This article was downloaded by: [Yale University Library]
On: 11 September 2012, At: 07:05
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjms20
Migrants' New Transnational Habitus:
Rethinking Migration Through a
Cosmopolitan Lens in the Digital Age
Mihaela Nedelcu
a
a
Sociology, University of Neuchâtel
Version of record first published: 02 Jul 2012.
To cite this article: Mihaela Nedelcu (2012): Migrants' New Transnational Habitus: Rethinking
Migration Through a Cosmopolitan Lens in the Digital Age, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies,
38:9, 1339-1356
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2012.698203
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-
conditions
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation
that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any
instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary
sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,
demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or
indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Migrants’ New Transnational Habitus:
Rethinking Migration Through a
Cosmopolitan Lens in the Digital Age
Mihaela Nedelcu
This article puts forward a cosmopolitan reading of international migration, focusing on
the role played by ICTs in generating new ways of living together and acting
transnationally in the digital era. After underlining some of the complex dimensions
of the transnational debate and the limits of methodological nationalism, I will argue
that revisiting the nationalÁtransnational nexus by adopting an ‘inclusive cosmopolitan’
stance would lead to a better understanding of the dialogically ubiquitous condition of
the modern migrant. An analysis of Internet use by Romanian professionals in Toronto
and their transnational families will shed light on the mechanisms through which ICTs
produce connected lifestyles, enhance the capacity to harness otherness, and facilitate
socialisation beyond borders, thus generating new transnational habitus.
Keywords: Transnationalism; Methodological Nationalism; Cosmopolitanism;
Transnational Habitus; Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs); Online
Migrants
Introduction
For me it’s not a ritual, but a way of being. Every morning I send an email to say hello
to my sister [who lives in Toronto]; I also regularly send her sms text messages
throughout the day. She is my confidante and adviser. I talk with my parents [in
Romania] on Skype at least once a week, and my brother from Berlin [Germany] often
joins us. [. . .] We chat for hours on Skype when there are important decisions to be
made within the family, though if need be one of us might end up making the trip to
Romania. [. . .] The same goes for my work. I’m in daily contact with colleagues from
headquarters in London, as well as colleagues from Bucharest, Munich and
Rome . . . Generally I would say that I’m more aware of what happens in the world
than I am of events in my neighbourhood (43-year-old female, Switzerland).
Mihaela Nedelcu is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Neuchaˆtel. Correspondence to:
Dr M. Nedelcu, Institute of Sociology, University of Neuchaˆtel, Faubourg de l’Hoˆpital 27, 2000 Neuchaˆtel,
Switzerland. E-mail: mihaela.nedelcu@unine.ch.
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
Vol. 38, No. 9, November 2012, pp. 1339Á1356
ISSN 1369-183X print/ISSN 1469-9451 online/12/091339-18 # 2012 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2012.698203
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012
Once seen as a ‘double absence’*‘Not here, nor there’ (Sayad 1999)*the
contemporary migrant is developing new ways of being together within a web of
social ties that span borders. He or she is able to master new geographies of everyday
life and strategically use his or her multiple belongings and identifications within a
ubiquitous regime of co-presence engendered by the technological developments of
the twenty-first century. In a world transformed by the digital revolution and
complex globalisation processes, international migrations enable transnational
everyday practices still unheard of as recently as a decade ago. Moreover, the
widespread use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) generates a
multiplicity of flows characterised by the simultaneity and intensity of transnational
exchanges. Indeed, the above quote by a Romanian migrant living in Switzerland
illustrates the chasm between such modes of communication and early-twentiethcentury
letters sent by the Polish peasant in the United States to stay in contact
transnationally (Thomas and Znaniecki 1998), or the audio tapes with which
Algerian migrants living in France used to communicate with relatives back home in
the 1980s (Sayad 1985). Today, the Internet facilitates the co-presence of mobile
actors in multiple locations and allows the emergence of a new transnational habitus.
It also enhances new, connected ways of mobilisation and cohesion at a distance,
although there are still many (unskilled) migrants who cannot benefit yet, on a large
scale, from the digital revolution.
This paper addresses these social transformations on both an epistemological and
an empirical level. A short overview of the transnational approach will highlight some
of the complex dimensions of the transnational debate. Emphasis will be placed on a
critique of methodological nationalism and the ability of social sciences to
deconstruct the territorial equation between state, nation and society. I then argue
that connecting the transnational approach to a more general epistemological debate
could generate further useful insights. More specifically, I will suggest that revisiting
the nationalÁtransnational nexus by adopting an ‘inclusive cosmopolitan’ stance
(Beck 2006) would lead to a better understanding of the dialogically ubiquitous
condition of the modern migrant. This analysis is articulated around the banal
cosmopolitanisation of social life and the emergence of a new transnational social
habitus.
Based on a qualitative sociological study of ICT use by Romanian migrants
conducted between 2002 and 2007, this paper shows that, in a migratory context, the
Internet becomes a tool for social innovation, reshaping concepts such as national
borders, space, time and mobility. ICTs produce new networked lifestyles, facilitate
socialisation beyond borders, and enhance migrants’ capacity to harness otherness,
make decisions and act across borders in real time, generating new transnational
habitus in the long run.
To conclude, this study explores the social significance of this phenomenon, and
reveals the ambivalence of computer-mediated transnational practices as analysed
through a cosmopolitan lens: on the one hand, ICTs allow migrants to form multiple
belongings, to capture cosmopolitan values, to develop deterritorialised identities and
1340 M. Nedelcu
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012
biographies and to act at a distance in real time; on the other hand, while accelerating
integration and incorporation paths in host societies, ICTs also enable migrants to
defend particularistic values and to claim a particular belonging while living as global
citizens.
Revisiting Transnationalism in the Digital Age: Epistemological Considerations
Over the past 20 years, transnationalism has become a major paradigm in migration
studies (Glick Schiller et al. 1992; Portes et al. 1999; Vertovec 2009). This approach
reflects a ‘growing disjunction between territory, subjectivity and collective social
movement’ (Appadurai 1996: 189) and captures various economic, cultural and
political practices and dynamics that cut across national borders, thus generating new
social morphologies such as transnational communities, networks and social spaces.
The heuristic value of the transnational paradigm resides precisely in its ability to
encapsulate the disconnection between state, national, cultural and geographical
borders. Furthermore, by deconstructing the territorial equation between state,
nation and society, transnational scholarship puts forward serious arguments for
changing the lens through which social scientists perceive and analyse the world
(Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002).
As a constructivist approach, transnationalism is the starting point of an autoanalytical
reflection which aims to understand
[b]oth the social scientists observing the social world as well as the effects that this
has on this world and how, at the same time, the forces of the social world shape the
outlook of the social scientists (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002: 302).
Although transnational processes existed long before the twentieth century (Portes
et al. 1999; Schnapper 2001; Vertovec 1999), the advent of the digital revolution
ushered in an entirely new qualitative phase (Beck 2006; Castells 1998; Nedelcu
2009a; Vertovec 2009). ICTs enabled new forms of migrant transnationalism
characterised not only by the growing intensity of transnational exchanges and
activities, but also by a ubiquitous system of communication that allows migrants to
connect with multiple, geographically distant and culturally distinct worlds to which
they identify and participate on a daily basis (Nedelcu 2010; Vertovec 2009). These
new technological capabilities are transforming the significance of the territorial
rooting of migrants’ social life. Many migrants move easily within transnational social
spaces and frame new social configurations by creating new social and political
geographies. Online migrants thus embody many complexities resulting from the
cosmopolitanisation processes of interconnected social worlds: multiple, overlapping
spaces of belonging; multipolar systems of references, loyalties and identifications;
increasingly complex citizenship regimes; interconnected lifestyles; and the ability to
act at a distance in real time (Beck 2006; Georgiou 2010; Nedelcu 2009a, 2010).
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 1341
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012
Toward a Cosmopolitan Reading of Migrant Transnationalism
This evolving social reality raises the question of whether the tools of social sciences
are appropriate for the study and understanding of new migratory dynamics, in
particular in light of the technological revolution.
Highly aware of these transformations, many scholars are more likely to develop a
‘global perspective’ on migratory processes (Badie et al. 2008; Wimmer and Glick
Schiller 2002). Based on broader theoretical reflections which have spread rapidly in
the past few years, some go even further and argue for a ‘cosmopolitan turn’ (Beck
2006) in migration studies (Nedelcu 2009a, 2010). This entails connecting
transnational studies to an epistemological debate that attempts to develop a new
grammar for social sciences. This debate centres around social processes variously
described by prominent scholars as ‘cultural turn’ (Chivallon 2006), ‘glocalisation’
(Robertson 1994; Roudometof 2005), ‘denationalisation’ (Sassen 2003), ‘internal
globalisation’ (Beck 2002) and ‘mobility turn’ (Urry 2008). Each of the above
concepts points to a different dimension of this new stage of modernity. Their focus
is on ‘hybridity’ and creolisation (Hannerz 1996), multiple belongings and
allegiances, ‘liquid’ life and identity (Bauman 2006), the deterritorialisation of
practices, ways of being ‘in-between’, etc. Examining the way in which globalisation
transforms both individual lives and identities, and public institutions, recent
scholarship converges to identify a paradigm shift that requires going beyond a
binary framework of analysis. Whether explicitly or implicitly, it points out the limits
of ‘methodological nationalism’,1
i.e. the analytical lens used by social sciences, which
assumes that the nation-state is the implicit ‘container’ of social structures, processes
and dynamics (Beck 2006; Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002).
By disclosing the limitations of ‘social science precepts’ that are essentially
‘territorial’ and ‘sedentary’ (Hannam et al. 2006), these debates have set up a new
research agenda which aims to deconstruct the equation society0nation0state and
to show that static territorial (i.e. national) boundaries are becoming obsolete
frameworks for reflection when it comes to social structures, in a context of
increasing mobility, pluralisation of allegiances, and transnational and cosmopolitan
affiliations (Beck 2006, 2008; Benhabib 2004; Georgiou 2010; Urry 2000).
I therefore propose to revisit the nationalÁtransnational nexus by following Ulrich
Beck (2006) in his attempt to elaborate a general social theory based on a
‘cosmopolitan vision’ and the ‘both here and there’ condition of the modern mobile
actor. Beck suggests that social science scholars should integrate transnational
awareness in their conceptual and methodological toolkit. This new ‘cosmopolitan
grammar’ would provide us with a different approach to the seemingly contradictory
co-existence of local and particularistic movements with global and universalistic
trends. ‘Methodological cosmopolitanism’ would then replace the national perspective’s
‘eitherÁor’ disjunctive stance with a ‘bothÁand’ approach (Beck 2002, 2006). In
his attempt to set up a new epistemology for the social sciences, Beck emphasises the
importance of three main features of the cosmopolitan condition:
1342 M. Nedelcu
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012
“ The ‘dialogical imagination’, i.e. social actors’ capacity for perceiving ‘other’s
otherness’ (Hannerz 1996)*that is, the contradictions and complementarities
that exist between different cultures*and for incorporating them in a creative
manner (Beck 2006). The development of this capacity is connected with a process
of banal cosmopolitanisation resulting in a ‘passage from place-monogamous to
place-polygamous ways of living’ (Beck 2000: 74Á5). One should take into account
not only the ability of social actors to act at a distance, but also the increasing
globalisation of biographies and life trajectories which relate ‘not just to any kind
of multiple location, but only to that multilocation which involves crossing the
borders of separate worlds (nations, religions, cultures, skin colors, continents
etc.) and whose oppositions must or may lodge in a single life’ (Beck 2000: 75).
“ The ‘additive inclusion’ principle, which reflects a subtle process of interpenetration
of cultures and conveys the ‘politically ambivalent, reflexive’ (Beck 2006) and
‘vernacular’ (Werbner 2006) characteristics of the (post)modern condition, thus
allowing the association of contradictory concepts, as well as the co-existence of
very local and particularistic claims with transcending elitist universalist practices,
deployed translocally as well as transnationally. Thus,
[the] cosmopolitan model is about being equal and being different at the same
time. This is the ‘cosmopolitan grammar’. It’s not about saying, there is no longer
any distinction between us and them (Rantanen 2005: 258).
“ This logic transcends national/international, outside/inside dichotomies with a
cumulative framework whereby one can be simultaneously in and out within a
multipolar system of references; i.e. social actors can be simultaneously included
and excluded, occupy different social positions in the societies of different
countries, and be engaged in both local and global movements (Beck 2002, 2006).
“ The ‘local-cosmopolitan continuum’, which corresponds to an analytical tool that
positions actors within social space according to their degree of attachment and
identification to a locality and a local culture, state or region; and the resulting
degree of economic, cultural and institutional protectionism (Roudometof 2005).
In line with this approach, Beck defends the idea that social science must be reestablished
as a transnational science of the reality of denationalisation, transnationalisation
and ‘re-ethnification’ in a global age*and this on the levels of concepts,
theories and methodologies as well as organisationally. This entails a re-examination
of the fundamental concepts of ‘modern society’. Household, family, class, social
inequality, democracy, power, state, commerce, public, community, justice, law,
history, and politics must be released from the fetters of methodological nationalism,
reconceptualised and empirically established within the framework of a cosmopolitan
social and political science (2003: 458).
Adopting this new epistemological perspective in social sciences would enable us to
understand the transformation of societies through a ‘globalisation from within’
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 1343
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012
(Beck 2003), which reflects the process of cosmopolitanisation of nation-state
societies (Beck 2006)*and therefore to rethink the territorial dimensions of social
life in terms of a continuum, by recognising the growing interdependencies between
national and global manifestations of social processes, independently of their local
anchorage. This theoretical turn implies not only the development of a new
transnational awareness within empirical research, but also a reappraisal of sociological
theory so as to explain how internal globalisation is transforming key concepts
in sociology.
The cosmopolitan perspective hence opens promising paths for the study of
international migration in the digital age. It seems to be an appealing alternative to
both ‘ethnocentric nationalism’ and ‘particularistic multiculturalism’ (Vertovec
2001), and allows for a new reading of the transnational actions and allegiances of
migrant and non-migrant populations who enlarge their horizon of aspirations
beyond home and host countries (Burrell and Anderson 2008). It helps to better
understand how glocalisation (Robertson 1994) impacts on people’s social and
geographic mobility and for a better grasp of the multiform and multi-scale
interdependencies between globalisation and migration processes, beyond insider/
outsider, mobile/sedentary, national/transnational dichotomies. Besides making the
deep transformations of migrants’ social life produced by ICT, mobilities and
globalisation more comprehensible, the ‘cosmopolitan vision’ gives these transformations
meaning in relation with a new emerging ‘geometry of power’ (Massey 1993).
Furthermore, cosmopolitan sociology is better able to capture the new social
differentiation generated by the timeÁspace compression proper to reflexive
(post)modernity (Beck 2006; Harvey 1989) and to interpret a new structuring of
social space through what Giddens (1984) calls ‘spaceÁtime distanciation’, i.e. a
reorganisation of time and space within social life that takes into account the
presence and action of the ‘absent other’*i.e. one who is ‘locationally distant from
any given situation of face-to-face interaction’ (Giddens 1990: 18).
This implies looking at how informational proximity within a permanent regime
of digital ubiquity transforms the very significance of geographical distance, identity
and social ties for both migrant and non-migrant populations, which in turn leads us
to consider the transnational practices of migrants in relation to the broader process
of socialisation of new generations, whereby social representations, social networks
and the imaginary go beyond local and national contexts.
Transnational Social Fields and Habitus: A Cosmopolitan Reading of Migrants’
Connected Lifestyles in the Digital Age
The transnational approach points to a significant change occurring in social life:
indeed, a number of everyday contexts have acquired a transnational dimension, not
only for migrants but also for non-migrant populations, with the latter experiencing
transnational phenomena without the concurring spatial mobility. This surge in
lifestyles shaped by mobility, instant communication and remote social relations has
1344 M. Nedelcu
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012
affected the world of both migrants and non-migrants. Such an assumption is at the
core of scholarship aimed at reformulating the concept of society based on the
emergence of multi-located transnational social fields. Levitt and Glick Schiller (2003)
refer to these fields as social forms that span borders and connect intertwined
territorial scales and social spaces with overlapping power hierarchies.
ICTs play an important role within these processes as they tend to diversify ways of
being together and ways of belonging at a distance; i.e. on the one hand, social
transnational ties and practices and, on the other, the memories, nostalgia and shared
imaginary which push migrants to connect with other people because of their ethnic
background or common interests, a shared openness to the world or commitment to
specific cultures. The concept of a transnational social field is therefore of particular
heuristic value due to its capacity to investigate a historically new form of social
differentiation in the digital age. It provides a multifocal analytical framework for
identities, social positions and the power relations that exist between various social
actors with different degrees of openness to other cultures and different cultural and
territorial commitment to specific places, traditions and institutions. This concept
also imparts meaning to migrants’ conservative or transformative behaviours in
relation to the transformation of social roles and status (Levitt and Glick Schiller
2003; Vertovec 2009).
Weaving the social fabric is thus becoming a complex, deterritorialised process,
and socialisation as the learning of cultural norms and the building of a lived world
(Dubar 2000) is gradually released from its territorial anchoring. As I further argue,
transnational families are the exemplary social matrix generating new patterns of
socialisation, due to the fact that intergenerational exchanges, the transmission of
values and the inculcation of social habitus increasingly tend to take place within
deterritorialised contexts (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2003; Nedelcu 2009b; Vuorela
2002; see also Bacigalupe and Ca´mara, this issue). The Internet, and in particular its
visio functionalities such as Skype, MSN etc., widely contribute to this process,
providing social actors with effective tools with which to intervene and adapt to the
ongoing cosmopolitanisation of everyday life (Beck 2008).
Hence social habitus is increasingly shaped by the transnational dimension of
social life. As a system of ‘durable and transposable’ dispositions (Bourdieu 1979)
that generate practices and representations, social habitus conveys the way in which
an individual’s social background and early social experiences imprint on his or her
‘way of being’ in the world through an*often unconscious*process of internalisation
of exteriority. Pierre Bourdieu (1979) has pointed out, however, that habitus ‘is
not destiny’, but rather the product of socialisation; thus it tends to reproduce past
behaviour within a familiar context but gives way to innovation when faced with
novel situations.
This innovative transformation is what interests us most here, namely the way in
which transnational lifestyles imprint socialisation processes. I argue that transnational
habitus is a useful concept for the analysis of transnational experiences in the
digital age, as well as for the interpretation of mechanisms through which migrants
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 1345
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012
manage multiplicity and develop transnational and cosmopolitan skills*whether
emotional, analytical, creative, communication or functional (Vertovec 2009).
Another of Bourdieu’s concepts, often seen as peripheral (Costey 2005), could prove
of heuristic interest: the illusio. The illusio is the mechanism through which habitus
operates, i.e. ‘an enchanted relationship with a game resulting from an ontological
bond between the mental structures and the objective structures of social space’
(Bourdieu 1996: 151, my translation). This reconciliation between habitus and social
field, between a subjective and an objective meaning, ‘allows those with practical
mastery of a given environment to anticipate correctly the developments of the social
game’ (Costey 2005: 14, my translation).
The following section looks more specifically at transnational ICT-mediated
practices connecting Romanian migrants and non-migrants on a regular/permanent
basis as a generator of transnational habitus. The study of Internet use by Romanian
transnational families and networks will be the starting point to our understanding of
how a transnational everyday reality emerges, based on ubiquity, simultaneity and
immediacy of interaction over borders. This, in turn, will enable us to explain the
emergence of a transnational shared knowledge embedded in everyday practices,
which often appears unconsciously since ‘the illusio does not pertain to explicit
principles, nor is it a theory that can be clearly formulated and argued; it belongs to
the realm of action, routine, things we do’ (Bourdieu 1997: 122, my translation). I
highlight the way in which Romanian migrants, and in particular highly skilled ones,
form their own habitus based on their experience of mobility and a mixture of local,
national and cosmopolitan cultural references, and how rooting occurs within an ‘on
the move ‘ lifestyle.
‘Feeling at Home Worldwide’: Transnational Habitus Formation and
ICT-Mediated Social Ties
Families living transnationally, second-generation children speaking two or more
languages from an early age, transnationally educated mobile professionals who
acquire eclectic social and cultural skills, and non-migrants learning a sense of
otherness at ‘home’ are shaping the ontological symbols of a cosmopolitanisation
process through which people become aware of the relativity of their social position
and culture within a larger global social space (Beck 2008).
Studying the migration of highly skilled Romanian professionals to Toronto
revealed how complex a role the Internet plays in the setting of new migratory
patterns. Using the results of previous research as a starting point (Nedelcu 2002,
2009a, 2009b), I now look at deterritorialised lifestyles and communication modes as
generators of transnational habitus, based on the assumption that they embody the
premises of ‘actually existing cosmopolitanism’, i.e. cosmopolitanism as ‘an
1346 M. Nedelcu
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012
‘‘ordinary’’ aspect of contemporary modern life’ (Amit 2007: 9) which results from a
larger process of ‘globalisation from within’ (Beck 2003).
Methodological Considerations
This study of the transnational ICT-mediated practices of Romanian migrants started
from the ‘netnographic’ observation (Nedelcu 2009a) of the migratory strategies that
IT and computing professionals have developed online since the mid-1990s.2
Until
2007, Canada represented a target destination for this particular category of
Romanian specialists, due to the numerous restrictions they encountered on
European labour markets as well as the incentives provided by Canadian migratory
policy. In fact, in 2002, Romania occupied the seventh position in the origin
countries providing Canada with immigrants (after China, India, the Philippines,
Pakistan, the United States and South Korea), and was the first European sending
country. Between 4,000 and 5,000 people arrived each year and more than half
entered Canada as highly skilled main applicants, mostly computing and IT
professionals, engineers or S&T (Science and Technology) specialists.
There was little connection between the Romanian refugees who arrived in Canada
before 1989 and the new wave of young professionals who started to migrate en masse
after the collapse of communism. As Romanian migratory networks were almost
non-existent, a pioneer migrant website*www.thebans.com*became the cornerstone
of a new migratory pattern in the mid-1990s (Nedelcu 2002, 2009a). Although
nowadays collaborative Internet platforms have become commonplace, at the time
using the Internet to reproduce a ‘savoir-circuler’ (Tarrius 1993) was perceived as
socially innovative (Nedelcu 2002).
An approach focused on ICT use as a migratory tool and resource showed that
computing professionals played a key role in developing new migratory and
diasporic dynamics, acting as a community catalyst. Furthermore, a first six-month
period of online ethnography revealed that online practices are highly intertwined
with offline life and effectively impact on migrants’ lifestyles. As researching online
social environments needs increased awareness about critical challenges and the
internal consistency of research methodology (Markham 1998; Markham and
Baym 2009), a second phase of research then centred on the overlapping of ICT
and transnational practices in the everyday life of Romanian migrants. I then used
a multi-sited approach (Marcus 1998) and combined different qualitative methods:
in particular the netnography (i.e. online observation) of websites and discussion
fora as well as the content analysis of webographic data, mixed with semistructured
and comprehensive interviews and participant observation in the
Romanian community in Toronto. More than 60 interviews were conducted
with migrant professionals and their families, including second-generation children
and migrants’ parents. While few key actors of the online fora were initially
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 1347
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012
interviewed, the recruiting strategy employed snowball techniques and resulted in a
rather eclectic group of participants, with various degrees of Internet use and
transnational or cosmopolitan outlooks.
Adapting at a Distance and Harnessing Otherness
For most skilled Romanian migrants arriving in Toronto in the early 2000s, their
migration process had already started a few months or years earlier. As Kathrin
Kissau (this issue) also argues, ‘The Internet has become an asset for collecting
information about the immigration country’. Websites, migration discussion fora and
the intensive exchange of emails with colleagues already living in Canada contributed
to the transnational socialisation of future migrants. The narrative below describes
the path that many migrants followed at that time:
On the day I arrived in Toronto, I knew exactly what steps I had to take in the
following weeks. I’d even worked out a day by day schedule to deal with
administrative matters more efficiently. While I was still at home, I tried to get in
touch with people in Canada. First I found a discussion group for Romanians in
Vancouver. They directed me towards www.thebans.com, the website for Romanians
coming to Canada. On this website, I found guidelines for newcomers and a
section dealing with practicalities: preparing for departure, what to bring in your
luggage, what to do during the first week, etc. Before my departure, I spent almost
two months on this website’s fora. It was an amazing way of getting acquainted
with the Canadian way of life and it helped me to have a more open mind
(IT professional, male, 26).
Hence, the future migrant becomes acquainted with his or her future host society
long before actually moving there. The migrant’s representation of the world and of
others begins to adjust through a growing awareness of cultural differences and
specificities; the Internet plays a crucial role in the process of reshaping values beyond
borders and local cultural frameworks.
We learned about cultural diversity from the discussion fora; it was good to be in
touch with the reality of Canadian life before leaving Bucharest. This prepared us
for our future life in Toronto. In Romania, the idea that people from countries that
you can’t even locate on a map could come to work and live among you was
unthinkable. For decades, Romania was isolated and we lived in a very closed
society, culturally speaking. Canada is exactly the opposite. When I told a colleague
I wasn’t Canadian, he replied: ‘You are not Canadian yet because you’ve only
arrived a year ago, but you will be in two or three years’ time. If you live here, you’re
Canadian!’ (Engineer, female, 28).
Online migrants are actively participating in the (re)configuration of their own
identity, negotiating its boundaries and learning to live with a multiple sense of self.
Regular use of ICTs helps them to adapt to new social codes, constantly redefine their
‘mosaic’ identity (Melucci 1989) and enlarge their ‘social horizon’ (Burrell and
1348 M. Nedelcu
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012
Anderson 2008). Moreover, discussion fora provide a secure environment for gradual
social learning.
I remember closely following the controversies generated by the massive presence of
Indian, Pakistani and Chinese immigrants in Canada on the ‘TheBans’ fora. For a
few days, I kept thinking about how we would feel living among these people. The
online discussions were disturbing, as they questioned our representations of
Canada as a society with a high standard of living. It was difficult to imagine that
quality of life and cultural diversity go hand in hand! But it was good to realise at
that time, before leaving Romania, that I was completely wrong [. . .] in hindsight
I can now say that the debate was undoubtedly racist! Furthermore, it completely
ignored the fact that these ‘exotic’ migrants’ were also educated people, mostly IT
professionals, just like us (IT programmer, female, 32).
In more general terms, Romanian professionals have learned to be both ‘from here
and there’, the same and different, and to understand that mixing with other cultures
does not weaken their own identity but, on the contrary, helps them to find their
place within a world of global interdependencies, providing them with the ability to
better negotiate their interests in relation to different local and national contexts.
At the upper end of this process one notices the emergence of a type of ‘global
player’ who identifies less with a culture or a specific group and more with a new
cosmopolitan way of being, combined with a constant effort to adapt to a dynamic
and fragmented reality.3
Thus the life trajectory of migrant professionals is built
within a culture of mobility, both professional and geographic. ICTs have helped to
transform migrant professionals’ perception of timeÁspace constraints and engendered
mobile lifestyles, as illustrated by the following narrative:
For us, the world is becoming smaller and smaller. We move wherever we feel at
ease. And we feel at home anywhere in the world [. . .] Nowadays, one can be
located anywhere in the world and still be wherever one’s presence is required. For
instance, our Canadian customers never knew that we were on leave in China for
six months. Our company continued to function normally although we were away.
We replied to work-related emails from a hotel in China, from the beach in Brazil
or, as we have done this morning, from our friends’ home in Basel. Only a handful
of close collaborators in Toronto know exactly where we are and they contact us
when it’s absolutely necessary. The work we do doesn’t require our physical
presence, at least not every day (IT professional, male 37).
Computing professionals seem to set themselves up as the vanguards of a new
cosmopolitan lifestyle, as they possess a particular set of skills that precociously
fostered them to develop transnational mindsets and attitudes. Experiences of
transnationalism and everyday routines of digital communication intersect in the
lives of IT migrant professionals and accelerate the formation of a transnational
habitus. Skilled migrants in particular are able to shape the meaning of their own
mobility and to build their own world in a dialogic4
relation within the social spaces
and societies they encompass. Consequently, the online migrant is in control of the
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 1349
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012
mechanisms that disembed his or her social relations from local contexts of
interaction and transform spaceÁtime perceptions of social ties. The Internet appears
as an intermediary transnational social space, a kind of liminal site(s) characterised
by a significant degree of creativity. This zone of multiple borders is a frontier of
modernity, where new ways of addressing the problems of contemporary social
relations are sought (Karim 2003: 16).
At the other end of the process, within the society of the home country, there is a
shift in attitudes, values and representations. A kind of cohabitation at a distance sets
in and feeds into existing ways of imagining otherness, as suggested by the father, in
Bucharest, of a Romanian migrant in Toronto:
I was receiving news from my son almost daily via email and became very interested
in his everyday life, what he likes and dislikes about his new city, Toronto. He told me
about his first days there and about his experiences; he sent me links to websites
explaining practical matters and describing the Canadian way of life. I finally
understood that being Canadian means learning to live together, to accept the
differences, values and inputs of each individual. This really changed my perception
of things; today I’m no longer surprised to see Chinese or Turkish people coming to
my country . . . or rather, it doesn’t annoy me anymore (Architect, male, 66).
A grandmother in her 60s who has divided her time between the two countries
since her retirement two years ago and is responsible for taking care of her grandson,
explains the upheaval in her values and beliefs provoked by her new lifestyle:
When I arrived in Toronto for the first time, I had contradictory feelings. Before my
arrival, I was in daily contact with my daughter and I felt familiar with her everyday
environment. She and her husband sent me photos and videos; I knew their
apartment, their neighbours and their neighbourhood. We spoke via MSN two or
three times a week, so I kept track of their life on an ongoing, regular basis.
However, when I took the subway in Toronto for the first time I felt as though I was
at a United Nations meeting . . . I really had a shock. I couldn’t have imagined what
a ‘multicultural society’ meant. [. . .] I learned a lot from my grandson. He was
born in Toronto and was brought up with an international outlook. He is 13 years
old and is not entirely Romanian, nor is he wholly Canadian either... He spends his
time on the Internet observing what is happening in the world [...] last year he told
us that he will go and live in Asia in a few years’ time. He said to me: ‘I already
know Europe and America. In future, China will lead the world’. . . Fifteen years ago
I would never have dreamt of travelling outside communist Romania . . . But now
I can understand my daughter better . . . They have lived in Berlin, Dublin and now
Toronto... their values and ideals are different from those of our generation, they
have so many more options in their life; they are less attached to a single place, even
if they are still proud of their Romanian background (retired female, 63).
These examples suggest that ICTs are able to transform the values and beliefs of
elderly people through a belated process of education to otherness. It results in a
renewed vision of the world fuelled by the new practices and representations observed
in migrant households during the grandparents’ stay in Canada, or by intensive
1350 M. Nedelcu
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012
mediated communication among geographically dispersed transnational families
(Bryceson and Vuorela 2002; Nedelcu 2009b). These ‘social remittances’ (Levitt 1998)
have complex consequences. They allow non-migrants not only to learn about
Canada or Canadians, but also to open up to cultural difference and absorb a
different mode of communication about and with the Other.
Socialisation Without Borders: The Development of a Transnational Habitus
In the digital age of communication, family ties have not really weakened. The
Internet, mobile telephony and the new generations of smart phones combine written,
oral and visual forms of expression that closely replicate face-to-face communication.
E-mail, chat and online video calls through interfaces such as MSN or Skype are just
some of the technological possibilities providing new forms of simultaneous copresence.
Those who are physically absent are, in fact, increasingly present in everyday
situations, and a continuity of social ties develops in spite of geographical distance.
My day always starts with an email to my parents. They tell me about their daily
routine and, even before they came to visit, they already knew a lot about the details of
our life in Toronto. [. . .] Once a week we talk on Skype. The webcam gives another*
more tangible*dimension to our relationship [...] I’m part of their daily life as much
as they are of ours. In fact, you could say we’ve never parted (Engineer, male, 29).
These ongoing exchanges allow families to maintain constant contact at a lower
cost and improve the quality of distant bonds, which instigates new modes of living
together for a geographically dispersed family. The father who, thousands of
kilometres from Bucharest, monitors his children by webcam from his apartment
in Toronto, is a prime example of the new possibilities brought about by the Internet:
This evening I have to baby-sit. When my wife is home alone (in Bucharest) and
she has to go downstairs, for example to prepare dinner, she focuses the webcam on
the babies. I keep an eye on them and if one of them starts to cry, I let her know by
SMS (IT engineer, male, 43).
This kind of situation points to the development of a sense of closeness irrespective
of face-to-face interaction and local proximity. As a consequence, socialisation
processes are acquiring a new dimension as ICT use is rapidly growing and
diversifying among the young generations. The transnational family becomes an
environment in which new social norms and values centred on mobility, dispersion
and long-distance exchanges can be learnt. These practices are part and parcel of
everyday communication. The following example illustrates with more precision the
way in which a routine that imperceptibly effects a profound mutation of habitus is
formed, i.e. how the ‘grammar generating practice’ (Bourdieu 1972) changes:
My daughter is very close to her grandmother. When my mother-in-law goes back
to Romania, we have a clever way for them to keep in touch and spend time
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 1351
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012
together at a distance. Every morning they both connect their webcam and chat for
about two hours. My mother-in-law gives Alicia (the 13-year-old daughter) advice
and supervises her homework. [. . .] She tells her about Romanian traditions and
encourages her to talk Romanian. But it works both ways; my daughter tells her
grandmother what she has learnt from her best friend, a Vietnamese girl. They
often discuss cultural diversity and its wealth (Computer scientist, male, 35).
These new forms of ‘connected presence’ (Licoppe 2004; Wilding 2006) are
innovative vectors of transnational socialisation. In this way, intergenerational
transmission acquires an extra-territorial dimension. It can be surmised that
second-generation migrants are developing a deep-seated transnational habitus*
witness a comment by a 47-year-old computer scientist concerning his son:
My son is growing up with a very cosmopolitan mindset. He knows perfectly well
where he comes from, his grandparents are doing a great job in this respect;
Canadian school teaches him the values of cultural diversity; he speaks Romanian,
English, German and Spanish and he keeps in regular contact by email and Skype
with the friends he made when we lived in Germany, Spain and Switzerland . . . He
is 18 years old now and able to assess the opportunities he could have as a
Romanian or Canadian and compare with his German and Swiss friends . . . He is
also quite determined to settle down elsewhere, maybe back in Europe.
Leveraging the technological possibilities of instant communication, skilled
migrants unconsciously adopt ways of thinking and of doing that reflect dual,
transnational or even cosmopolitan orientations. In other words, on an ontological
level, the transformation of the objective conditions and constraints of communication
at a distance creates new savoir-faire, which generates mechanisms allowing
migrants (and non-migrants) to develop new emotional and functional skills that
orient transnational decision-making and action.
Conclusion
The actual phase of modernity, combined with the acceleration of the technological
revolution, reinforces migrants’ capacity to develop transnational activities and
multiply their experiences of otherness. The transformation of migrants’ everyday life
in the digital age has a ‘mirror function’ (Allal et al. 1977), pointing to a new facet of
migratory dynamics. Online migrants represent a quintessence of homo mobilis and
homo numericus embodying the social mutations generated by the two most
important features of contemporary social worlds: mobility and technology (Nedelcu
2009a). The case of Romanian professionals shows that many skilled migrants (and
their families) live through different heterogeneous matrix-spaces of socialisation,
and learn to draw their strength from a new culture of difference and otherness. This
phenomenon could trigger the inception of a shared cosmopolitan sensitivity (Beck
2006), i.e. the emergence of an awareness that one belongs to a globalised world of
networks and complex interdependencies.
1352 M. Nedelcu
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012
However, in spite of the large democratisation of access to digital communication
devices and the Internet, many migrants still face difficulties in engaging in everyday
communication patterns with their ‘home’ countries due to political issues, legal
status or lack of computer literacy. Others manifest no particular interest in
preserving close ties with their home country, nor in cosmopolitan sensitiveness. This
reality implies more nuanced situations that make difficult the assumption that
cosmopolitanism is becoming an emblematic lifestyle of the modern migrant.
Although many questions remain to be answered empirically, this research shows
that adopting a cosmopolitan analytical frame to study migration processes in the
digital age is heuristically productive. This approach allows us to go beyond
transnational theories; it places much emphasis on the dialogic dimension of the
migrants’ transnational ways of being and belonging, and on the various orientations
within a local-cosmopolitan continuum in which local and global trends are strongly
intertwined and overstep home- and host-countries’ horizons.
This study has given prominence to the transnational dimension of socialisation
processes, and thus to the emergence of a transnational illusio. It has shown how
online migrants develop a transnational habitus combining heterogeneous cultural
references inherited from their physical and virtual journeys. It has also highlighted
the ongoing blurring of boundaries between migrant and non-migrant populations.
Social life is gradually becoming a deterritorialised process for both mobile and
sedentary populations. These results suggest that Bourdieu’s theory of habitus,
although essentially a theory of social reproduction, has to be revisited in the light of
a significant transformation of its territorial dimension. Indeed, the transnationalisation
of habitus reflects a transnationalisation of social structure. It reveals a subtle
process whereby society and social functioning are disembedded from their ‘national
container’ (Beck 2006). Thus, ICT and migration is a key field for further
investigation of profound social transformations.
Notes
[1] According to Wimmer and Glick Schiller: ‘Methodological nationalism is the naturalization
of the global regime of nation-states by the social sciences. Scholars who share this
intellectual orientation assume that national borders are the natural unit of study, equate
society with the nation-state, and conflate national interests with the purposes of social
science. Methodological nationalism reflects and reinforces the identification that many
scholars maintain with their own nation-states’ (2003: 576).
[2] This research was conducted between 2001 and 2007 and studied the impact of ICTs on the
migratory and community patterns, transnational dynamics and political, economic and
social participation at a distance of skilled Romanian migrants in Toronto. It stressed that the
analysis of migratory phenomena in the digital era requires a ‘transnational awareness’ of the
research toolkit. For more details see Nedelcu (2009a).
[3] Daniele Conversi (this issue) argues, however, that digital technologies instead contribute to
cultural essentialism, reinforcing long-distance nationalism and the radicalisation of global
ethnic networks.
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 1353
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012
[4] I use the notion of dialogic/dialogicity as a multidimensional prism for understanding
social complexity. According to Edgar Morin (1990), dialogicity is based on the
intertwining*within a same system*of different, opposed logics. However, it doesn’t erase
all of the differences specific to each entity, but allows antagonisms without reducing them to
a rationalised dialectic, and helps one to understand that difference is consistent with unity.
References
Allal, T., Buffard, J.-P., Marie, M. and Regazzola, T. (1977) Situations Migratoires: La FonctionMiroir.
Paris: Editions Galile´e.
Amit, V. (2007) ‘Structures and dispositions of travel and movement’, in Amit, V. (ed.) Going First
Class? New Approaches to Privileged Travel and Movement. Oxford and New York: Berghahn,
1Á14.
Appadurai, A. (1990) ‘Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy’, Theory, Culture
and Society, 7(2): 295Á310.
Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Bacigalupe, G. and Ca´mara, M. (2012) ‘Transnational families and social technologies: reassessing
immigration psychology’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 38(9). doi:10.1080/
1369183X.2012.698211
Badie, B., Brauman, R., Decaux, E., Devin, G. and Wihtol de Wenden, C. (2008) Pour un Nouveau
Regard sur les Migrations. Construire une Gouvernance Mondiale. Paris: La De´couverte.
Bauman, Z. (2006) Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Beck, U. (2000) What is Globalization? Cambridge: Polity Press.
Beck, U. (2002) ‘The cosmopolitan society and its enemies’, Theory, Culture and Society, 19(1Á2):
17Á44.
Beck, U. (2003) ‘Toward a new critical theory with a cosmopolitan intent’, Constellations, 10(4):
453Á68.
Beck, U. (2006) Qu’est-ce que le Cosmopolitisme? Paris: Aubier.
Beck, U. (2008) ‘Mobility and the cosmopolitan perspective’, in Canzler, W., Kaufmann, V. and
Kesselring, S. (eds) Tracing Mobilities. Towards a Cosmopolitan Perspective. Aldershot:
Ashgate, 25Á35.
Benhabib, S. (2004) The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents and Citizens. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1972) Esquisse d’une The´orie de la Pratique. Geneva: Droz.
Bourdieu, P. (1979) La Distinction, Critique Sociale du Jugement. Paris: Editions de Minuit, Le Sens
Commun.
Bourdieu, P. (1996) Raisons Pratiques. Paris: Seuil.
Bourdieu, P. (1997) Me´ditations Pascaliennes. Paris: Seuil.
Bryceson, D. and Vuorela, U. (eds) (2002) The Transnational Family. New European Frontiers and
Global Networks. Oxford: Berg.
Burrell, J. and Anderson, K. (2008) ‘‘‘I have great desires to look beyond my world’’: trajectories of
information and communication technology use among Ghanaians living abroad’, New
Media and Society, 10(2): 203Á24.
Castells, M. (1998) La Socie´te´ en Re´seaux. Tome I. L’E`re de l‘Information. Paris: Fayard.
Chivallon, C. (2006) ‘Introduction*diaspora: ferveur acade´mique autour d’un mot’, in
Berthomie`re, W. and Chivallon, C. (eds) Les Diasporas dans le Monde Contemporain. Paris:
Editions Karthala, 15Á27.
1354 M. Nedelcu
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012
Conversi, D. (2012) ‘Irresponsible radicalisation: diasporas, globalisation and long-distance
nationalism in the digital age’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 38(9). doi:10.1080/
1369183X.2012.698204
Costey, P. (2005) L’illusio chez Pierre Bourdieu. Les (me´s)usages d’une notion et son application au
cas des universitaires, Trace´s, Revue de Sciences Humaines, 8: 13Á27, online http://traces.
revues.org/index2133.html.
Dubar, C. (2000) La Socialisation. Construction des Identite´s Sociales et Professionnelles. Paris: A.
Colin.
Georgiou, M. (2010) ‘Identity, space and the media: thinking through diaspora’, Revue Europe´enne
des Migrations Internationales, 26(1): 17Á35.
Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Glick Schiller, N., Basch, L. and Szanton Blanc, C. (1992) ‘Towards a definition of transnationalism:
introductory remarks and research questions’, in Glick Schiller, N., Basch, L. and Szanton
Blanc, C. (eds) Toward a Transnational Perspective on Migration. New York: New York
Academy of Sciences, ixÁxiv.
Guarnizo, L.E. (1997) ‘The emergence of a transnational social formation and the mirage of return
migration among Dominican transmigrants’, Identities, 4(2): 281Á322.
Hannam, K., Sheller, M. and Urry, J. (2006) ‘Mobilities, immobilities and moorings’, Mobilities,
1(1): 1Á22.
Hannerz, U. (1996) Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places. New York: Routledge.
Harvey, D. (1989) The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Karim, H.K. (2003) ‘Mapping diaspora mediascapes’, in Karim, K.H. (ed.) The Media of Diaspora.
London: Routledge, 1Á18.
Kissau, K. (2012) ‘Structuring migrants’ political activities on the Internet: a two-dimensional
approach’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 38(9). doi:10.1080/1369183X.2012.698207
Levitt, P. (1998) ‘Social remittances: migration driven local-level forms of cultural diffusion’,
International Migration Review, 32(4): 926Á48.
Levitt, P. and Glick Schiller, N. (2003) ‘Transnational perspectives on migration: conceptualizing
simultaneity’, International Migration Review, 38(3): 1002Á39.
Licoppe, C. (2004) ‘‘‘Connected’’ presence: the emergence of a new repertoire for managing social
relationships in a changing communication technoscape’, Environment and Planning D:
Society and Space, 22(1): 135Á56.
Marcus, G.E. (1998) ‘Ethnography in/of the world system: the emergence of multi-sited
ethnography’, in Marcus, G.E. (ed.) Ethnography Through Thick and Thin. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 79Á104.
Markham, A.N. (1998) Life Online. Researching Real Experiences in Virtual Space. Walnut Creek,
CA: Altamira Press.
Markham, A.N. and Baym, N.K. (eds) (2009) Internet Inquiry: Conversations about Method.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Massey, D. (1993) ‘Power-geometry and a progressive sense of place’, in Bird, J., Curtis, B., Putnam,
T. and Tickner, L. (eds) Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change. London:
Routledge, 61Á70.
Melucci, A. (1989) Nomads of the Present. Social Movements and Individual Needs in Contemporary
Society. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Morin, E. (1990) Introduction a` la Pense´e Complexe. Paris: Seuil.
Nedelcu, M. (2002) ‘L’instrumentalisation de l’espace virtuel par une communaute´ des
professionnels immigre´s: vers une nouvelle forme d’organisation diasporique?’, Autrepart,
22(2): 147Á65.
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 1355
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012
Nedelcu, M. (2009a) Le Migrant Online. Nouveaux Mode`les Migratoires a` l’Ere du Nume´rique. Paris:
L’ Harmattan.
Nedelcu, M. (2009b) ‘La ge´ne´ration ze´ro: du se´dentaire a` l’acteur circulant. Effets de mobilite´ sur la
ge´ne´ration des parents des migrants roumains hautement qualifie´s a` Toronto a` l’e`re du
nume´rique’, in Cortes, G. and Faret, L. (eds) Les Circulations Transnationales. Lire les
Turbulences Migratoires Contemporaines. Paris: Armand Colin, 187Á98.
Nedelcu, M. (2010) ‘(Re)penser le transnationalisme et l’inte´gration a` l’e`re du nume´rique. Vers un
tournant cosmopolitique dans l’e´tude des migrations internationales?’, Revue Europe´enne des
Migrations Internationales, 26(2): 33Á55.
Portes, A., Guarnizo, L.E. and Landolt, P. (1999) ‘The study of transnationalism: pitfalls and
promise of an emergent research field’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22(2): 217Á337.
Rantanen, T. (2005) ‘Cosmopolitanization*now! An interview with Ulrich Beck’, Global Media and
Communication, 1(3): 247Á63.
Robertson, R. (1994) ‘Globalisation or glocalization?’, Journal of International Communication, 1(1):
33Á52.
Roudometof, V. (2005) ‘Transnationalism, cosmopolitanism and glocalization’, Current Sociology,
53(1): 112Á35.
Sayad, A. (1999) La Double Absence. Des Illusions de l’E´migre´ aux Souffrances de l’Immigre´. Paris:
Seuil.
Sayad, A. (1985) ‘Du message oral au message sur cassette: la communication avec l’absent’, Actes de
la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 59(1): 61Á73.
Sassen, S. (2003) ‘Globalization or denationalization’, Review of International Political Economy,
10(1): 1Á22.
Schnapper, D. (2001) ‘De l’Etat-nation au monde transnational. Du sens et de l’utilite´ du concept
de diaspora’, Revue Europe´enne des Migrations Internationales, 17(2): 9Á36.
Tarrius, A. (1993) ‘Territoires circulatoires et espaces urbains’, Les Annales de la Recherche Urbaine,
59Á60: 50Á60.
Thomas, W. and Znaniecki, F. (1998) Le Paysan Polonais en Europe et en Ame´rique. Re´cit de Vie d’un
Migrant. Paris: Nathan.
Urry, J. (2000) Sociology Beyond Societies. Mobilities for the Twenty-First Century. London:
Routledge.
Urry, J. (2008) ‘Moving on the mobility turn’, in Canzler, W., Kaufmann, V. and Kesselring, S. (eds)
Tracing Mobilities. Towards a Cosmopolitan Perspective. Aldershot: Ashgate, 13Á23.
Vertovec, S. (1999) ‘Conceiving and researching transnationalism’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22(2):
447Á62.
Vertovec, S. (2001) Transnational Challenges to the ‘New’ Multiculturalism. Oxford: University of
Oxford, Working Paper WPTC-01-06, http://www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk.
Vertovec, S. (2009) Transnationalism. London and New York: Routledge.
Vuorela, U. (2002) ‘Transnational families: imagined and real communities’, in Bryceson, D. and
Vuorela, U. (eds) The Transnational Family. New European Frontiers and Global Networks.
Oxford and New York: Berg, 63Á82.
Werbner, P. (2006) ‘Vernacular cosmopolitanism’, Theory, Culture, Society, 23(2Á3): 496Á8.
Wilding, R. (2006) ‘‘‘Virtual’’ intimacies? Families communicating across transnational contexts’,
Global Networks, 6(2): 125Á42.
Wimmer, A. and Glick Schiller, N. (2002) ‘Methodological nationalism and beyond: nation-state
building, migration and the social sciences’, Global Networks, 2(4): 301Á34.
Wimmer, A. and Glick Schiller, N. (2003) ‘Methodological nationalism, the social sciences and the
study of migration: an essay in historical epistemology’, International Migration Review,
37(3): 576Á610.
1356 M. Nedelcu
Downloadedby[YaleUniversityLibrary]at07:0511September2012