global migration & transnational politics project
With generous support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation of Chicago, George Mason University’s Center for Global Studies is initiating a research program to explore the relationships between globalization, human mobility, and emerging forms of transnational political mobilization and communication. ‘Global Migration and Transnational Politics’ (hereafter GMTP) will be a multi-year, crossdisciplinary project involving a network of scholars whose work deals with various aspects of the migration/politics nexus. Project activity will include academic workshops, a conference aimed at policymakers and practitioners, and a series of briefing papers. The GMTP initiative will culminate in the publication of an edited volume surveying the state of the art in terms of work being conducted in this field and laying the groundwork for new research agendas.
This project takes as its starting point the observation that political dynamics around the globe have been transformed by globalization, new patterns of human mobility, and the development of innovative transnational social networks. Processes of globalization have provided openings for new actors and issues to rise to prominence and for novel forms of political action to gain salience. These new political processes are rooted in communities and networks that are not restricted by geographic location. As a result of increased human mobility and new forms of communications, the relevant constituencies engaged in a specific political process or issue often live in different locales or move between locations. Networks of activists and supporters are less bound by the need to work in close proximity or to accept notions that actors outside a state or territory are not members of communities rooted within a specific location. While politics has been delinked from territory with regard to processes and actors, this does not mean that transnational politics generally focuses on universal issues or a focus on global issues of social justice. Rather much of the new transnational politics is intensely focused on specific locations, identities, and issues. Politics remains fundamentally about local issues even while political processes are increasingly globalized.
These patterns may be seen in the new roles of diasporas in politics, where accelerating and expanding patterns of human mobility have resulted in significant populations that identify with a particular community and remain politically engaged in issues related to that group but are not resident in the “homeland” of that community at any given time. In other cases, the body politic may mobilize around issues that are not tied to a particular territory but are transnational by nature. Political thinking and strategies developed by populations that are mobile and located in multiple locations around the world shape how issues are framed and resources mobilized. There is considerable research on issues relating to remittances and homeland development, the impact of new communications and information technology, international law and governance of global migration, and on immigrant integration and patterns of participation in politics in their new host countries. What is less studied is the question of how politics has been transformed by new forms of participation by increasingly mobile, transnational populations. GMTP will fill that gap and round out the field of globalization and migration studies by systematically investigating the links between politics and human mobility. It will provide an overview of this emergent field of interdisciplinary studies that builds on some of the more established areas of research but has its own set of fundamental questions and organizing concepts.