In the debate on transnational migratory mobility, this phenomenon is reflected in the movement of non-institutional actors crossing one or more national, geographic, cultural and political frontiers (Schiller Basch and Blanc 1995; Portes 2006), and creating heterogeneous personal and collective experiences in view of the political and economic asymmetries generated by these frontiers, in complex and non-linear transits (Lee 2008; Sheringham 2010). On this extensive spatial scale, in which circulation is accelerated by the development of transport and communication technologies, a whole procedural mechanism of interpersonal relations is formed, articulating space, time, precariousness or clandestinity, delineating and diversifying social networks in terms of dimension, location and social form (Hannerz 1996; Harney and Baldassar 2007). Crossing the transatlantic distance and that of national frontiers, the networks implicated in this journey between the place of origin and the various destinations involve a daily negotiation of social and translocal interactions in terms of obligations, opportunities and constraints (Olwig 2007, 9). It is in this broad scenario of movements, interests and practices between point of origin, trajectory and place of destination that the migrants construct places and feelings of belonging.
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Written by Simone Frangella
Published on 16 September 2018 in Publications