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that take place between migrants and their kin and friends back home. Thecase offers interesting insights into this process. In the first place, it bringsout the degree to which “home-grown” cultural practices can penetrate theongoing everyday lives of distant migrants and thus shape their decisionsand social relations. Secondly, it suggests how migrant perceptions of theirhost society and even their attitudes towards specific persons can be shapedby the information and advice they receive from their “home” communitiesand “homeboy” migrant networks. And, of course, the reverse holds forthe influence that migrants have on their relatives and friends at “home.”Although none of this is peculiar to transnational situations – since similarobservations can be made in respect to migration within countries – howthis works in transnational contexts remains a major challenge for research.Indeed one can argue that the advent and dissemination of new highspeedmodes of communication throughout the globe has the potential ofstrengthening rather than dissolving identities based on locality, ethnicityand nationality. In this way, the benefits of transnational networks andcommunication may be utilized for the pursuit of more parochial ends.A further implication is that, just as families and community groups spenda great deal of time and effort maintaining connections with overseas kithand kin, so too is the Peruvian state deeply concerned with maintainingrelationships – political and economic – with its national diaspora. Currently,Peru has one of the highest rates of out-migration in Latin America (UN2002; Altamirano 2000). Recently the Ministry of the Exterior, through itsnetwork of Peruvian consulates throughout the world, has been pursuingnew policies aimed at extending its reach into the diaspora to encourage itsnationals to invest some of their considerable financial and social resourcesin joint development ventures in Peru. 14All this points to the importance of carrying out detailed studies on thetypes of communicative practices and their symbolic contents used bymigrants for maintaining home contacts and for processing their everydayexperiences. Previous research on Latin American migration – both ruralurbanand transnational – has documented how migrants in external settingsmaintain their connections with their home communities while also forgingnew kinds of individual or collective ties in their “receiving” locations. 155014This can be compared with Mexico’s attempts to develop effective state-citizen programmes aimedat encouraging entrepreneurial partnerships with U.S.-based businessmen of Mexican origins.During his period of Governor of Guanajuato, Vicente Fox spearheaded the Mi Comunidadprogram (Byrnes 2003); and there exist similar initiatives, such as Tres Por Uno in the State ofZacatecas that matches remittances with government grants, and in Guerrero migrants can alsoapply for similar assistance.15An excellent illustration of this dispersed pattern is Paerregaard’s (1997) detailed migrationethnography that explores the interconnections and cultural universes of rural and urban families