Introduction

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Sonja Lehmann
Research has less focused on the participation of non-migrants in transnational
social space in the receiving country. Jackson, Crang and Dwyer emphasize how
the existence of minority groups or diasporas can also influence people in the host
country through day to day contact and enable them to enter transnational social
space. They propagate a very inclusive notion of transnationalism in which one
can already temporarily enter transnational space by consuming ethnic food (3).
While this may seem far-fetched at first, it can nevertheless imply that there is
contact and exchange between a diasporic or transnational population in a country
and people who have no migrant background or experience and therefore can be
seen as an, albeit minor, transnational occurrence. This aspect is more pronounced
in Arjuan Appadurai’s theories on global flows. While Appadurai does not hold a
transnational view but rather sees the increase of global interconnection as the
beginning of the end of nation-states (19), his study on the influence of the media
on people’s imagination indicates how people are connected transnationally
through the media. For Appadurai, the imagination “creates ideas of neighbourhood
and nationhood” (7) and shared imaginings result in border-crossing “communit[ies]
of sentiment” (8). Similar to Anderson’s “imagined communities”, Appadurai
calls these shared imaginings people’s “imagined worlds” which are made
up of members all over the world (33). According to this, shared media consumption
can unite people who are territorially far apart in common transnational social
space. Thus if immigrants watch, for example, a home TV programme while living
abroad they become part of “diasporic public spheres” (Appadurai 4). However,
such connections are not only imaginary but also bring with them the possibility
for real contact with another geographically removed culture.
It must be stressed that not all migrants lead transnational lives (Vertovec,
“Transnationalism” 576). Nonetheless, the predicted further increase in international
migration and the consolidation of transnational communities is thought to
also lead to an exponential rise of transnational migration (Portes 9-10). In addition,
although for many people culture and community is still tied to place (Jackson,
Crang and Dwyer 6-7) the number of people who will take part in transnational
social space, whether they have a background of migration, or not will necessarily
also increase since migrants influence their receiving countries (Jackson,
Crang and Dwyer 2; Kennedy and Roudometof 5). Social space and geographic
space are not congruent anymore for even more people than previously presumed
and this number is increasing. Hannerz therefore concludes that “[f]or a growing
number of people, of several kinds, personal border-crossing involvements with
different places, cultures, and nations can be central, deeply affecting experiences”
(230).
The question that begs to be asked now is how these developments affect
people’s identities. After all, the orderly state model with clearly demarcated
”[i]dentities-borders-orders” that Vertovec had lined out is obviously strongly
impacted by this since more and more people lead lives that cut across borders,