1) Sanjeev Khagram and Peggy Levitt (2007) identify five intellectual foundations of contemporary transnational scholarship. Please identify them and discuss briefly selected text(s) from the syllabus as examples of each of these intellectual foundations. As any other type of scientific knowledge transnational scholarship consist of five foundations: “Empirical Transnationalism (…) identifies, describes, maps, quantificates and categorizes transnational phenomena and dynamics” (Khagram, Levitt, 2007: 9). As an example of empirical transnationalism the research of social remittances by Levitt and Lamba-Nieves (2011) can be named. The research of two migration areas is revising the influence migrational remittances. While the economical remittances are widely priviledged, the empirical observation argues also the cultural remittances are important output of migration. The research shows migration is not a disconnected one-sided process but rather has (cultural) consequences on both sides of migrantion flow. The background of migrants in country of origin influences their practices in receiving country and also affects what type of remittances will be transmitted back. The other way round the research shows how by flow of ideas, narratives and practices migrants influence their homelands on both, individual, collective level to regional and also national extent. This research described the overlooked phenomena in migration studies and brought culture into the field. The study links the processes on both sides of migration (immigration and emigration country) which are usually studied separately. Along with the empirical transnationalism goes methodological transnationalism which “reformulates existing data and accounts, invents new kinds of information and evidence, applies existing investigative approaches in novel ways, and designs novel research tools and approaches with which to analyze, explain and interpret transnational phenomena and dynamics“ (Khagram, Levitt, 2007: 11). The reformulated or new methods and tools help to capture the transnational ties, study the multiple geographical scenes of social reality and help to avoid the methodological nationalism. In their study Jaworski et al. (2012) offer concept of cultural armature which helps to understand the variation in the way cities receive the immigrants by analyzing cultural aspects of cities´ history and present. Using of this methodology brings new information and evidence, i.e. cultural inputs into understanding the responses to migration. Theoretical Transnationalism serves as a foundation to construct, test and interpret the explanation about social reality, i.e. develop the theories. Theories based on transnational perspective can develop and complement, contest or transform the existing knowledge about the phenomena and dynamics under study. Boccagni (2012) in his study competes the existing transnational theory by demand of incorporating the globalization studies, the deeper understanding of transnational ties and migrants´ identities. Fourth foundation of transnational scholarship - philosophical transnationalism - is a fundamental ontological background for all the other components as it offers the thoughts about how social reality could be understood and known. It is an assumption that social phenomena and dynamics are in principle transnational, and although it does not deny the importance of close units such as national states, it refuses the methodological nationalism. This approach rather focuses on interaction between the transnational and border-locked social arenas. Public Transnationalism links the theory and research results with policy praxis in way that policy makers can make the decisions based on scientific knowledge. The transnational approach can offer the solutions to the problems which transnational nature could be otherwised overlooked. The study of Boccagni (Unpublished manuscript) presents a public problem which arouses about caregiving of migrating women. It explores the migrant women´s resources for caregiving, their needs for care and institutional support. This research could be a source for policies to improve the public support on transnational level, in home and host country alike. Literature: Khagram, S. and Levitt, P. 2007. “Constructing Transnational Studies.“ In The Transnational Studies Reader, New York: Routledge Press, 1-18 Levitt, P., Lamba-Nieves, D. „Social Remittances Revisited.“ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 37 (1): 1-22. Jaworski, N. B. et al. 2012. New Perspectives on Immigrant Contexts of Reception: The Cultural Armature of Cities. Nordic Journal of Migration Studies 2 (1), pp. 78-88. Boccagni, P. 2012. “Rethinking transnational studies: Transnationalities and the transnationalism of everyday life.” European Journal of Social Theory (2012) 15: 117 Boccagni, P. “Caring about migrant care workers: from private obligations to transnational social welfare?” (Unpublished manuscript) 2. Discuss immigrant integration using the concepts of ‘cultural armature’ and ‘city scale’. Jaworski et al. (2012) present concept of cultural armature as one of the constituents influencing the incorporation of immigrants which helps to explain the variation between different cities. By comparison of two American cities with seemingly similar declared attitude towards immigrants the authors show the difference in the way the cities practically incorporate them. Jaworski et al. argue that economy and demography cannot serve as sole factors for this variation and offer to incorporate the cultural approach. The cultural armature together with demographic and economic factors has stronger explanatory power than those factors separately. The cultural armature of city is “a combination of each city´s 1) history and cultural geography, 2) urban self-presentation, 3) cultural responses to demography, and 4) prevailing ethos towards immigrants, which is particularly evident in municipal responses” (Jaworski et al., 2012: 78). The history and the frequency of immigration flows, the migrants´ countries of origin and the reasons for migration are important for the reception of migrants. What also matters is cultural geography – density and location of immigrants in the city. This together with cultural consequences of demography explains the way immigrants are perceived (while one city in the study has a high proportion of refugees and the immigrants are then seen as deserving poor and their life stories as success stories, the other one sees its immigrants as “illegals”). Municipal strategies cover the institutional support and programs for immigrants. The fourth factor constituting cultural armature of city is self-presentation explains, not only the way the city sees itself but also the way it is able to use migrants´ resources and incorporate their activities into its self-image: “The city´s self-presentation and ethos stressed the benefits of welcoming newcomers, which was in turn an integral part of its strategy to reposition itself economically” (Jaworski et al, 2012: 85). In this respect the concept of cultural armature is similar to the role immigrants play in the concept of city scale. “The concept of city scale can allow us to highlight the dynamic and transductive relationships that cities achieve through their relative positioning within intersections of hierarchical fields of power“ (Schiller and Caglar, 2009: 188). This concept interconnects the locality, migration and city´s global position, i.e. city scale. Schiller and Caglar find migrants as “scale-makers” who can become city´s competitive advantage in the struggle over the global resources as the diversity can become a part of city´s branding (urban self-presentation in cultural armature concept) and immigrants can contribute to gain the symbolic city power with their transnational ties. Back to the concept of cultural armature it shows how migrants can contribute to city self-presentation which in reverse influences how immigrants are welcomed in the city. Glick Schiller, N. and Caglar, A. 2009. Towards a Comparative Theory of Locality in Migration Studies: Migrant Incorporation and City Scale. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 35 (2), pp. 177-202. Jaworski, N. B. et al. 2012. New Perspectives on Immigrant Contexts of Reception: The Cultural Armature of Cities. Nordic Journal of Migration Studies 2 (1), pp. 78-88. 6. Design a research project with these keywords: ‘transnational families’ and ‘Central and Eastern Europe’. Formulate research question(s) and justify your methodology. The world is facing the growing flow of immigration since second half of 20^th century. The post-socialistic countries joined this trend after the fall of isolationist regime after 1989. So is the Czech republic where the number of foreigners increased six times from approximately 70 000 in 1993 to 436 000 in 2011[1]. According the statistics of Police of the Czech Republic for year 2013[2], the most numerous group of immigrants come from Ukraine (representing one quarter out of 435 719 foreigners living in the Czech Republic). If we look at gender represented in overall number out of Ukrainian immigrants, men and women are pretty much equally represented among those with long-term residence (33 750 men, 32 809 women). This number changes significantly when short-term residence is considered – 22 416 men and 15 745 women. The number implies the immigration from Ukraine is gendered, more men than women come to live and work to Czech Republic leaving their families at home. These data cannot show how many of Ukrainian men with short-term residence have families with children back home, but we can suppose there is significant number of transnational families living in Ukraine. The scholars within transnational family studies which emerged in twenty-first century (Mazzucato, 2013) argue that “(…) transnational families whose members live in different nation-states (…) face the challenges of organizing the care of family members across borders. Through this process, the roles and relationships between spouses, parents, children, and elderly relatives can change” (Mazzucato, 2013: 1). Considering the gendered immigration from Ukraine to Czech Republic this research project is aiming to study the change in meaning of fatherhood for fathers themselves and their children in the families where the father is working and living abroad for extended period of time. Thus the research questions are: How does the meaning of role of the father change within the transnational families for father themselves? How does the meaning of role of the father change within the transnational families for left-behind children? The aim of the research is to understand the meanings the respondents embed into the concept of fatherhood and how it changes with long-distance relationship. The data would be collected in in-depth interviews as the interview can unfold the meaning. The respondents would be Ukrainian fathers living in the Czech Republic and their children living in the Ukraine. The research would be longitudinal as we are aiming to study the change. As Mazzucato (2013) points out without control groups there is a risk that the observations can be part of broader societal dynamics rather than consequences of transnational character of the family relationships. Therefore there would a control group of families with fathers and children living together in Ukraine. ________________________________ [1] Data available at http://www.czso.cz/csu/cizinci.nsf/kapitola/ciz_pocet_cizincu [2] Data available at http://www.mvcr.cz/clanek/cizinci-s-povolenym-pobytem.aspx