AAG ANNUAL CONFERENCE,

LOS ANGELES,

19-23 MARCH 2002

Abstracts are invited for the following paper session(s):

TRANSNATIONAL MIGRANTS: FLOWS, IDENTITIES, PLACES
Convenors: Alan Latham and David Conradson (University of Southampton, UK)

The contemporary world is an increasingly mobile world. Commentators have drawn attention to the hyper-mobility of objects, information and people. Focusing on these developments, researchers such as Ulf Hannerz (1997),
Aihwa Ong (1999) and Michael Peter Smith (2001) have developed the term transnationalism. This concept seeks to capture the complex dynamics of social relationships that are constructed through and defined by movement
across international borders, whilst recognising the continuing significance of the nation state.

In this session we are interested in how flows of transnational migrants are reshaping existing places and identities. Cities such as London and Los Angeles, for example, are significantly constituted by migrant
communities whose origins lie in nations of both the so-called North and South. Other places, such as Auckland and Mumbai, have been very much shaped by people returning to them after periods abroad.

We would thus like to bring together researchers whose work explores the way that transnational flows are reshaping contemporary places, identities and economies. We invite expressions of interest addressing, but not
limited to, the following topics:

- Theorising transnationalism
- Mapping transnational flows and networks
- The practices of transnational relationships and communities
- Transnationalism, urban culture and cultural innovation
- Migration, home, belonging
- The cultural economies of transnational entrepreneurialism
- Elite/global transnationals
- Middling transnationalism (e.g. Antipodeans in London, Brits in Sydney etc)
- Transnationalism from below
- Stasis and transnational spaces

Given that much of the existing transnational research has focused on either the so-called global elites or 'transnationals from below', we would particularly welcome contributions that explore what might be called the
transnationalism of more 'middling' social groups. We would also welcome contributions that move beyond the global cities where transnationalism is most immediately evident.

Please send enquiries and expressions of interest, by 31st July 2001, to either:

Dr Alan Latham, Department of Geography, University of Southampton, a.latham@soton.ac.uk, or

Dr David Conradson, Department of Geography, University of Southampton, d.conradson@soton.ac.uk