PhD thesis final - Royal Holloway, University of London

Chapter7- Conclusionlandscape). Further, my analysis of Taiwanese migrants‘ transnational practices not onlyconfirms the importance of advanced telecommunications and transportation technologyin contemporary transnational migrants‘ everyday lived practices, but emphasises theways in which transnational media (e.g. satellite TV) and the Internet are integrated intotheir everyday practices of belonging. In highlighting the fact that transnationalpractices are an integral part of migrants‘ experiences of belonging, this research alsoargued that a transnational social space (Faist 1999; Pries 2001) that is constitutedthrough migrants‘ intensive transnational links and manifested in a verity of spatialforms (e.g. domestic space, workplace, consumption space and Cyberspace) aresignificant spatial experiences in contemporary migrants‘ lived practices. In this, thisresearch not only presented valuable experiences of migrants‘ workplace-basedtransnational practices, but also posited that the spaces of contemporary migrants‘actions of transnational links are based on both concrete and virtual spaces. Moreover,in addressing the everyday aspect of Taiwanese expatriates‘ grounded practices withinwhich their transnational actions and links are embedded, this research has also madedistinct contributions to grounding transnationalism (Conradson and Latham 2005a;Smith 2001).Transnational links are particularly important for Taiwanese expatriates employing atransnational family strategy. In such household configurations, the dispersed familymembers‘ imaginings of home and feelings of being at home, though challenged andnegotiated, may not necessarily be hindered by the absence of family members. Instead,these absences are often filled by migrants‘ frequent physical movements back and forthbetween the two homes as well as by the intensive contacts through the mediation ofcommunication tools to maintain family intimacy.254