This paper takes stock of transnational perspectives on international migration. Transnationalism concerns itself with social processes that are both rooted in, and transcend, nations. While more generally referring to complex economic, cultural and political relations, I focus on scholarship that describes how migrants contribute to the daily life of emerging transnational communities. I argue that poststructural readings of transnationalism have opened the way for accounts of international migration under globalisation. However, key questions of migrant agency and hybridity remain under-theorised. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential of postcolonial theorisations of international migration. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.

Migrant agency Transnationalism Postcolonial theory

national identity international migration Transnationalism population geography nationalism demography migrant worker theory migration immigrant population