Transnational Social Spaces and the Importance of Social Capital

The advancements in transportation and communication technologies link places and people globally thus leading to the emergence of transnational social spaces. These transnational social spaces can be imagined as spaces spread over more than one geographical location, where migrants move between those different places. Apart from physical movements of the migrants, the flow of information, skills, and remittances are other components connecting those different places and forming transnational social spaces.

Click on the pictures in the right hand column to see how flows of information and goods contribute to the shape of transnational social spaces:

It is the intensity and simultaneity of these cross-border activities that leads to the emergence of transnational social spaces (Pries 1999). Transnational migration structures everyday practices, social positions, employment trajectories and biographies of the migrants as well as those of their family members that stay behind. Through these flows, transnational connections have a great impact in both the place of origin and destination, not only in economic, but also in socio-cultural and political terms. But what really constitutes these social spaces is the relationship the migrants have with both the places and how they link them together within their everyday practices. Therefore the transnational space is not limited to a single locale, but is constituted by all the places relevant for the migrant (country of origin, new country of work and possibly other countries where close relatives have migrated) as well as the relations between them (Thieme 2007).

Click on the figure in the right hand column to see a representation of how transnational social spaces emerge:

Transnational social spaces are constructed through social networks built by migrants accross the different places they live in. These networks are a result of migration, but are also fostering migration (see .pdf "A brief Overview of Theories of International Migration"). In the home country, having a network of relatives and kin is often a precondition for migration as the financial costs for the journey and installation abroad are to high for a single person or household. In the receiving country the migrant also often relies on a network of kin (for instance people coming from the same region who have previously settled there) who will provide housing, information and possibly help to find a job. These relationships, which play a very important role in sustaining migration flows have been labelled as social capital. This concept has become very important in the study of transnational migration (Thieme 2007).

Download and read the .pdf in the right hand column in order to get more information on importance of social capital in migration studies: