Response to the
commentary by Elena
Caneva on ‘Transnational
migration research’
Derya Ozkul
University of Sydney
Introduction
capital. Particularly since the 9/11 attacks in the USA
and similar attacks in other western countries, the
‘War on Terror’ has been transnationalized, and the
word ‘terror’ has become fixed to immigration, and in
particular to ‘bad’ Muslim immigrants (see
Humphrey, 2007; Mamdani, 2004). The discourse of
the ‘War on Terror’ has not only changed the political
structure of the Middle Eastern region with foreign
interventions. It has also created the idea that immigrants’ social and economic marginalization was not a
systematic problem, but that it was the fault of their
‘religious backgrounds’. Since the rise of the conflicts
in the Middle East, transnational Muslim immigrants
in western countries are increasingly being criminalized for creating transnational networks and endangering their new countries. In some countries, there
have even been debates around prohibiting the right
to travel to some Middle Eastern zones where there
are conflicts. Hence transnational migrants are also
regarded differently based on their racial, cultural and
religious backgrounds.
I greatly appreciate the commentary that I have
received from Elena Caneva on my piece on
‘Transnational Migration Research’. It helps me to
refine and develop some of the arguments that I had
put forward before.
Before I reply to the commentary, let me first dwell
a while on the fundamental question, ‘who the “transmigrants” are’. To repeat, I use the concept of ‘transnational migrants’ broadly to refer to migrants who
establish networks (i.e. links emerging across nationstates in economic, political, religious and/or cultural
fields) in continuous terms.
The extent of transnationalism might be encouraged or obstructed to different degrees for different
types of migrants. For instance, immigration countries generally do not favour nomadic groups, who in
fact have been living in transnational terms for a long
time in history. But highly skilled migrants are encouraged and welcomed to migrate across several countries
as long as they obtain more ‘human capital’. The same
goes for financial investors, business owners and people with skills in demand. On the contrary, seasonal or
circular migrants are strictly controlled and often
deprived of their human rights (see Castles and
Ozkul, 2014). At the bottom of the hierarchy are
irregular migrants who are often criminalized and
mistakenly labelled as being ‘illegal’ (see Castles et al.,
2012). Hence transnational migrants differ in their
status and access to human rights.
Distinctions among transnational migrants do not
only emerge from their different levels of commodifiable ‘skills’, but also of their racial, cultural or religious
Response to the commentary
Elena Caneva points out four areas that need to be
developed further. First are the effects of transnational connections on nations and individuals. Indeed, the
research in this area has grown enormously throughout the last decade. Impacts of transnational migrants
not only affect their new countries, but also their
countries of origin. Transnational migrants may
Sociopedia.isa
© 2015 The Author(s)
© 2015 ISA (Editorial Arrangement of Sociopedia.isa)
Derya Ozkul, 2015, ‘Response’, Sociopedia.isa, DOI: 10.1177/205684601512
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Response
Ozkul
from my own article, ‘In order to consider all practices involved, Vertovec (2004, 2009) argues that
transnationalism should be analysed along four
dimensions of transformation: the economic, political, sociocultural and religious. Each of these
domains ought to be examined – even if they are distinctly categorized – in relation to each other.’
provide material remittances, as Caneva suggests, but
also social remittances (see Levitt and Lamba-Nieves,
2010). I believe the latter is as important as the former, although not as easily observable by social scientists. In her commentary, Caneva argues that
‘transnational studies contribute to migration studies
not so much because they refer to connections and
flows per se (rather than localities), but because they
strengthen the relationship between the micro and
the macro level of analysis, by linking the two levels
through the concept of network’. I have found this
statement to be unclear, as I precisely argue that the
original contribution of transnational migration
research is its analysis of the networks between governmental policies and peoples residing in different
countries rather than regarding them as distinct from
each other. This promises an entire shift in social sciences exploring the social world as a whole rather
than as composed of detached entities, which can
only be analysed separately.
The second issue that Caneva refers to is the role
of nation-states in devising the development of
transnational migration. Her argument is part of an
important and an already existing debate not only in
transnational migration, but also in migration literature in general. It is linked to even a further debate
in social sciences on the relationship between structure and agency. My opinion on this debate is that
neither structure nor agency is more important than
the other, but broader forces (constituting both
structure and agency) result in social change. In
migration policy, structures such as national immigration laws, for instance, do matter greatly: immigration laws are crucial to decide on who can enter a
country. On the other hand, we need to remember
that a large part of migration policies fail due to their
lack of consideration that migration is a social phenomenon. In other words, policies that ignore the
social aspect (i.e. relationships between humans) of
migration have been bound to fail (Castles, 2004),
which demonstrates that social analysis should look
at both structural and agency-related factors.
The third and the last elements in Caneva’s commentary are closely related to each other.
Transnational migration occurs and develops in different economic, political and sociocultural fields,
and hence it also has different impacts for each of
these fields. Research has also been differentiated and
has produced different conceptualizations. To quote
Conclusion
The commentary by Elena Caneva shows that
transnational migration is a constantly developing
academic field with growing amount of empirical
work. Each of these studies has employed different
conceptual tools to analyse their case studies and has
enriched the literature from diverse aspects. It is not
possible to list all of them here, but I am hoping that
my previous piece titled ‘Transnational Migration
Research’ has helped to introduce interested
researchers to this field.
References
Castles S (2004) The factors that make and unmake
migration policies. International Migration Review
38(3): 852–84.
Castles S and Ozkul D (2014) Circular migration: triple
win, or a new label for temporary migration? In:
Battistella G. (ed.) Theoretical Perspectives on Asian
Migration. New York: Springer, pp. 27–50.
Castles S, Arias Cubas M, Kim C and Ozkul D (2012)
Irregular migration: Causes, patterns, and strategies.
In: Omelaniuk I (ed.) Global Perspectives on
Migration and Development: GFMD Puerto Vallarta
and Beyond. New York: Springer, pp. 117–51.
Humphrey M (2007) Culturalising the abject: Islam, law
and moral panic in the West. Australian Journal of
Social Issues 42(1): 9–25.
Levitt P and Lamba-Nieves D (2010) Social remittances
revisited. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
37(1): 1–22.
Mamdani M (2004) Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America,
the Cold War and the War on Terror. New York:
Pantheon.
Vertovec S (2004) Migrant transnationalism and modes
of transformation. International Migration Review
38(3): 970–1001.
Vertovec S (2009) Transnationalism. London and New
York: Routledge.
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