Global Networks-A Journal of Transnational Affairs最新文献

This paper examines the transnational and translocal experiences of the Rohingya in India, a stateless, refugee community forcibly displaced from Myanmar, onward migrants from Bangladesh, who currently occupy a legally precarious space in India. Drawing on approximately 90 interviews conducted with refugees, community leaders and NGOs across three Indian cities, along with informal group discussions and field notes, this paper makes two arguments that shed light on the complex, multi-factorial ways in which networks are rebuilt in displacement as well as the emerging characteristics of Rohingya onward migration in Asia. First, that early generations of Rohingya in India leveraged translocal network building spaces and encounters to rebuild their networks with others in the community and create translocal networks of care and support with local civil society actors, cementing the notion of a ‘Rohingya refugee community’ in India. Second, that the gradual internationalisation of the Rohingya crisis as well as the transnationalisation of the Rohingya diaspora in the last decade through multiple waves of displacement, onward migration and resettlement schemes has prompted a shift towards multi-sited transnationalism, particularly reflected in the emergence of multi-sited transnational families, digital transnational spaces among younger refugees and extended diasporic networks.

The recent war in Ukraine has prompted a global focus on refugees and their ability to successfully overcome adversity. This article focuses on the factors that foster resilience in women refugees. Refugee resilience depends on external environments as much as on internal strength, both of which relate to the nature of transnational families that stretch across at least two countries and rely on the family member's internal capacity to address the challenge of maintaining ties, alongside their external resources available in their circumstances. A qualitative study was conducted in November 2022 with 11 women refugees from Ukraine interviewed in Warsaw, Poland. Eight themes that contribute to resilience in women refugees were identified, including (1) family (in particular, intergenerational family solidarity), (2) community, (3) artistic expression and artisan creation, (4) connection to nature and environment, (5) access to mental health professionals, (6) work, (7) faith and spirituality and (8) hope for the future. Dominant, overarching narratives included the safety and well-being of participants’ children, overcoming adversities for the sake of their sons and daughters and facing daily struggles related to providing for their family.

This article challenges entrenched notions of otherness, which presuppose that migrants’ experiences always are inherently different from those of other people. By exploring the experiences of white, middle-class, highly educated Swedes living in Sweden, I highlight some similarities with challenges traditionally attributed solely to migrants. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Swedish hub of a large international company, the article examines experiences of Swedish employees participating in international digital meetings, a significant aspect of their daily professional lives. It elucidates aspects of their experiences that are often associated with migrants: struggling with language, feeling dominated and unseen and striving to adapt while subtly challenging the dominance of British and American ‘natives’ through practices of boundary maintenance. The article contributes to the de-exceptionalization of migrants’ experiences without further equating the privileged Swedes’ living conditions with those of people who are migranticized and subjected to enduring othering in their everyday lives.

Upper-middle-class Chinese families send children to the United States for high school to exit what some perceive as an ‘unhappy’ educational environment in China or in pursuit of a ‘better education’ in the United States. However, for some students, the American high school experience itself may be marked by ‘unhappiness’, endured in the pursuit of ‘success’. Based on ethnographic interviews with Chinese youth attending private American high schools, this study illustrates how narratives of unhappiness surrounding such transnational educational choices result in multiple success frames among students, categorized as ‘pragmatists’ and ‘rebels’. Those who downplay happiness or experience unhappiness in the US context tend to adopt the ‘pragmatic’ frame, while those emphasizing their exit from an ‘unhappy’ situation are more likely to align with the ‘rebel’ frame. Despite slight deviations from parental expectations, the relative economic security of these families enables Chinese youth to develop ambivalent success frames based on their familiarity with both US and Chinese contexts, questioning the dominance of a singular success narrative.

South Korea has been known for high rates of ‘early study abroad’ (ESA) or jogi yuhak participation, in which pre-college students go abroad for an international education. However, this trend has declined recently. Instead, many Korean parents and their children are seeking the benefits of ‘studying abroad’ without leaving Korea for long periods. Based on in-depth interviews with Korean parents, I explore various strategies they employ to provide their children, aged 4–12, with ‘study abroad experiences’ without actually studying abroad for an extended period. These approaches include English immersion programmes, such as English kindergartens and camps designed to expose children to foreign cultures and languages. I analyse how Korean parents’ aspirations to nurture ‘happy children’ while securing their future success shape diverse strategies that transcend traditional local–global and sedentary–mobile dichotomies. This highlights more complex motivations behind educational choices, emphasizing goals beyond mere capital accumulation or lifestyle consumption.

Transnational class formation has been a subject of considerable interest in recent years. This article provides the theoretical and thematic framework to the special theme on ‘Transnational class formation: identities, practices and symbolic classifications’ and presents a review of current literature on transnational social classes, arguing that we need to complement this literature by also considering transnational class-making. We introduce several theoretical approaches and concepts, emphasizing the role of (self-)classification, distinction, symbolic boundaries and intersectionality for analyses of transnational class-making. Drawing on the contributions collected in this special theme, we conclude by presenting some potential challenges and unresolved questions concerning the issue of transnational class formation.

Digital information and communications technologies like social media are critical for trade union renewal. Yet, although many unions now use social media, there remain ongoing debates as to what effective digital activism looks like. This question is even more pressing for the Global Unions, as international labour movement organizations without grassroots members. Drawing on social movement and networked communication theories, this article interrogates Global Unions’ social media practices through a mixed-method analysis of 19,009 Facebook posts created between 2017 and 2022. Based on this analysis, we find that Global Unions that adopt crowd-focused communication styles and post on broader social issues have more success in engaging with online crowds than those that emphasize workplace or organizational issues and adopt top-down communication styles. At the same time, our findings challenge assumptions in the literature that crowd-led, connective communication styles associated with engagement are necessarily the most effective in today's digital society.

The Chilean diaspora space in the United Kingdom has been transformed over its 50-year existence. From its origins as a diaspora born of political conflict and the arrival of Chilean exiles during the dictatorship, it has evolved into an altogether more diverse arena. New migrants with different interests and agendas have unsettled the delicate balance of exile life, and the impact of the clash of different histories in this diaspora space remains unknown. Although the experience of Chilean exiles has been actively studied, new empirical data introduces the existence of a much broader diaspora than that portrayed in the literature. The UK space of the Chilean diaspora has been radically altered through the diverse interests that the new cohorts bring and the organizations that reflect these new forms of interaction, as well as the divisive issues of past and present conflict that highlight the unresolved nature of the long-term experience of exile.

This article delves into the engagement of Afghans in Europe in diaspora organizations (DOs) and examines the factors influencing the varying levels of transnational involvement aiming Afghan DOs (ADOs). Through a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) of 85 ADOs across Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom, this study explores intricate configurations leading to transnational activities. Drawing from a diverse range of qualitative data sources, this study deciphers different causal pathways underlying diasporic transnational activities. The results show that although individual conditions do not singularly drive transnational activities, the analysis identifies specific configurations where external funding notably shapes these transnational activities. Particularly, the research reveals that organizations in Germany and the Netherlands have stronger transnational ties to their country of origin compared to ADOs in Austria and Sweden, which focus primarily on local activities.

This paper explores a new perspective on middle-aged migrant women. Midlife has long been presumed to be the most networked stage of life for sedentary populations, but it has not been examined critically in the context of migration. This is an empty space that warrants research attention, because middle-aged migrants often have lives that are temporally and spatially distinctive. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Latvia and the United Kingdom (2018–2023), I argue that the lifecourses of middle-aged migrant women resemble the transitions that young people go through for work but differ in terms of care. Although strong ties relatives and friends have long been thought to be key for transnational care relations, weak ties also become instrumental through shared notions of self-actualization in midlife. I provide a novel understanding of how the concepts of linked lives and networks can be applied to processes that are pertinent to middle-aged women.