"How Transnational are Migrants in Switzerland? An Analysis of the Migration-Mobility-Transnationality Nexus"
Transnational studies have been in vogue for the past two decades. Nevertheless, there remain important knowledge gaps concerning migrants’ transnational formations. First, most of the literature relies on qualitative case studies. The few existing quantitative studies have shown that transnationality is far from being a “lifestyle” and that factors other than individual preferences are at play. Second, most studies in this field focus on one nationally defined group, which renders impossible the elaboration of an overall model of transnationality that goes beyond description. Third, few studies have tried to link the question of transnationality simultaneously to migration and mobility. To address these gaps, we propose here an analysis of migrant transnationality based on the Migration-Mobility Survey. We define transnationality along three dimensions. We make a distinction between transnational (pre-and-post-migration) mobilities, network transnationality and transnational belonging. We use regression models and multiple correspondence analysis to identify the prevalence of transnationality and the main determinants of transnational patterns. The analysis confirms the hypothesis that transnationality can be linear – an “automatic effect” of migration – resource-dependent, but also reactive upon discrimination. Migrant transnationality can simultaneously be a sign of possessing high resources – most importantly, in terms of legal capital, education and economic resources – or of discrimination. Furthermore, our analysis brings to light five ideal-typical configurations of what we call the Migration-Mobility-Transnationality Nexus. Our analysis contributes to this book by investigating the Migration-Mobility-Nexus with respect to transnationality, going beyond the normative ideas of migration and mobility by integrating them analytically into one model.
Mobilities, locality and place-making: understanding categories of (non-)membership in a peripheral valley
The conceptual limits of the ‘migration journey’. De-exceptionalising mobility in the context of West African trajectories
The ‘migration journey’ has proven to be a fruitful lens to question the simplistic notion that the outcome of migration solely depends on a momentous go/no-go decision in the countries of origin. At the same time, we argue that the normative/sedentarist principles of migration studies produce the risk to approach the journey as an exceptional phase of mobility, in-between presumed place-based lives. This paper therefore aims to explore the conceptual limits of the migration journey literature. To challenge the notion that the migration journey is fundamentally different from pre- and post-migratory mobilities, we combine two empirical research projects that have followed the im/mobility trajectories of West Africans. The first project focuses on the trajectories of itinerant gold miners within West Africa, the second concentrates on the im/mobility of West Africans within Europe. By juxtaposing the empirical insights of these seemingly different contexts, we stress the need to embed migratory movements in a continuous field of mobility practices across spaces in Africa and Europe. This results in our plea for a research agenda that does not see ‘migrancy’ as a pre-given marker of difference, but as a normative artefact of mobility regimes.
Disentangling entangled mobilities: reflections on forms of knowledge production within migration studies
European migration studies have been criticised for having certain epistemological and theoretical underpinnings that reproduce hegemonic structures, especially the ‘national order of things’ and colonial legacies. In this article, we propose the concept of ‘entangled mobilities’ to address some of these challenges. Entangled mobilities as a theoretical lens enables us to study specific global and transnational processes, the ways in which they are historically and locally situated, and how they materialise in individual mobilities of differently positioned actors within an unequal political global economy. This lens helps us simultaneously overcome nationality- and ethnicity-centred epistemologies, confront colonial aphasia, and be sensitive to the multiple inequalities and mobility regimes within which human mobilities evolve. Furthermore, the prism of entangled mobilities provides an ideal methodological departure point from which to systematically examine how human mobilities are intertwined and interdependent and to reveal how they are embedded in and shaped by asymmetric, historically evolved power structures. We propose three pragmatic entry points for mobilising the concept: in specific places, in terms of the intersections and interdependencies of different mobile people, and in the context of the biographical trajectories of individuals. Finally, we invite scholars from other fields, such as policy research, to innovatively adapt this approach to gain alternative knowledge and address inequalities.