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Journal ArticleDOI

The study of transnationalism: pitfalls and promise of an emergent research field

Alejandro Portes, +2 more
- 01 Mar 1999 - 
- Vol. 22, Iss: 2, pp 217-237
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TLDR
Transnationalism as mentioned in this paper defines the concept of transnationalism, provides a typology of this heterogeneous set of activities, and reviews some of the pitfalls in establishing and validating the topic as a novel research field.
Abstract
This introductory article defines the concept of transnationalism, provides a typology of this heterogeneous set of activities, and reviews some of the pitfalls in establishing and validating the topic as a novel research field. A set of guidelines to orient research in this field is presented and justified. Instances of immigrant political and economic transnationalism have existed in the past. We review some of the most prominent examples, but point to the distinct features that make the contemporary emergence of these activities across multiple national borders worthy of attention. The contents of this Special Issue and their bearing on the present understanding of this phenomenon and its practical implications are summarized.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

Super-diversity and its implications

TL;DR: The super-diversity in Britain this article is defined by a dynamic interplay of variables among an increased number of new, small and scattered, multiple-origin, transnationally connected, socio-economically...
Journal ArticleDOI

Methodological Nationalism and Beyond: Nation-State Building, Migration and the Social Sciences

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.
Journal ArticleDOI

Conceptualizing simultaneity: a transnational social field perspective on society

TL;DR: This paper explored the social theory and consequent methodology that underpins studies of transnational migration and pointed out that assimilation and enduring transnational ties are neither incompatible nor binary opposites.
Journal ArticleDOI

Conceiving and Researching Transnationalism

TL;DR: A review of recent research across several disciplines not surprisingly finds a wide variety of descriptions surrounding meanings, processes, scales and methods concerning the notion of transnationalism as discussed by the authors, and several clusters or themes are suggested by way of disentangling the term.
Journal ArticleDOI

Methodological Nationalism, the Social Sciences, and the Study of Migration: An Essay in Historical Epistemology

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine methodological nationalism, a conceptual tendency that was central to the development of the social sciences and undermined more than a century of migration studies, and argue that transnational studies have their own contradictions that may reintroduce methodological nationalism in other guises.
References
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Book

The Global City

Saskia Sassen
Journal ArticleDOI

World society and the nation-state

TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze the nation-state as a worldwide institution constructed by worldwide cultural and associational processes, developing four main topics: (1) properties of nation-states that result from their exogenously driven construction, including isomorphism, decoupling, and expansive structuration; (2) processes by which rationalistic world culture affects national states; (3) characteristics of world society that enhance the impact of world culture on national states and societies, including conditions favoring the diffusion of world models, expansion of world level associations, and rationalized scientific and professional
Book

Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments and Deterritorialized Nation-States

TL;DR: Transnational projects -a new perspective theoretical issues the making of West Indian transmigrant populations -example from St Vincent and Grenada the establishment of Haitian transnational practices and emergent identities as mentioned in this paper.
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