Social Science Research Council

The working group on Transnational Migration was established to address central theoretical or conceptual problems in transnational migration studies. The recognition that some migrants maintain strong, enduring ties to their homelands even as they are incorporated into countries of resettlement calls into question conventional assumptions about the direction and impacts of international migration. The goal of the working group was to clarify the challenges posed by bringing such a transnational perspective to migration studies and also to redress some of the weaknesses that had characterized some of the previous scholarship in this area. Scholars from the US and Europe were brought together in two conferences, the first held at Oxford University in May 2002, hosted by the Transnational Communities Programme (directed by Steve Vertovec), and the second held at Princeton University in May 2003, hosted by the Center for Migration and Development (directed by Alejandro Portes). At each conference, scholars presented research that was later highlighted in a special issue of International Migration Review (IMR) in fall 2003. The authors focused on both the general analytical challenges posed by transnational migration research and particular aspects of transnational social life—economic, political, sociocultural, and religious—in an attempt to reveal the nature and magnitude of various transnational practices.