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    Steven Vertovec Transnationalism

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    This book provides an overview of the concept of transnationalism and how it relates to migrant communities. It examines how transnationalism affects socio-cultural, political, economic and religious structures. While providing a useful introduction to key ideas around transnationalism, the book could have more precisely defined the concept and distinguished it from other forms.

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    Steven Vertovec Transnationalism

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    This book provides an overview of the concept of transnationalism and how it relates to migrant communities. It examines how transnationalism affects socio-cultural, political, economic and religious structures. While providing a useful introduction to key ideas around transnationalism, the book could have more precisely defined the concept and distinguished it from other forms.

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    This book provides an overview of the concept of transnationalism and how it relates to migrant communities. It examines how transnationalism affects socio-cultural, political, economic and religious structures. While providing a useful introduction to key ideas around transnationalism, the book could have more precisely defined the concept and distinguished it from other forms.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    209 views2 pages

    Steven Vertovec Transnationalism

    Uploaded by

    tytrack
    This book provides an overview of the concept of transnationalism and how it relates to migrant communities. It examines how transnationalism affects socio-cultural, political, economic and religious structures. While providing a useful introduction to key ideas around transnationalism, the book could have more precisely defined the concept and distinguished it from other forms.

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    BOOK REVIEWS

    STEVEN VERTOVEC. Transnationalism. London and New York: Routledge, 2009.


    Pp. 205. ISBN: 978-0-415-43298-6 (hardback); ISBN: 978-0-415-43299-3
    (paperback).

    In an endeavor to grasp the realities of people living in an era dominated by phenomena


    described as globalization, researchers from various academic backgrounds seem to find
    comfort in applying the concept of transnationalism to their studies. In particular,
    transnationalism has become a key concept used in migration studies, thanks to the
    anthropological works of academics like Glick Schiller et al. (1992). Steven Vertovec, who
    is a trained anthropologist himself, currently working as the director of the Max-Planck
    Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen, Germany, takes up
    the challenge to provide an overview on the various topics that have been studied in relation
    to migrant Transnationalism. This compact book, which is divided into an introduction
    followed by five chapters organized around specific topics and a conclusion, provides an
    excellent initiation to the key ideas of transnationalism for students and due to its
    comprehensiveness and its multi-disciplinary approach, this book is also an inspiring source
    for academics who are already established in this field of studies.
    In the introduction Vertovec offers a detailed overview of academic discussions
    surrounding the concept of transnationalism. To bring some clarification to this concept,
    he starts by making a differentiation between ‘inter-national’ and ‘transnational’ activities.
    According to his definition the former refers to interactions between national governments,
    which would include amongst others formal agreements and diplomatic relations, while
    the latter describes a “sustained and ongoing exchange among non-state actors based across
    borders” (p. 3; cf. Portes 2001a cited in Vertovec 2009: 29). Vertovec emphasizes throughout
    his book (see for example pp. 29, 147) the importance of being clear and specific about the
    usage of concepts such as transnationalism and diaspora. Otherwise, academics run the
    risk of stepping into conceptual “muddy water” (p. 136), in which a concept like
    transnationalism, for instance, can loose its heuristic value for highlighting limited and
    distinct social processes (Portes 2003: 876).
    But the theory of transnationalism has also been criticized by scholars who consider it
    an overused conceptual framework, which in addition implies an approach that strengthens
    the model of the nation state, rather than moving beyond it (p. 17). While such criticism
    does not erode the concept’s general usefulness, it helps to reflect on the unpolished aspects
    surrounding the theory of transnationalism, according to Vertovec. One way of refining
    transnational theory and simultaneously grasping the heterogeneity of transnational activities
    that vary across immigrant communities (Portes 2003: 879) would be to focus on the
    modes, levels, extents and impacts of transnationalism; to categorize the transnational
    migrants themselves (return migrants, retirement migrants, refuges and asylum seekers
    and so on); and to concentrate on the degrees of mobility relating to transnational practices
    and orientation (p. 18–19).
    In chapter two, Vertovec focuses on the elaboration of some theoretical approaches and
    sociological concepts, like ‘social networks’ and ‘social capital’, for example, which he
    considers helpful for the analysis and understanding of migrant transnationalism. In the

    84 Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society


    34(3) Autumn 2009
    PO Box 59, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland
    BOOK REVIEWS

    five subsequent chapters he then goes on to examine how transnationalism effects people’s
    thinking and acting, and how such processes can cause ‘significant transformations’ of
    structures within the socio-cultural, political, economic and religious spheres (p. 24). The
    migration process and a transnational lifestyle can alter, for example, culturally constructed
    gender roles and structures. Thus, several studies seem to suggest that migration can improve
    the social status of women, who as a consequence of migration gain “access to employment
    and a certain degree of control over income and material resources” (p. 65). In the religious
    sphere, women seem to take on a more significant role in community associations than
    they used to before migration (p. 139). Often transnational lifestyles also turn people into
    true cosmopolitans, who are able to “switch codes” (Roger Ballard 1994 cited p. 73)
    according to context, thus managing the multiplicity of meanings they encounter in their
    lives. As Vertovec points out in chapter four, migrating people have also influenced the
    political sphere and caused nation states to rethink their policy of dual citizenship and
    citizenship rights in general. Furthermore, transnationalism engages with emerging economic
    transformations through the sending of remittances, for example.
    Transnationalism belongs to a Routledge series called Key Ideas, which intends to provide
    critically written books dealing with a variety of topics that are central in the realm of
    social science. And indeed, Vertovec is successful in communicating to his audience in a
    lively manner the key ideas surrounding the concept of transnationalism. Echoing Vertovec,
    however, this book could have benefited from an even more precise definition of the concept
    of transnationalism as understood and used by the author. In this context, a clear explanation
    by the author of why and how he distinguishes between migrant transnationalism and
    other forms would have been useful.

    REFERENCES
    ................................................................................................................................................................
    Glick Schiller, Nina, Linda Basch and Christina Blanc-Szanton 1992. Transnationalism: A New Analytical
    Framework for Understanding Migration. In Glick Schiller, Basch and Blanc-Szanton (eds), Towards a
    Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity and Nationalism Reconsidered. New York: New
    York Academy of Science.
    Portes, Alejandro 2003. Conclusion: Theoretical Convergences and Empirical Evidence in the Study of Immigrant
    Transnationalism. International Migration Review 37 (3): 874–892.
    Warner, R. Stephen and Judith G. Wittner 1998. Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communites and the
    New Immigrant. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    LAURA HIRVI
    UNIVERSITY OF JYVÄSKYLÄ
    laura.j.hirvi@jyu.fi

    Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 3/2009 85

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