Transnational Migration and Diaspora Studies: a state of the art

Abstract

The 1990s have marked a transnationalist turn in the study of migration, with the migrant subject seen as increasingly bound both to the country of origin and that of settlement. The focus of Migration Studies, up to that point, had been that of studying migration from a Northern American and European perspective, in other words that of the country of settlement. Studies on transnational migration widened the scope by questioning the basics of Migration Studies. At times crossing over and at others in parallel, various authors within the field of Migration Studies and beyond, became interested in the notion of diaspora, through essentialist as well as postpositivist perspectives. This working paper contributes through a state of the art analysis of the evolution of the subfield of Transnational Migration and the field of Diaspora Studies within the broader Migration Studies scholarship with the objective of discussing the similarities and differences of these lines of study. Through a critical reading of the secondary sources explored in the text, the increasing importance given to migrants as socially and politically active agents is brought to the fore.