Transnationalism, Active Citizenship, and Belonging in Canada
| Author | Lloyd L. Wong |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200806300106 |
| Published date | 01 March 2008 |
| Date | 01 March 2008 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Lloyd L. Wong is associate professor of sociology at the University of Calgary. He
would like to thank the SSHRC’s multiculturalism issues in Canada program’s fund-
ing support for this research.
1 Thomas Faist, “Transnationalism in international migration: Implications for the
study of citizenship and culture,”
Ethnic and Racial Studies
23, no. 2 (2000): 198.
Transnational identities, practices, and institutions are not really new and
have likely existed in some form over the past few hundred years and per-
haps back to the peace of Westphalia in the mid 1600s. While the techno-
logical transformations in previous centuries facilitated transnationalism,
such as trans-oceanic steamships and the telegraph, it has only been recent-
ly that the cost of bridging long geographic distances has been cut dramat-
ically.1As a result what
is
new is the emergence of transnationalism on a
mass scale. Technological conditions for earlier immigrants did not make
transnational practices rapid or easy but now they have and this has only
| International Journal | Winter 2007/08 | 79 |
Lloyd L. Wong
Transnationalism,
active citizenship,
and belonging in
Canada
2 Alejandro Portes, Luis Guarnizo, and Patricia Landolt, “The study of transnational-
ism: Pitfalls and promise of an emergent research field,”
Ethnic and Racial Studies
22, no. 2 (1999): 223.
been a relatively recent and new phenomenon.2This has had an affect on
the types of communities with which individuals and institutions identify
and in which they participate. Economic globalization over the past several
decades has led to the rise of a global economy with a plethora of transna-
tional and multinational corporations. Following this economic globaliza-
tion has been a cultural globalization that includes an ethnoscape with an
increasing multitude of diasporic and transnational communities. As many
people in these communities engage in transnational identities and prac-
tices, questions arise as to their rights and responsibilities of citizenship
within a particular nation. Further, with criticisms of multiculturalism
becoming more prevalent in recent years—particularly in the post 9/11
era—including the Madrid train bombings of 2004, the London bombings
of 2005, and the Canadian suspected terrorism case of 2006—the “darker”
side of transnational practices has been prominent in public discourse. This
discourse is based on the perception that multiculturalism is not working
and, along with transnational practices, leads to fragmentation and segre-
gation rather than the integration of diverse racial, ethnic, and religious
groups. The argument is made that multiculturalism and transnationalism
make social cohesion in Canadian society difficult if not impossible to
achieve. More specifically, those engaged in transnational identities and
practices are viewed as practicing a “thin” citizenship with limited active cit-
izenship engagement within Canada and minimal shared values, cultural
identity, and sense of belonging to Canada. This article begins with a dis-
cussion of how transnationalism and active citizenship are conceptualized.
It then examines how these two processes are allegedly divergent and con-
tradictory. This is followed by an empirical investigation of these allegations
comprising three research questions. I outline the methodology used to
answer the questions, how the key variables of transnationalism are meas-
ured, and present the findings.
CONCEPTUALIZING TRANSNATIONALISM
While the introduction and popularization of the term
transnationalism
emerged in the social sciences over the past decade and a half, sociologist
Anthony Richmond coined a somewhat similar term—
transilience
—in
| 80 | International Journal | Winter 2007-08 |
| Lloyd L. Wong |
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