Transnational Migrations: the Decline of the Nation State? Anthropological Reflections

The contibution presented here is located within the debate over the antthropology of the state in an age of globalization and transnationalism. I argue against the assumption widespread within the anthropology of contemporary worlds according to which the development of transnational social networks of migratory groups necessarily erodes the relevance of the nation state in social and cultural life. At the beginning of the 1990s, a new theoretical and methodological approach to migration developed which focused on migrants’ ability to sustain multi-stranded social relations that link their societies of origin and settlement. In this way they formed transnational networks that cross cultural, geographic, and political borders. As with other dimensions of globalisation, transnational migration is often considered as a social phenomenon that defies the territorial sovereignty and power of nation states over collective identities. Consequently, in the age of transnationalism and globalisation it seems obsolete to carry on the research process that one may define as the “anthropology of the state” . The aim of this discussion is therefore twofold. First, I illustrate theoretically as well as ethnographically the relevance of the state in affecting transnational social formations. Furthermore, I argue in favour of a transnational approach that flirts with - instead of avoiding - the ethnography of organisational, institutional and state-like practices. With this purpose in mind, I provide an introduction to recent attempts to shape a transnational anthropology and to some examples of the ethnography of transnationality. Then, I refer to the Senegalese experience to show how access to power in the states of origin may imply numerous activities aimed at gaining migrants’ potential economic and political resources and how the states of immigration are able to affect the life of transnational migrants. On the other side of the spectrum, by taking into account the multiple world of social policies towards migrants I show how Senegalese transnational strategies are however bound to be negotiated with social practitioners who favour migrants’ sedentarisation. Scott (1998) argues that a perennial project of the state is that of settling people within a defined territory. Thus, the state has always been an enemy of people on the move. It is interesting, in this regard, to appreciate how this disposition persists with the discourses that animate migration policies, despite the transformation of local and national state apparatuses. I will conclude with an invitation to avoid a over-reified conception of the state in favour of an ethnography which encompasses the interplay between transnational networks and the diverse institutional practices within the various organisational cultures which shape a receiving context. I think that this methodological approach helps in representing the different perspectives that characterise the migratory phenomenon and thus in strengthening the anthropology of migration.