Migrant Transnationalism and Modes of Transformation

Much of the literature on migrant transnationalism focuses on the ways that specific sociocultural institutions have been modified in the course of being stretched across the globe. Yet migrant transnational practices are involved in more deep-seated patterns of change or structural transformation. Such modes of transformation concern: 1) an enhanced ‘bifocality’ of outlooks underpinning migrant lives lived here-and-there; such dual orientations have considerable influence on transnational family life and may continue to affect identities among subsequent post-migration generations; 2) heightened challenges to ‘identities-borders-orders’ stemming from migrants’ political affiliations in more than one…