Sted og lokalitet i transnasjonale empiriske kontekster

Abstract

This chapter discusses how transnational fields are understood, defined, and negotiated both by those who participate in them and the researchers who study such fields. Two very different empirical cases are presented. The cases actualize the concept “transnational” in quite distinctive ways, reminding us that transnational is not a given size and that the meaning put into the concept is dependent on the situations one aims to comprehend. The chapter argues for the importance of understanding the processes of production of locality, and how participants work to localize experience, without a-priori assuming that geography is the primary dimension for sense-making. The discussion shows how global connections arise and dissolve through interaction, and that the dimensions relevant for meaning-making are situationally given. Locality is continually produced, both by participants and researchers. The chapter reflects on the implications of how “transnational” is actualized in different ways, due to the mutually constitutive relationship between our questions and the field sites chosen to study them.