The social sciences' interest in transnationalism has grown rapidly over the previous decade. The ethnographic case studies informing this burgeoning transnational literature, however, typically focus upon migration flows with one endpoint in the global North. This dissertation explores the experience of Indian transmigrants in contemporary Bahrain, one of the six petroleum-rich states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, as well as the impact of these transnational flows upon the Bahraini state. Like all the nations of the GCC, foreign guestworkers comprise a majority of the workforce in Bahrain, and a near majority of the absolute population--two aspects of the many that mark the transnational context of the contemporary Gulf as significantly different from those typical of the transnational literature.The arc of my ethnographic analysis draws upon transnational theory, diaspora studies, and critical approaches to the state, and visits three plateaus. First, I use migration narratives gathered from Indian transmigrants to delineate the structure of dominance that shapes relations between guestworker and citizen-host. The parameters of this structure stretch from the global political economy to the apparatuses of the Bahraini state and, through the kafala sponsorship system, to the individual relations between citizen-sponsors and guestworkers. This structure comprises the basis for the systemic exploitation of foreign labor. Second, I analyze the strategies different classes of the Indian transmigrant community utilize against this structure of dominance. For the poorest transmigrants, these strategies are often limited to movement between legal and illegal status, while the diasporic elite employ a strategic transnationalism to combat the vulnerabilities rendered by this system. Finally, I analyze the impact of these transnational flows upon the Bahraini state and citizenry. The structure of dominance, I argue, is essential to understanding the articulation of state-based power in Bahrain, for it provides a mechanism for citizens to cull profit from the private sector while maintaining a system for distributing state-controlled wealth that favors those well positioned in traditional social, familial, tribal relations. In essence, the Bahraini state comprises a form of resistance to the neoliberal logic of the global political economy--one that simultaneously structures inequities via those traditional fissures.

This thesis uses focus group interviews and survey questionnaires to examine perceptions of Ghanaian and Somali youth, residing in Toronto, about barriers to their labour market access. The emphasis is on perceptions that deal with labour market discrimination based on race, ethnicity and recency of immigration. The results show that perceptions of discrimination based on these factors are widespread among all of the participants interviewed or surveyed. This suggests a very strong belief that employment discrimination is pervasive and persistent in the Toronto labour market. The findings also show that the perceptions of discrimination are largely driven by ‘lived discriminatory’ experiences faced by the participants as well as revealing their desire for fairness and equality in society. The perceptions of discrimination negatively affected the level of trust the research participants have in people and institutions as well as impacting their sense of belonging to their communities and the wider society. The relationship between perceptions of discrimination and low levels of trust and sense of belonging is established in the findings of the Ethnic Diversity Survey. The consequences of this impact on the research participants and their communities are high levels of unemployment, high poverty rates and participant dissatisfaction with their own communities and society at large. It is my belief that this thesis contributes to the debate about the significance of discrimination due to race, ethnicity and immigrant status in the Canadian labour market.

In this thesis I examine familial dynamics and relations between Kenyan migrants in London and their non-migrant kin remaining in Kenya. Two transnational family configurations predominate: younger migrants and their non-migrant parents and siblings, and older transnational couples (migrant wives and non-migrant husbands). If migration is understood as a morally-laden social process, then how migrant and non-migrant kin engage with the distance(s) between them become the grounds on which what it means to be related is expressed and negotiated. Distance emerges not only as geographic and physical, but also as socially generated by the actions and inactions of kin. I argue that the emplacement of kin in different contexts post-migration, particularly younger migrants within a nascent Pentecostal community in London, mediates transnational kin relations. The thesis challenges a predominant strand of research on transnational families, which contends that migration disrupts kin relations and contributes to the commodification of love and care. Moreover, the focus on transnational Kenyan families fills a gap in African diaspora research that has largely focused on migrants from West Africa and issues of identity, diaspora politics, and development, while also addressing themes in African anthropology, such as, intergenerational reciprocity, social reproduction, and change.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Richard Goe / Asian-Indians represent an important component of the professional and ‘high-tech’ workers in the U.S. Research on this population has found that majority of these workers are temporary workers working on a contractual jobs. Further, it is not unusual for Indian immigrant workers to get married and have children while in the U.S. As such, they must learn to negotiate the U.S. cultural terrain in both their place of work and home life. This provides the potential that they will become transnational by developing identities and engaging in cultural and social practices from two different nations, India and the U.S. This dissertation investigates the nature and extent of transnational practices adopted by high-tech Indian workers employed by U.S. firms on a temporary work visa. In summary, the purpose of this research is to explore and describe the prevalence and practice of transnationalism among Indian high-tech workers employed by U.S. firms on a temporary work visa and its impact on their lives.  The study uses a mixed-methods research (Ivankova, Creswell and Stick, 2007), where quantitative survey and qualitative data collection are used in single study to understand the stated research problem. Also, as there is no formal list of Indian IT professionals working in the U.S. at contractual jobs, the data collection will be carried out through the non-random chain-referral sampling technique. A detailed survey and personal interview will be used to measure various micro aspects of these workers' lives including consumption patterns, recreational choices, socialization, cultural beliefs and family dynamics. The study reveals that the temporary stay of these professionals in the U.S. along with their families necessitates day-to-day negotiations between two cultures in terms of their food, clothing, recreation, and daily activities creating a transnational life style for these young professionals. The responses reflect the inner struggle of these professionals between their long-term goals of settling in India with their families and the current material life in a far-away land of opportunity. On one hand, the dualism of living in the U.S. as an Indian is demonstrated in this study by the convergence of the disparate elements of both aspects of their lives, work, incomes and remittances; on other hand, family, social life, religion, consumption patterns, and recreation activities provide the glimpse of a dual life. All of these cultural and social practices can be considered as the combination of transnationalism from ‘above’ and ‘below’ as noted by Smith and Guarnizo (1998). Transnational activities at the work place, which is forced by the work culture of the MNCs that employ them, can be considered as ‘transnationalism from above’. Simultaneously, being bi-lingual at home, cooking and eating Indian and Western food, socializing with Indian and American friends outside work, and all those cultural activities they perform on a day-to-day basis, indicates ‘transnationalism from below’. Overall, through this study, I have described important aspects of the transnational lives of Indian IT professionals, who try to maintain a fine balance between faster assimilation of American culture which might help them at the work place while simultaneously retaining much of their ‘Indian-ness’ so that going back to India never poses a problem when their visa expires. In a way, the lives of this particular group of professionals can be viewed as those of temporary-enclave residential workers.

Den bosniska diasporan i Sverige är en etablerad grupp av individer som deltar både i samhället i Sverige och samhället i Bosnien och Hercegovina. Studien baseras på semi-strukturerade intervjuer som har gjorts på bosnier i Sverige och inom dessa intervjuer så identifieras och analyseras olika relevanta teman och mönster. I denna studie ifrågasätter jag genom vilka gränsöverskridande aktiviteter den bosniska diasporan etablerar sin närvaro i båda samhällena. Studien belyser de politiska, ekonomiska och sociokulturella aktiviteter som den bosniska diasporan i Sverige upprätthåller genom transnationella nätverk som binder samman Sverige och Bosnien och Hercegovina. Jag undersöker även hur den bosniska diasporan bildades i Sverige samt vad det innebär att vara en gränsöverskridande medborgare för den grupp av individer som den bosniska diasporan i Sverige består av. Den bosniska diasporan i Sverige etablerar sin närvaro genom en rad olika gränsöverskridande aktiviteter som består av politiskt, ekonomiskt och sociokulturellt engagemang till hemlandet, Bosnien och Hercegovina.

This dissertation analyzes Brazilian immigrants in Boston, and their family and community adaptations as transnational migrants. The central research question was: what is the impact of national immigration policy on the dynamics of family and community life? The study calls for more attention to class, race, and immigration status as variables in shaping transnationalism and immigrant outcomes. The immigrant community is diverse, with significant divisions across class and immigration status, leading to quite different experiences for the undocumented working class and the mostly documented elite. Migrants’ prior class and racial standings define different migration pathways, access to visas, and once arrived, varying immigration statuses and manner of economic incorporation. Both populations are fully transnational, the majority engaging in everyday “transnationalism from below.” Brazilians import their prior beliefs and practices regarding race and class, and try to maintain them. The U.S. opportunity structure partially levels class differences, but immigrants of different class origins can have problems collaborating as equals, leading to considerable labor exploitation in the ethnic economy. Overall, Brazilians do not acknowledge race, or its link to class in Brazil, and see the U.S. as more racist. Racialized by Americans more on account of cultural differences than color, Brazilians perceive this as discrimination for being immigrants. Family life displays more egalitarian gender roles, companionate marriage, and nuclearization of family structure. Immigrants continue to maintain transnational family relations, involving remittances, sustaining social networks, and long-distance parenting. The majority of the community is undocumented, but have U.S.-born children and live in mixed-status families made insecure by the threat of detention and deportation. The desire of both the undocumented and elites to remain invisible encourages withdrawal from political engagement, the development of community unity and empowerment. The study is based upon a multiple methods research design, principally a social survey of 49 questions, administered through face-to-face interviews with a sample of 44 respondents in Boston, and another 44 in Lisbon, Portugal, where a limited companion study was completed for comparison. Methods also included collection of life stories, participant observation, and content analysis of popular culture in the immigrant community.

Fondée sur une ethnographie combinant observation et entretiens, cette thèse analyse les expériences migratoires des résident·e·s français·es à Abu Dhabi. Nuançant le portrait d’« expatrié·e·s » fréquemment présenté·e·s comme hypermobiles, elle montre qu’elles et ils empruntent en fait des routes migratoires balisées. Ces routes sont notamment dessinées par la rencontre entre politiques émiriennes et État français transnational, dans un contexte de concurrences postcoloniales qui se traduisent par des stratégies de distanciation vis-à-vis du colonialisme britannique et de l’impérialisme étasunien. La construction du groupe national, encadrée par des institutions migratoires, se déploie dans la délimitation de frontières associant francité et blanchité, au travers des interactions tant avec les nationales et nationaux émirien·ne·s qu’avec d’autres groupes migrants. Si le rapport à la population majoritaire sud-asiatique est marqué par une mise à distance, toutefois perturbée par la fréquence de l’emploi domestique à demeure, le rapport aux citoyen·ne·s émirien·ne·s engage un trouble singulier dans l’ordre postcolonial. Les résident·e·s français·es font ainsi l’expérience d’une vulnérabilité limitée, mais anxiogène, vis-à-vis d’Émirien·ne·s perçu·e·s comme omnipotent·e·s. En cela, les migrations françaises à Abu Dhabi se révèlent le lieu d’une déstabilisation autant que d’une solidification de la blanchité. Mettant en lumière la façon dont ces reconfigurations blanches s’entrecroisent avec un régime de genre où se renforce l’hétéroconjugalité, la thèse apporte une contribution à l’analyse plurielle des rapports sociaux dans les migrations des Nords vers les Suds. / Drawing on ethnographic methods (participant observation and interviews), this research analyses the migratory experiences of French residents of Abu Dhabi – generally referred to as ‘expats’ rather than ‘migrants’. It describes their migratory paths, and explores how migration affects their social positions, relations, and representations. While these ‘expatriates’ have been described as ‘hypermobile,’ they actually proceed along marked trails. Their migratory routes are shaped by the encounter of Emirati public policies and the French transnational state, in a context where postcolonial competition involves complex distancing strategies vis-à-vis British colonialism and U.S. imperialism. While the construction of the national group is supported by those migratory institutions, it also delineates symbolic boundaries and blends Frenchness and whiteness, through interactions with Emirati nationals as well as with other migrant groups. Although there appears to be little contact with the majority, South-Asian population, this remoteness is complicated by the massive institutionalization of ‘live-in’ domestic services. Relations to national citizens trigger an interesting trouble in the postcolonial order: French residents experience a limited, albeit anxiety-ridden, vulnerability vis-à-vis omnipotent-reputed Emiratis. To that extent, French migrations to Abu Dhabi enact an ambivalent social theater where whiteness is both destabilized and solidified. Showing how the reconfigurations of whiteness intersect with a gender regime which bolsters heteroconjugality, this research contributes to the analysis of the plurality of power relations in North-South migrations.

Thesis advisor: Philip G. Altbach / This is a phenomenological study of ten graduate international students at Chardin University (pseudonym). Through 30 in-depth interviews, multiple social contacts, and group and member checking sessions, stories emerged that highlight the social experiences of these graduate international students through their transient lives. Theoretical frameworks used to interpret the findings were transnationalism, adult transitional theory, and the graduate socialization model. This study provides a forum for participants to narrate their stories instead of being invisible and silent as they pass through our institutional corridors. What emerged from these narratives is that graduate international students cannot be grouped as one monolithic entity because they all lead variant and divergent lives. This research enumerates the intricacies, shades, and textures of their lives as they persist, succeed, and develop identities. In the past, graduate international students' social experiences have been portrayed in an oversimplified fashion, when in fact such students lead extremely complex lives as they negotiate a world that comprises both home and host country. Strongly lacking in the realm of social experiences have been meaningful relationships with American peers (looking beyond superficial ones), the university, and the local community. Operating within transnational social fields, regular prolonged conversations with family and friends from home tend to prevent participants from seeking out new connections in the United States. Most participants find comfort within their own ethnic enclaves, leading to cross-cultural isolation, which is still prevalent after decades of research conducted on this population. This study challenges universities to forge new pathways to engage with this vital and vibrant student body in meaningful, innovative, and creative ways. It is the responsibility of institutions of higher learning to understand the intricacies of their lives, as well as differences in religion, language, and socialization patterns. Universities need to find new ways to stay relevant in the lives of graduate international students during their tenure in the United States. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Thesis advisor: William A. Gamson / In this dissertation, I examine the strategic evolution of the US anti-sweatshop movement, particularly United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) and the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC). While scholars of social movements have analyzed individual tactics used by movements, they have only recently begun to look at the larger question of strategy--how movements make choices about which tactics to use when and how they link these tactics together into a larger plan to alter macro-level power relations in society. This dissertation is one of the first empirical examinations of the processes by which particular groups have developed their strategy. I look at how ideology and values, a sophisticated analysis of the structure of the apparel industry, strategic models for action handed down from past movements, and the movement's decision-making structures interacted in the deliberations of anti-sweatshop activists to produce innovative strategies. I also focus on how the larger social environment, especially the structure of the apparel industry, has shaped the actions of the movement. In seeking to bring about change, the anti-sweatshop movement had to alter the policies of major apparel corporations, decision-making arenas typically closed to outside, grassroots influence. They did so by finding various points of leverage--structural vulnerabilities--that they could use against apparel companies. One of the most important was USAS's successful campaign to get a number of colleges and universities to implement pro-labor codes of conduct for the apparel companies who had lucrative licensing contracts with these schools. In USAS's campaigns to support workers at particular sweatshops fighting for their rights, they could then use the threat of a suspension or revocations of these contracts--and therefore a loss of substantial profits--as a means to pressure apparel companies to protect the workers' rights. This combination of strategic innovation and access to points of leverage has allowed the US anti-sweatshop movement to win some victories against much more powerful foes. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

Internet-based new media—social media platforms in particular—have profoundly altered the boundaries and contours of civic and political life by offering new opportunities for participation and challenge, as well as new perils of communal competition, surveillance, counter-influence and disruption. Additionally, new media technologies have shown unprecedented capabilities for political communication to cross national boundaries. This project considers the complex factors that impact participation by members of a diaspora in the politics of the homeland—in this case Indian immigrants in the United States. A combined approach of historical inquiry and applied survey research attempts to disaggregate the influence of the digital media ecosystem (social networking platforms in particular), as well as core dynamics of personal identity and the dislocation associated with geographic migration. The tested hypotheses examine whether respondents are more or less likely to consider future political participation based on indexed independent variables related to identity, geographic migration and social media platform usage. Additionally, respondents’ sensitivity to exposure to certain types of news information is also considered through an experiment using hypothetical news stories that vary in content, geography and actor identity. These approaches reflect on the existing scholarship, but more importantly, builds new lines of questioning that span across previously disconnected streams of research, offering a more holistic appraisal that more accurately reflects the large, complex, varied mediascape in which migrants see, share and respond to many different forms of online information, communication and interactivity. Online recruitment of resident Indian and Non-Resident Indian (NRI) survey respondents provided two population samples that allows for comparative examination prior and subsequent to the event of migration. The survey questions themselves encompassed of a broad range of questions addressing socioeconomic status, prior civic activity, social media usage, perceptions about political institutions and expectations of future participation in the form of voting. The implications for this research may yield insights into the shape of possible future transnational phenomena, most notably the prospect of absentee voting in the near future. The specific questions and influences on diasporic participation are considered in this context, and recommendations for follow-up research are provided.