New Approaches to Migration?: Transnational Communities and the Transformation of Home

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