's combined civilian workforce,...
, globalized corporation
Corporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
s, global money flow, global information flow, and global scientific cooperation.
Transnationalism also refers to a recent shift in migration patterns since the 1980s. Migration used to be a rather directed movement with a point of departure and a point of arrival. It is nowadays increasingly turning into an ongoing movement between two or more social spaces or locations. Facilitated by increased global transportation and telecommunication technologies, more and more migrants have developed strong transnational ties to more than one home
Home
A home is a place of residence or refuge. When it refers to a building, it is usually a place in which an individual or a family can rest and store personal property. Most modern-day households contain sanitary facilities and a means of preparing food. Animals have their own homes as well, either...
country, blurring the congruence of social
Social
The term social refers to a characteristic of living organisms...
space
Space
Space is the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum...
and geographic space.
Diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
s, such as the overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese are people of Chinese birth or descent who live outside the Greater China Area . People of partial Chinese ancestry living outside the Greater China Area may also consider themselves Overseas Chinese....
, are a historical precursor to modern transnationalism. However, unlike people with transnationalist lives, most diasporas have not been voluntary. The field of diaspora politics
Diaspora politics
Diaspora politics is the political behavior of transnational ethnic diasporas, their relationship with their ethnic homelands and their host states, as well as their prominent role in ethnic conflicts...
does consider modern diasporas as having the potential to be transnational political actors.
Examples of internationalism include United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, international treaties, international customs and tariffs regulations. Examples of transnationalism include NGOs such as Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
or Médecins sans Frontières
Médecins Sans Frontières
' , or Doctors Without Borders, is a secular humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic diseases. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland...
, global financial activities, global science research, and global environmental concerns.
List of transnational organizations
- Médecins Sans FrontièresMédecins Sans Frontières' , or Doctors Without Borders, is a secular humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic diseases. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland...
- GreenpeaceGreenpeaceGreenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
- The NSKNeue Slowenische KunstNeue Slowenische Kunst , aka NSK, is a controversial political art collective that announced itself in Slovenia in 1984, when Slovenia was part of Yugoslavia. NSK's name, being German, is compatible with a theme in NSK works: the complicated relationship Slovenes have had with Germans...
State - National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean CommunitiesNational Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean CommunitiesThe National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities is a network of approximately 75 community-based organizations led by Latin American and Caribbean immigrants. NALACC member organizations are working to improve quality of life in their communities, both in the United States and in...
- The Transnational RepublicTransnational republicThe Transnational Republic is a group of artists that are working to construct the first Transnational Republic where citizens are defined by the similarity of their beliefs and feelings...
- Roman Catholic ChurchRoman Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
- No Border networkNo Border networkThe No Border Network refers to loose associations of autonomous organisations, groups, and individuals in Western Europe, Eastern Europe and beyond...
Further reading
- Appadurai, Arjun: Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Delhi, India, Oxford University Press, 1997 - is critical of the construct of the nation-state and seek to propagate a greater use of transnational thought.
- Barkan, Elliott Robert, ed.: Immigration, Incorporation and Transnationalism, Somerset, New Jersey, USA, Transaction Publishers, 2003.
- Bourne, Randolph: "Trans-National America" in The Atlantic MonthlyThe Atlantic MonthlyThe Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
, #118 (July 1916), pp. 86–97, Boston, The Atlantic Monthly Group, 1916. - Dolby, Nadine and Cornbleth, Catherine. (2001) "Social identities in transnational times." Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, Vol. 22 Issue 3, p293-296.
- Faist, Thomas, The Volume and Dynamics of International Migration and Transnational Social Spaces. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
- Guarnizo, Luis Eduardo & Michael Peter Smith, eds., Transnationalism from Below, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, Transaction Publishers, 1997.
- Joerges, Christian; Inger-Johanne Sand & Gunther Teubner, eds.: Transnational governance and constitutionalism, Oxford, United Kingdom, Hart Publishing, 2004.
- Keohane, Robert O. & Joseph S. Nye, eds. Transnational relations and world politics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, Harvard University Press, 1972 - locus classicus for the distinction in international relations.
- Kyle, David. "Transnational Peasants: Migrations, Ethnicity, and Networks in Andean Ecuador," Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.-developed the concept of transnational "migration merchants."
- McAlister, Elizabeth. 1998. "Madonna of 115th St. Revisited: Vodou and Haitian Catholicism in the Age of Transnationalism." In S. Warner, ed., Gatherings in Diaspora. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press.
- McKeown, Adam: Chinese Migrant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru, Chicago, and Hawaii 1900-1936, Chicago, Illinois, USA, The University of Chicago Press, 2001 - offered a transnational look at Chinese immigrants and social links in the nineteenth century.
- Ong, Aihwa. Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logic of Transnationality. Duke University Press: Durham, 1999.
- Pries, Ludger, ed.: Migration and Transnational Social Spaces, Aldershot, United Kingdom, Ashgate, 1999.
- Rees, Martha, ed.: Special Issue: Costs of Transnational Migration, in Migration LettersMigration LettersMigration Letters is an international biannual peer-reviewed academic journal of migration studies published since 2004. Topics covered range from internal migration to transnational mobility and from voluntary to forced migration. Migration Letters is indexed and abstracted by the International...
, Vol. 6, No. 1, October 2009. - Robinson, William I.: "Beyond Nation-State Paradigms: Globalization, Sociology, and the Challenge of Transnational Studies" in Sociological Forum, Vol. 13, No 4, pp. 561–594, New York City, USA, 1998.
- Sassen, Saskia: Cities in a World Economy, Thousand Oaks, California, USA, Pine Forge Press, 2006 - more detailed analysis of the transnational phenomenon, with elaborate examples, is contained in the writings of Saskia SassenSaskia SassenSaskia Sassen is a Dutch sociologist noted for her analyses of globalization and international human migration. She is currently Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University and Centennial visiting Professor at the London School of Economics. Sassen coined the term global city...
. - Tarrow, SidneySidney TarrowSidney G. Tarrow is a professor of political science and sociology, known for his research in the areas of comparative politics, social movements, political parties, collective action and political sociology.-Biography:...
: The new transnational activism, New York City, USA, Cambridge University Press, 2005. - See the trilingual (English, Chinese, French) Transtext(e)sTranscultures: Journal of Global Cultural Studies http://www.transtexts.net publication of the Institute for Transtextual and Transculural Studies, University of Lyon, France.
- See the University of the Arts London Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity & Nation http://www.transnational.org.uk