New Approaches to Migration?

Transnational communities are historically produced by upheaval and confrontation, creating diaspora populations in pockets away from that which has been constituted as ‘home’. But what does that mean to those who live within these changing socio-cultural circumstances, and which critical tools can be brought to bear upon such patterns of distribution? This book critically evaluates the transnational communities approach to contemporary international migration. It does so through a specific focus on the relationship between ‘transnational communities’ and home. The meaning of ‘home’ for international migrants is changing and evolving, as new, globally oriented identities are developed. In this book these issues are explored through a number of central themes: the meaning of home to transnational peoples, the implications of transforming these social spaces, and how these have been transformed. It pays particular attention to heterogeneity within different transnational migrant groups, particularly where gender and class are concerned. Taking case studies of Sudanese, Moroccan, Evitrean, Senegalese, Palestinian, Croatian, Bosnian, Kashmiri and Kurdish ethnic groups displaced from their place of origin, the book addresses questions key to a study of human migration. By so doing, definitions of ‘community’ and ‘home’ as sites of the formation of national identity are questioned and undermined. This book will be an important resource for students of migration, human geography and cultural studies.