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Transnational Urbanism as a Way of Life: a research topic not a metaphor

Transnational Urbanism as a Way of Life: a research topic not a metaphor hat is the role of locality in shaping the actions, identities, and social fields of transmigrants? Despite fifteen years in which a growing number of scholars have been discussing transnational migration, there is still little careful analysis of the significance of specific localities of origin and settlement within transborder processes. In a fascinating paper, Michael Peter Smith makes an important contribution to current scholarship by raising the question of place. Smith wants to insure that studies of transborder connections are situated in time and space. He carefully specifies that an analysis of interaction among the historical, political, economic and institutional contexts must play a central role in ethnographies of transnational political processes. In his own work, he assigns a key role to the regional and national Mexican state, approaching them not as a reified abstractions but sets of actors and institutional interests. Increasingly, scholars have understood that globalization and transnational processes change rather than diminish the contemporary role of the state and this analysis of the state informs Smith’s work. However, the case studies Michael Peter Smith and his research colleagues have conducted, while informative about the changing dynamics of transnational political processes, actually tell us very little http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png City & Society Wiley

Transnational Urbanism as a Way of Life: a research topic not a metaphor

SCHILLER, NINA GLICK
City & Society , Volume 17 (1) – Jun 1, 2005
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References (24)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company
ISSN
0893-0465
eISSN
1548-744X
DOI
10.1525/city.2005.17.1.49
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

hat is the role of locality in shaping the actions, identities, and social fields of transmigrants? Despite fifteen years in which a growing number of scholars have been discussing transnational migration, there is still little careful analysis of the significance of specific localities of origin and settlement within transborder processes. In a fascinating paper, Michael Peter Smith makes an important contribution to current scholarship by raising the question of place. Smith wants to insure that studies of transborder connections are situated in time and space. He carefully specifies that an analysis of interaction among the historical, political, economic and institutional contexts must play a central role in ethnographies of transnational political processes. In his own work, he assigns a key role to the regional and national Mexican state, approaching them not as a reified abstractions but sets of actors and institutional interests. Increasingly, scholars have understood that globalization and transnational processes change rather than diminish the contemporary role of the state and this analysis of the state informs Smith’s work. However, the case studies Michael Peter Smith and his research colleagues have conducted, while informative about the changing dynamics of transnational political processes, actually tell us very little

Journal

City & Society – Wiley

Published: Jun 1, 2005

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