Week 14: Transnationalism, Internationalism, Borders, and Movement
1. I am thinking words and language, and ask a similar first question to Jessica’s first query. It feels like a very basic, but also relevant: what is the difference between international and transnational and global?
(Part of this is personal reflection–growing up I always considered myself part of an international family, not a transnational one. I have dual-citizenship and have moved between countries, as have many members of my family. But I wonder, does transnational fit my experience better? How does the terminology of transnational change conceptions of identity around migration/movement? How do we value/conceptualize these terms differently?)
2. Both of these readings bring to the fore the idea of movement and mobility within concepts of space, home, belonging, migration. Is the transnational always about movement, border crossings and migration? How can we conceive of the transnational from a local, situated/stable perspective/location? Or are we always implicated within transnational networks by virtue of our digital connectivity and involvement with capital flows and global economies?
Definitions:
Space and mobility are linked. “Space is a product of interrelations and of’interactions, from the immensity of the global to the intimately tiny,’Massey (2005, p. 9) argues, emphasizing the coexisting heterogeneity and multiplicity in the possibilities and trajectories within space.” (Georgiou 209). Space has multiple meanings for multiple identities.