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This suggests that, instead of aiming to categorize migration into types,we might do better to explore migration flows and patterns of geographicmobility from the standpoint of how they relate to the reproduction ortransformation of family and community livelihood strategies and thekinds of social identities or “belongingness” they generate. Migration itselfis too gross a starting point.This issue is, of course, fundamentally methodological because the validityof the argument turns upon how one investigates these complex processes.Even if we are primarily interested in comprehending, for example, theimpact of the broad economic, political and cultural changes associatedwith the emergence of an increasingly “global” and “globalizing” world,wherein geographical mobility, rapid transportation, and instantaneouscommunication of information are the norm, might it not be better tobegin at points where specific actors and sets of actors experience, grapplewith and attempt to give meaning to these processes in their everyday lifecircumstances? This, in short, is to make the case for in-depth ethnographicstudies that enable the researcher to capture the making and remaking ofthe social and cultural lives of those “on-the-move” as well as those whoremain at home. It also allows us to comprehend better how remittancesin the form of goods, money, messages and services are embedded withinongoing social relations and moral imperatives. In order to facilitate thisapproach we need not only to develop appropriate field methods but also toevolve a suitable analytical vocabulary for conceptualizing the processesentailed. Hence underlying and framing the main empirical findings ofthis paper is my commitment to an actor-oriented theoretical approach.It remains for others to explore further the usefulness of this analyticalframework in relation to the growing body of ethnographically-basedmaterials dealing with translocal and transnational phenomena.60