The emergence of transnational political spaces

• In Event: Estudios Transnacionales y Antropología Social: debates y (des)encuentros en los abordajes de los procesos migratorios

Abstract

This presentation traces how the political engagement of Mexican migrant organizations from Chicago has contributed to the emergence of transnational political spaces since the late 1990s. The results of the underlying broad ethnographic study in Chicago and the Mexican state of Michoacán contribute to an understanding of transnational political spaces, based on the interplay of cross-border arenas of multifaceted political action. Mexican migrant organizations interact with their home communities, government agencies on both sides of the border and US civic organizations in civic and institutional political arenas. Through the ethnographic analysis, case-specific characteristics of transnational political spaces are highlighted, which are central to a more extensive theoretical understanding of transnationalization processes: as ‘the local’ as network of social relationships; political action in and beyond nation-state structures; the development of political agency; and the intertwinement of multifaceted interaction and communication arenas.

Author

• Stephanie Schütze, Freie Universität Berlin