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The study of transnationalism:
pitfalls and promise of an emergent
research ® eld
Alejandro Portes, Luis E. Guarnizo and Patricia Landolt
Abstract
This introducto ry article denes the concept of transnationalism, provides a
typology of this heterogeneous set of activities, and reviews some of the pit-
falls in establishing and validating the topic as a novel research eld. A set
of guidelines to orient research in this eld is presented and justied.
Instances of immigrant political and economic transnationalism have existe d
in the past. We review some of the most prominent exam ples, but point to
the distinct features that make the con temporary emergence of these activi-
ties 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 .
Keyw ord s: Transnation alism (economic, political, and socio-cultural); immigran t
adaptation; natio nal development; social networks; technological development;
social capital.
This issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies was conceived as a vehicle to bring
to the attention of scholars and policy-makers a phenomenon that has
only recently caught the eye of researchers in the eld of immigration.
Through this collection, we seek to provide evidence of the existence of
this phenomenon and to advance theoretical notions to facilitate its
interpretation. The events in question pertain to the creation of a trans-
national community linking immigrant groups in the advanced countries
with their respective sending nations and hometowns. While back-and-
forth movements by immigrants have always existed, they have not
acquired until recently the critical mass and complexity necessary to
speak of an emergent social eld. This eld is composed of a growing
number of persons who live dual lives: speaking two languages, having
homes in two countries, and making a living through continuous regular
contact across national borders. Activities within the transnational eld
comprise a whole gamut of economic, political and social initiatives –
Ethnic and Racial Studies Volume 22 Number 2 March 1999
© Routledge 1999 0141-9870
ranging from informal import-export businesses, to the rise of a class of
binational professionals, to the campaigns of home country politicians
among their expatriates.
The growing number of ties linking persons across countries and the
uidity and diversity of these exchanges has given rise to many contra-
dicting claims. In some writings, the phenomenon of transnationalism is
portrayed as novel and emergent, whereas in others it is said to be as
old as labour immigration itself. In some cases, transnational entrepre-
neurs are depicted as a new and still exceptional breed, whereas in
others all immigrants are said to be participants in the transnational
community. Finally, these activities are sometimes described as a reec-
tion and natural accompaniment of the globalization of capital, whereas
in others they are seen as a grass-roots reaction to this very process
(Glick Schiller, Basch, and Blanc-Szanton 1992; Basch 1994; Guarnizo
1994; Smith 1995.)
Transnational migration studies form a highly fragmented, emergent
eld which still lacks both a well-dened theoretical framework and ana-
lytical rigour. Narratives presented in existing studies, for example, often
use disparate units of analysis (that is, individuals, groups, organizations,
local states) and mix diverse levels of abstraction. This tendency threat-
ens to frustrate the viability of an otherwise promising topic of research.
In this issue, we present several diverse points of view, not all of which
agree with our own, in the spirit of providing a representative overview
of knowledge in this area. However, we also advance a set of conceptual
guidelines, adhered to in our own empirical study of the topic, that seeks
to turn the concept of transnationalism into a clearly dened and measur-
able object of research. We summarize these guidelines next as a way of
eshing out our present understanding of this concept and of facilitating
its investigation. As will be evident shortly, these rules are of general
applicability, but they are particularly important in a new and still fragile
area of research.
Studying transnationalism: some pitfalls
1. Establish the phenomenon
As Robert Merton (1987) admonished us, it is of no use attempting to
explain a phenomenon whose existence has not been proved. Surprising,
as it may seem, it is not so uncommon in the social sciences that elabor-
ate explanations are advanced for processes whose reality remains prob-
lematic.1In the case of transnationalism, it is not enough to invoke
anecdotes of some immigrants investing in businesses back home or
some governments giving their expatriates the right to vote in national
elections to justify a new eld of study. To establish the phenomenon, at
least three conditions are necessary:
218 Alejandro Portes et al.
a) the process involves a signicant proportion of persons in the relevant
universe (in this case, immigrants and their home country counter-
parts);
b) the activities of interest are not eeting or exceptional, but possess
certain stability and resilience over time;
c) the content of these activities is not captured by some pre-existing
concept, making the invention of a new term redundant.
2. Delimit the phenomenon
The last condition above already suggests the following one. Once the
reality of an event or process is established, it is important to delimit its
scope to avoid redundancy with objects already studied under other
concepts. Nothing is gained, for example, by calling immigrants ‘trans-
migrants’, when the earlier and more familiar term is perfectly adequate
to describe the subjects in question. Delimiting the scope of predication
of a term is also necessary to avoid its spurious extension to every aspect
of reality, a common experienc e when a particula r concept becomes
popular.2For the case in hand, if all or most things that immigrants do
are defined as ‘transnat ionalism’, then none is because the term
becomes synonymous with the total set of experiences of this popu-
lation. To be useful, a new term should designate a distinct class of
activities or people different from those signified by more familiar con-
cepts.
For purposes of establishing a novel area of investigation, it is prefer-
able to delimit the concept of transnationalism to occupations and activi-
ties that require regular and sustained social contacts over time across
national borders for their implementation. Thus dened, the concept
encompasses, for example, the travels of a Salvadoran viajero delivering
mail and supplies to immigrant kin on a monthly basis or those of a
Dominican garment shop owner going to New York several times a year
to sell her wares and acquire new fabrics and designs for her business. By
the same token, it excludes the occasional gifts of money and kind sent
by immigrants to their kin and friends (not an occupation) or the one-
time purchase of a house or lot by an immigrant in his home country (not
a regular activity).
Clearly, as Itzigsohn et al. (1998) point out, the occasional contacts,
trips and activities across national borders of members of an expatriate
community also contribute to strengthening the transnational eld but,
by themselves, these contacts are neither novel enough, nor sufciently
distinct, to justify a new area of investigation. What constitutes truly orig-
inal phenomena and, hence, a justiable new topic of investigation, are
the high intensity of exchanges, the new modes of transacting, and the
multiplication of activities that require cross-border travel and contacts
on a sustained basis.
Introduction 219
3. De ne the un it of analysis
As in other areas of human activity, transnationalism involves indi-
viduals, their networks of social relations, their communities, and
broader institutionalized structures such as local and national govern-
ments. The existing literature on the subject tends to mix these various
levels, referring at times to the efforts and achievements of individual
migrants, others to the transformation of local communities in receiving
and sending countries, and still others to the initiatives of home govern-
ments seeking to co-opt the loyalty and resources of their expatriates.
This mix contributes to growing confusion as to what the concept refers
to and what its proper scope of predication is.
For methodological reasons, we deem it appropriate to dene the indi-
vidual and his/her support networks as the proper unit of analysis in this
area. Other units, such as communities, economic enterprises, political
parties, etc also come into play at subsequent and more complex stages
of inquiry. Yet, the individual and his/her networks comprise the most
viable point of departure in the investigation of this topic. This choice is
not based on any a priori philosophical position, nor is it intended to deny
the reality and importance of broader structures. On the contrary, we
believe that a study that begins with the history and activities of indi-
viduals is the most efcient way of learning about the institutional under-
pinnings of transnationalism and its structural effects. From data
collection based on individual interviews, it then becomes possible to
delineate the networks that make transnational enterprises possible,
identify the transnational entrepreneurs’ counterparts in the home
country, and garner information to establish the aggregate structural
effects of these activities.
The choice of individuals as a point of departure for inquiry into this
eld is also motivated by its own origins. Grass-roots transnational activi-
ties were not initiated by actions or policies of governments, national or
local. Nor were they the brainchild of large corporate managers. Instead,
these activities commonly developed in reaction to governmental policies
and to the condition of dependent capitalism fostered on weaker coun-
tries, as immigrants and their families sought to circumvent the perma-
nent subordination to which these conditions condemned them (Portes
and Guarnizo 1991; Roberts et al. 1998). State-sponsored transnational-
ism emerged, for the most part, subsequently as governments realized
the importance of their expatriate communities and sought to circumvent
or co-opt their initiatives (Smith 1996).
4. Distinguish types
The heterogeneity of these activities suggests the logical next step. Not
everything that falls within the scope of a given concept needs to be the
220 Alejandro Portes et al.
same, either in terms of the form or purpose of the activities involved. A
common mistake in the research literature inspired by certain theoreti-
cal ideas is to exclude a range of events or activities just because they are
not identical to those that prompted the idea in the rst place, even when
they share many of the same characteristics.
Within the denition of transnationalism given previously, it is poss-
ible to accommodate a number of diverse activities. An initial working
typology grounded on this concept would distinguish between the econ-
omic initiatives of transnational entrepreneurs who mobilize their con-
tacts across borders in search of suppliers, capital and markets versus the
political activities of party ofcials, government functionaries, or com-
munity leaders whose main goals are the achievement of political power
and inuence in the sending or receiving countries. A third and more
diverse category comprises the manifold socio-cultural enterprises
oriented towards the reinforcement of a national identity abroad or the
collective enjoyment of cultural events and goods. This type of trans-
nationalism includes the travels of musical folk groups to perform before
immigrant audiences, the organization of games in the national sport
between immigrant teams and those from the home country, the election
of expatriate beauty queens to represent the immigrant community in
national pageants, and the celebration of holidays abroad with partici-
pation of prominent political or artistic gures who travel to immigrant
centres for that purpose.
This working typology of economic, political and socio-cultural trans-
nationalism has undergirded our empirical study of the topic and has
proved useful in organizing what otherwise would be a chaotic set of
activities. Several of the ensuing articles make use of this typology to
present and interpret their respective empirical material. A second useful
distinction is between transnational activities initiated and conducted by
powerful institutional actors, such as multinational corporations and
states, and those that are the result of grass-roots initiatives by immi-
grants and their home country counterparts. These various enterprises
have been respectively dubbed transnationalism ‘from above’ and ‘from
below’ (Guarnizo 1997a).
From an individual standpoint, both types fall appropriately within the
de nition of the concept. Thus, a diplomatic ofcial or representative of
a political party abroad is a transnational actor, as is the executive of a
large corporation sent to work in a foreign country. These activities differ
in organization, resources and scope from those of ‘grass-roots’ economic
and political entrepreneu rs. By bringing both types under the same con-
ceptual umbrella, it becomes possible to highlight their similarities as
well as to study systematically their distinct features. Table 1 presents a
cross-tabulation of the two sets of types – by nature of activities and level
of institutionalization – and illustrates them with examples from the
existing literature.
Introduction 221
222 Alejandro Portes et al.
Table 1 . Transnationalism and its types
Sector
Economic Political Socio-cu ltural
Low – Informal cross-country traders – Home town civic co mmittees – Amateur cross-country sport
created by immig rants matches
– Small businesses created by
Level retu rned immigrants in home – Alliances o f immigrant – Folk music grou ps making
of country committee with h ome country presenta tions in imm igrant centres
insti tutio nalization political asso ciations
– Long-distance circular labour – Priests from ho me town visit and
migration – Fund raisers for hom e country organize their parishioners abroad
electoral can didates
High – Multinational investments in – Consular ofcials and – International expositions of
Third World co untries represen tatives of na tional national arts
political parties abroad
– Development fo r tourist – Home country major artists
market o f locations abroad – Dual n ationality granted by perform abroad
hom e country go vernments
– Agencies of home country – Regular cu ltural events organized
bank s in immigrant centres – Immigrants e lected to home by foreign embassies
country legislatures
At least some of the activities that fall within the label of trans-
nationalism from above are well known and have been examined from
alternative conceptual focuses, including economic globalization, inter-
national relations, or cultural diffusion (Sassen 1991; Meyer et al. 1997).
For this reason, the emergent literature on transnationalism has focused,
albeit not exclusively, on the less institutionalized initiatives of ordinary
immigrants and their home country counterparts. They represent the
more novel and distinct development in this area and, hence, the one that
deserves greatest attention. Consular ofcials have been a common sight
for centuries and multinational corporation managers have been well
researched during the last decades; immigrant civic committees that liter-
ally take over public policy or public works in their hometowns have not.
For this reason, most of the case-studies included in this issue concen-
trate on this grass-roots level.
5. Identify necessary conditions
Theorizing about the determinants and practical implications of present-
day transnationalism must await the presentation and analysis of
additional evidence. It is, however, possible at this point to take a rst
step in this direction by identifying the preconditions that make the
phenomenon possible. This is because identication of these necessary
conditions does not depend so much on new empirical evidence as on the
logical contrast with earlier periods of immigration, when the same
activities were not in evidence.
Transnational enterprises did not proliferate among earlier immi-
grants because the technological conditions of the time did not make
communications across national borders rapid or easy. It was not poss-
ible for would-be transnational entrepreneurs to travel to Poland or Italy
over the weekend and be back at their jobs in New York by Monday. Nor
would it have been possible for leaders of an immigrant civic committee
to keep in daily contact with the mayor of a Russian or Austrian town in
order to learn how a public works project, nanced with immigrant
money, was progressing. Communications were slow and, thus, many of
the transnational enterprises described in today’s literature could not
have developed.
The ready availability of air transport, long-distance telephone, fac-
simile communication, and electronic mail provides the technological
basis for the emergence of transnationalism on a mass scale. While these
technical innovations have enabled governments and major corporations
to accelerate the process of transnationalism from above, their potential
has not been lost on ordinary people who have availed themselves of the
same facilities to implement their own brand of long-distance enter-
prises. The image of the immigrant businessman on his way to the airport
to pick up a consignment of foreign goods shipped the previous day,
Introduction 223
while talking on his mobile telephone to a home country partner and
sending a fax to another could not have materialized as early as two
decades ago.
Identication of necessary conditions for the rise of a phenomenon is
helpful as a guide for empirical research and also as a source of new
hypotheses. With the case in hand, if technological innovations represent
a necessary condition for the rise of grass-roots transnationalism, it
follows that the greater the access of an immigrant group to space- and
time-compressing technology, the greater the frequency and scope of this
sort of activity. Immigrant communities with greater average economic
resources and human capital (education and professional skills) should
register higher levels of transnationalism because of their superior access
to the infrastructure that makes these activities possible.
By the same token, if a second necessary condition for this phenom-
enon is the establishment of networks across space, it follows that the
more distant the nation of origin is the less dense the set of transnational
enterprises, other things being equal. This hypothesis is grounded on the
higher cost and generally greater difculty of regular contact imposed by
longer distances, thus reducing the relative proportion of immigrants
able to engage in transnational activities. On the contrary, those whose
home countries are a short hop away and who are linked to them by a
dense network of communications are in a generally better position to
initiate cross-border ventures. Obviously, the space-compressing power
of modern electronics allows persons who have command of these
resources to engage in transnational activities without the need for face-
to-face contact. Hence, the barrier of distance gradually diminishes as
communities become able to substitute traditional personal contact with
new electronic means of communication.
Variants and exceptions to these hypotheses exist and to identify them,
as well as the forces giving rise to each, there is no substitute for eld
research in sending and receiving areas. This is the methodology on
which case-studies and analyses reported in the articles included in this
issue of ERS are based.
Transnationalism in historical perspective
Though lacking the contemporary technologies of communications and
transportation, precursors of present immigrant transnationalism have
existed for centuries. As noted previously, return migration and periodic
visits to home communities have always taken place, at least among free
labour migrants. Similarly, regular contacts have always existed among
participants in political diasporas forced to resettle in a number of differ-
ent countries (Cohen 1997). Russian Jews escaping the tsarist Pale of
Settlement at the turn of the twentieth century represent a prominent
example (Rischin 1962; Howe 1976). So do Armenians eeing from
224 Alejandro Portes et al.
Turkish oppression (Noiriel 1995), or the vast Spanish diaspora follow-
ing the fascist victory in that country (Weil 1991; Sole 1995).
While these activities of immigrants and refugees across national
borders reinforced bonds between the respective communities, they
lacked the elements of regularity, routine involvement, and critical mass
characterizing contemporary examples of transnationalism. Few immi-
grants actually lived in two countries in terms of their routine daily activi-
ties. While most dreamed of going back one day, this long-term goal was
countermanded by the concerns and needs of their new lives and, for
many, eventually faded away (Handlin 1973; Thomas and Znaniecki
1984).
There have, however, been some examples of economic and political
transnationalism in history. They include what Curtin (1984) has labelled
‘trade diasporas’; that is, communities composed of itinerant merchants
who settled in foreign jurisdictions in order to engage in commerce.
Those who simply settled abroad and became progressively integrated
into local ways t more appropriately the denition of immigrant entre-
preneurs. Yet those who self-consciously preserved their distinct identi-
ties as members of a trading diaspora, cultivating their networks across
space, and travelling back and forth in pursuit of their commercial ven-
tures can legitimately be dubbed transnational entrepreneu rs.
Thus, the foreign enclaves established by Venetian, Genoese and
Hanse merchants throughout medieval Europe and identied by Pirenne
(1970) with the revival of European trade symbolize an early example of
economic transnationalism under difcult political conditions. The inter-
national activities of Genoese bankers under the protection of their
Spanish Habsburg allies were so considerable as to have been identied,
by at least one author, as initiators of the ‘rst wave’ of modern capital-
ist accumulation (Arrighi 1994). Enclaves of commercial representatives
engaged in various forms of transnational trade were established by the
Portuguese, Dutch and English in successive stages of the European
colonization of Africa and the Americas (Dobb 1963; Hardoy 1969;
Arrighi 1994). In more recent times the overseas Chinese represent a
typical example of a community of transnational traders (Freedman
1959; Lim 1983; Granovetter 1995).
Note the difference between these exceptional cases and the vast
movement of European settlers into the newly-opened lands of Africa,
the Americas and Oceania. Like subsequent labour immigrants, immi-
grant colonizers harboured dreams of riches and eventual return, but
their daily activities confronted them with the realities of a new country
and, in the process, many became permanently settled in the colonies
(Wittke 1952; Tilly 1978; Portes and Walton 1981; Tinker 1995). By and
large, early examples of economic transnationalism were of an élite type,
involving merchants and commercial representatives of some means who
maintained a rm afliation with their home ofces and communities,
Introduction 225
and who relied on long-distance networks for their own economic sur-
vival.
For examples of a more popular type of precursors to contemporary
transnational activities, one must wait for the onset of induced circular
labour migrations in the nineteenth century. The organization of circu-
lar movements of formally free foreign labourers across state borders
does not materialize on a massive scale until that time. It corresponds to
a period of relatively advanced industrial capitalism, where the expan-
sion of industry and commercial agriculture ran up against the barrier of
dwindling domestic labour supplies (Lebergott 1964). There is no ques-
tion that the agents who engaged in organizing this trafc were trans-
national entrepreneurs. What made the venture transnational for the
labourers themselves was their short tenure abroad, their dependence on
home country networks for initiating the trip and investing its eventual
prots, and the regularity with which subsequent trips were made
(Galarza 1977; Cohen 1988; Noiriel 1995).
The mass US-bound European labour migration at the turn of the
twentieth century seldom took the form of a deliberately organized cir-
cular labour ow. However, other movements were. They include the
mass recruitment of Poles for work in the heavy industries and mines of
the Ruhr in Bismarck Germany (Weber 1906 [1958]), the engagement of
Algerians and other North Africans by pre-World War II French indus-
try (Weil 1991), and the mass labour migration of Mexicans to the Ameri-
can Southwest (Santibáñez 1930; Barrera 1980). Indeed, the popularity
of Mexican labour for American ranchers and railroad builders hinged
on its temporary orientation and willingness to return when no longer
needed. This feature became permanently institutionalized with the
onset of the Bracero accord between Mexico and the United States
(Samora 1971; Portes and Bach 1985).
Instances of early political transnationalism were even less common,
but those that existed frequently had momentous consequences. They
include the dedicated efforts of certain leaders and activists abroad to lib-
erate their native lands from foreign control or to support a nascent
national state. Examples were commonly found among immigrants
coming from stateless nations in the nineteenth and early twentieth cen-
turies. According to Glazer (1954, p. 161), the rst paper in the Lithuan-
ian language was published in the United States and the nation of
Czechoslovakia was, in a sense, ‘made in America’, under the leadership
of the sociologist Tomas Masaryk.
Labour immigrants seldom engaged in this kind of transnational poli-
tics full time, but they provided the money and moral support to keep
the cause alive at home. Under the leadership of its honorary president,
Paderewski, the Polish Relief Central Committee in the United States
contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cause of Polish
national liberation in the early twentieth century (Glazer 1954;
226 Alejandro Portes et al.
Rosenblum 1973). The Republic of Cuba was also, in a sense, founded in
New York, rst under the leadership of Jose Marti and his Cuban Revol-
utionary Party, and then through the agitation of exiles that helped to
bring about US intervention against Spain (Thomas 1971, pp. 291–309;
Portell-Vila 1986, pp. 29–33).
These examples make clear that contemporary transnationalism had
plenty of precedents in early migration history. Yet these examples were,
for the most part, exceptional and lacked the novel features that have
captured the attention of researchers and that justify the coining of a new
concept. For all their signicance, early transnational economic and
political enterprises were not normative or even common among the vast
majority of immigrants, nor were they undergirded by the thick web of
regular instantaneous communication and easy personal travel that we
encounter today. Contemporary transnationalism corresponds to a
different period in the evolution of the world economy and to a differ-
ent set of responses and strategies by people in a condition of disadvan-
tage to its dominant logic. Herein lies the import of its emergence.
Signicance of the transnational eld
The rise of different forms of grass-roots transnationalism has both
theoretical and practical signicance. Theoretically, because it represents
a distinct form of immigrant adaptation to those described in the past
literature. Practically, because it offers an option to ordinary people not
present in the past, either in their own countries or in those to which they
migrate. As the process acquires momentum, grass-roots transnational-
ism has the potential of subverting one of the fundamental premises of
capitalist globalization, namely that labour stays local, whereas capital
ranges global. By availing themselves of the same technologies that make
corporate strategies possible, transnational entrepreneurs not only deny
their own labour to would-be employers at home and abroad but become
conduits of information for others. In this manner, they help to reduce
the informational gap between those engaged in the expansion of ‘trans-
nationalism from above’ and subordinate groups formerly at the mercy
of these strategies.
This line of reasoning, based on the empirical material available so far,
can be summarized in three substantive propositions. They do not
address the basic preconditions of transnationalism, as above, nor its
specic determinants in given countries but the broad dynamics of the
phenomenon and its potential implications: 1) the emergence of these
activities is tied to the logic of capitalist expansion itself; 2) while follow-
ing well-established principles of social network development, trans-
national communities represent a phenomenon at variance with
conventional expectations of immigrant assimilation; 3) because trans-
national enterprise is fuelled by the dynamics of capitalism, it has greater
Introduction 227
potential as a form of individual and group resistance to dominant struc-
tures than alternative strategies. These substantive propositions rely for
empirical justication on descriptive studies of several immigrant com-
munities, but a brief clarication of their rationale is in order.
1. Transnationalism and capitalist expansion
The real and growing demand for immigrant labour in the advanced
countries furnishes the raw material for the rise of transnational enter-
prise. Different groups of employers in the First World have required and
beneted from the presence of immigrant workers, but the latter also
learn to adapt to their new conditions. Unlike the situation earlier in the
century, when immigrants were mainly employed in industry, at present
they cluster in low-paid agriculture and menial services with few possi-
bilities for advancement (Sassen 1989, 1995; Roberts 1995). These con-
ditions provide every incentive to seek other avenues for economic
mobility, among which knowledge and access to goods and services
across national borders represent an important one.
Technological advances in long-distan ce transport and communi-
cations facilitate exploiting these opportunities for reasons we have
already examined. In this fashion, a class of transnational entrepreneurs
emerges to bridge the distinct but complementary needs of migrant and
home country populations. Demand for news and information, foods and
cultural products from their home country is high in expatriate com-
munities, while desire for appliances, advanced electronic products, and
investments nanced by immigrant capital is widespread among the
population left behind. The presence of multinational corporations and
the efcient marketing of their products in most sending countries fuels
these desires by creating new consumption aspirations, difcult to full
by people within the limits of Third World economies (Alba 1978; Portes
and Böröcz 1989; Grasmuck and Pessar 1991). Immigrants provide a
ready solution by acquiring abroad and sending the desired goods to kin
and friends and by making them accessible to others at cut-rate prices.
2. Immigrant adaptation
In keeping with the assumption that labour stays local, the immigration
literature has generally assumed that, once newcomers arrive, they settle
in the host society and undergo a gradual but inevitable process of as-
similation (Gordon 1964; Alba 1985; Alba and Nee 1997). This literature
makes allowance for a ow of returnees to their home countries, but not
for sizeable back-and-forth movements and regular exchanges of tan-
gible and intangible goods between places of origin and destination.
These movements and the binational eld that they gradually create
amount to an alternative adaptation path for immigrants in the advanced
228 Alejandro Portes et al.
world. Whereas, previously, economic success and social status depended
exclusively on rapid acculturation and entrance into mainstream circles
of the host society, at present they depend (at least for some) on culti-
vating strong social networks across national borders.
For immigrants involved in transnational activities and their home
country counterparts, success does not so much depend on abandoning
their culture and language to embrace those of another society as on pre-
serving their original cultural endowment, while adapting instrumentally
to a second (Goldring 1996; Guarnizo 1997b). In the United States it is
thus possible for immigrants to engage in transnational activities without
knowing English well and while remaining marginal to the American
social mainstream. This alternative path to economic and status achieve-
ment opens a host of new adaptation possibilities involving both immi-
grants and their offspring.
Some of these still unexplored possibilities include: a) successful trans-
national entrepreneu rs eventually returning home, taking their children
with them; b) transnationals giving up these activities to seek full assimi-
lation into the receiving society; c) their remaining indenitely in the
transnational eld, but their children becoming fully assimilated to the
host society; d) parents passing on to their offspring both their trans-
national skills and outlooks, perpetuating this social eld across gener-
ations. It is still too early to tell which of these (or other) alternatives will
become dominant, but it seems clear that they can transform the nor-
mative assimilation story, with major consequences for both sending and
receiving countries.
3. Effective resistance
The international expansion of capitalism in search of broader markets
and cheaper labour has led to various attempts to resist its depredations.
A prominent example is the ‘labour standards’ movement which has
sought to halt the wholesale transfer of low-tech industry to less devel-
oped countries by imposing First World labour standards on these
nations (Piore 1990). The idea, supported by trade unionists and some
institutional economists, is to condition access of Third World imports to
markets in the advanced countries to the observance of protective labour
covenants. Goods produced under conditions of high labour exploitation
would be barred and, in this manner, workers’ rights in both advanced
and poorer nations could be protected (Fields 1990).
The difculty with these lofty ideals is that it is difcult to put them
into practice. Enforcement of labour standards falls mainly into the
hands of Third World governments that are either not up to the task or
are unwilling to carry it out. There is good reason for this unwillingness,
since too strict an enforcement of labour codes would simply stimulate
foreign industries to move to the next low-wage country (Portes 1994).
Introduction 229
For this reason, manufactured imports from numerous Third World
countries continue to ow into the United States and Western Europe
with not a question asked about the labour conditions under which they
were produced.
Under the conditions set by global capitalism at present, mobilization
of social networks for engagement in transnational ventures offers to
Third World workers and immigrants abroad a superior alternative. This
is because the viability of these activities does not depend on cumber-
some legal covenants or the goodwill of government ofcials, but on the
skills of individuals and the activation of their social capital. For this
reason, a number of ordinary people have ceased awaiting redress from
distant governments and ponderous international bureaucracies to con-
front the challenges of the new capitalist world economy on their own.
The process can become cumulative and in time, embrace a sizeable pro-
portion of the relevant populations (Sassen 1988; Guarnizo 1992; Portes
and Dore 1994).
Just as in the past, migration abroad became ‘the thing to do’ in certain
Third World countries and localities (Cornelius 1982, 1987; Massey 1987;
Massey and Goldring 1994); in time transnational activities may evolve
into the normative adaptation path among those groups seeking to
escape the fate of cheap labour at home or abroad. It should be noted,
however, that the parallels between economic transnationalism from
above, as sponsored by multinational corporations, and its grass-roots
counterpart, are only partial. Though both make extensive use of new
technologies and depend on price and information differentials across
borders, large corporate actors rely primarily on their nancial muscle to
make such ventures possible, whereas immigrants depend on their social
capital. The long-distance networks that underlie the viability of such
small enterprises are constructed through a protracted and frequently
painful process of adaptation to a foreign society (Mahler 1995; Smith
1995; Goldring 1996). In turn, the onset of this strategy leads to the
expansion of cross-border ties. In this manner, transnational enterprise
expands and thickens cumulatively the original web of social relations
that made it possible.
Summary of contents
Four contributions to this special issue of ERS present ndings from our
ongoing comparative research project of transnational ties among immi-
grants and their home country counterparts in three Latin American
nations. Research on Colombian, Dominican and Salvadoran trans-
nationalism was undertaken on the basis of informant surveys in two large
immigrant communities for each nationality in the United States and two
cities in the country of origin. Findings suggest broad structural simi-
larities between the three cases, but also conrm the great heterogeneity
230 Alejandro Portes et al.
across transnational social elds. The study also establishes, with cer-
tainty, that for Colombia, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador the
transnational practices and processes implemented by their migrants have
become an important feature of local societies and economies.
In their article, Guarnizo and his collabourators provide what they
refer to as a general inventory of the economic, political and socio-
cultural ties that bind Colombians in New York City and Los Angele s
with their country of origin. Exploring the Colombian presence in New
York City, the authors conrm the continued importance of Jackson
Heights as an epicentre of Colombian entrepreneurship and trans-
nationalism. Colombian transnationalism in Los Angeles pales in com-
parison to its East Coast counterpart. In the light of the differences across
the two urban settings, these authors hypothesize that local contexts play
a critical role in mediating the scope and depth of migrants’ transnational
practices.
The ndings of the US-based research team are complemented by
those of their Colombia-based collaborators. Guarnizo and Luz Díaz
provide a brief but critical history of Colombian political economy and
of the urban centres in which eldwork was undertaken. They examine
the transformatory impact that the international drug cartels have had
on the local economy, labour market and society of these two cities.
Fieldwork in both Colombia and the United States indicates that the
Colombian transnational social eld is characterized by fragmentation
and distrust. Race, class and regional divisions fuse with the suspicion
and fear unleashed by the spectre of the international drug cartels to
erode sources of community social capital.
Dominican migration patterns have been the subject of much scholarly
research over the years. Itzigsohn and his collaborators provide a
thorough review of this literature, focusing on the development of a con-
ceptual map for understand ing the Dom inican transnational social eld.
A panoply of Dominican transnational practices are categorized as
‘narrow’ or ‘broad’ based on their level of institutionalization and the
extent to which they require peoples’ active participation and geographic
mobility. The authors’ discussion of political transnationalism is particu-
larly illuminating. On the narrow end of the continuum, they estimate
that 10 to 15 per cent of Dominican political campaign funds are raised
in New York City, while broad transnational political inuence is exer-
cised by migrants who, often quite unwittingly, determine the voting pat-
terns of their non-migrant kin.
The nal country in the comparative study is the war-torn nation of El
Salvador. Landolt and her collaborators argue that Salvadorans’ dra-
matic exit from their country of origin and their hostile reception in the
United States largely explains the initial propensity among Salvadorans
to forge and sustain transnational relations. They propose a dialectical
framework for analysing the interactions between Salvadoran migrants
Introduction 231
in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, with different élite and popular
sectors of their country of origin. The transnational engagement of Salva-
doran economic and political élites with the immigrant grass roots results
in the consolidation of migrants as critical agents of social, political and
economic change in El Salvador.
Popkin’s article on the Kanjobal Maya of Guatemala explores the
relationship between settlement, ethnic identity and transnationalism.
As the author recounts, migration to and settlement in Los Angeles, a
predominantly Spanish-speaking milieu, presents new challenges and
obstacles to the preservation of Mayan identity. Racism and exclusion
prompt a ‘reactive ethnic’ formation through which the Kanjobal do not
simply appropriate symbols of the homeland, but actually forge trans-
national relations that serve to reafrm their Mayan identity. Trans-
national organizations, including home town associations and parish
church groups, become a critical instrument in this collective effort. But
as Mayan organization s in Los Angeles accumulate resources, they
become, in turn, targets for co-optation by institutions created by the
Guatemalan élite.
Glick Schiller and Fouron examine political discourses in the Haitian
diaspora to investigate the ideologies underlying the formation of
transnationalized nation-states. The authors suggest that their construc-
tion rests on a racialized notion of national identity as based on descent
and bloodlines. Across class and generational differences, Haitians con-
sistently make references to Haitianness as blood-ties but the latent
functions of this discourse vary across social strata. For Haitians who
depend on family remittances, the use of a racialized Haitian identity
serves to legitimize their survival strategies. In the diaspora, the san-
guinity of Haitianness preserves self-esteem in the face of discrimination
while, for Haiti’s political élite, its popular discourse and the transac-
tions it guarantees become the basis for the formation of a transnational
nation-state.
David Kyle presents a fascinating historical account of the develop-
ment of an entrepreneurial transnational migration, namely the indigen-
ous Quichua-speaking Otavalans of Northern Ecuador. The author
describes how present-day Otavalans scout South America for market-
able handicrafts and then travel to Europe, North America and Asia,
stopping in large cities to recreate ‘authentic’ Indian markets for local
seekers of exotica. In effect, the Otavalans have emerged as the princi-
pal brokers of native crafts from Latin America in the global economy.
In the process, their identity as an entrepreneurial transnational group
has been greatly strengthened.
In their article, Bryan Roberts and his collaborators investigate the
causes and consequences of what they identify as a major reorganization
of Mexican migration patterns. They argue that changes in social and
economic conditions in Mexico and in urban economies and legislatio n
232 Alejandro Portes et al.
in the United States are restructuring the established Mexico-US
migration system. The most signicant shift is from a pattern of tempo-
rary migration towards a transnational migration system in which
migrants settle abroad but sustain signicant ties with their places of
origin. In the light of this hybrid migration system, the authors introduce
Hirschman’s concepts of Exit, Voice and Loyalty to explore the dilem-
mas faced by migrants and by the sending states. They hypothesize that
a transnational migration pattern results when both the return pull of
sending communities and retaining power of receiving economies are
high. These ideas are then applied to an analysis of rural and urban
migrants living in Austin, Texas.
Jointly, the empirical case-studies examined in these articles attest to
the reality of the transnational eld as well as to its internal heterogene-
ity. While these studies generally conrm our earlier assertion concern-
ing the technological prerequisites for the rise of transnational activities
on a large scale, they also point to the unique forces in different coun-
tries and immigrant communities that have triggered their start. Reasons
of a political order gure high in the onset of Salvadoran transnational-
ism, whereas those underpinning the Otavalans’ world-ranging enter-
prises are grounded in the centuries-old history and internal bonds of
solidarity in this Andean community. Colombian migration is heavily
marked by the ramications of the international drug trade, while a
century-old Mexican labour migration becomes increasingly entrepre-
neurial and transnational in response to changing relations between
sending and receiving countries. As a whole, the research reported in the
following pages offers a solid basis for advancing theory in this emergent
eld as well as guidelines for future policy in sending and receiving coun-
tries. We take up each of these issues in the Conclusion.
Notes
1. Examples are unfortunately numerous and range from treatises on hypothetical
psychoanalytic concepts to more recent disquisitions on ‘post-modernity’, to name but a
few. Extensive analyses have been devoted to such topics without a rm basis for estab-
lishing their existence or the range of empirical phenomena that they are supposed to
encompass.
2. Once again, examples are no t difcult to nd. They include such terms as ‘signi cant
other’, ‘charisma ’, and, more recently, ‘globalizatio n’, each of which has been applied in
many disparate contexts. That proliferation of uses has led to contradictory interpretations
and to the loss of the terms’ heuristic value. As they devolved into journalistic clichés, they
gradually ceased to be objects of serious scientic investigation. For the case of another
imperilled concept, social capital, see Portes and Landolt (1996).
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LUIS E. GUARNIZO is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Uni-
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PATRICIA LANDO LT is a doctoral candidate in the Department of
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ADDRESS: Professor Alejandro Portes, Department of Sociology, 2N1
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Introduction 237
ACK NOWLEDGEME NTS
The editors wish to acknowledge the contribution of the following
scholars who served as reviewers of the articles included in or
submitted to this Special Issue:
Christopher Chase-Dunn, The Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore, MD
Thomas J. Espenshade, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
Steven Gold, Michigan State University, Lansing, MI
Luin Goldring, York University, Toronto
Barbara Schmitter Heisler, Gettysburg College, PA
Philip Kasinitz, Hunter College, City University of New York, NY
A. Douglas Kincaid, Florida International University, Miami, FL
Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz, University of Maryland at College
Park
Peggy Levitt, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Rubén G. Rumbaut, Michigan State University, Lansing, MI
Michael Peter Smith, University of California, Davis
Robert Smith, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York
City
Min Zhou, University of California at Los Angeles
