Module Objectives

The concept of transnationalism became popular in the 1990s in order to explore the lives of migrants and other diasporic populations, which were supposedly being shared between different geographical areas, regions and countries.

Through the passage of time, this concept of transnationalism started to be used in a broader way in order to investigate multiple and simultaneous flows of goods, people, technology, ideologies, identities, images, etc. To some extent, transnationalism became synonymous with the attempt to shed light on ongoing processes of economic, cultural and political globalization.

This course seeks to examine the ways in which transnational theory (or the transnational example) penetrated the field of geography, especially the field of human geography, with the aim to interpret the complex, interdependent and contradictory character of the globalizing world of the past three decades.

Subsequently, this course is structured in relation to different aspects of human geography and among other things the following topics are investigated: trans-national economies, global political economy, transnational movements, cross-national identities and communities, inter-ethnic relations and cultures, trans-national policy, globalised civil society etc.

Course Content

Defining the concept of transnationalism. Transnationalism and the human scale. Defining globalization as a two-step process that takes place simultaneously from ‘above’ and ‘bottom’.  Network society and network theories. Neoliberalism. Describing the political economy of now.

Transnational cities and city networks. Migration, transnational communities and identities. Dual citizenship and transnational sense of belonging. Transnational migrant integration. Off transnational movements and the rise of global civil society. Transnational challenges: Global terrorism. The dialectical image of transnationalism: nationalism and intolerance.