REVIEWS
“As the legal contours of citizenship are being reshaped by new forms of globalized trade and multi-national families, Green offers a fresh perspective on the history of crossing borders. Her dry wit and shrewd eye for paradox enliven her account of how men and women have defined the boundaries of belonging as they navigated the shifting legal landscapes of the United States and Europe, and how scholarly interpretations of what they were up to have fluctuated over the years. An important addition to our understanding of the protections of citizenship and its limitations.”
— Linda K. Kerber, University of Iowa
“Green explores the complex stories of how transnational lives were lived, while also making an important historiographical intervention: living between two nation states and across their borders can frustrate migrants’ life plans and pose social, legal, and economic challenges as well as offer them rich opportunities for change and creativity.”
— Donna Gabaccia, University of Toronto
“With this learned, witty, and elegantly written volume, Green has written a book that illuminates the limits of transnationalism and yet shows how much is to be learned when migration researchers extend their lens across state boundaries. A work that scholars and students will read with pleasure and profit.”
— Roger Waldinger, University of California, Los Angeles
“Recommended. . . Green does a salutary job of arguing the case.”
— Choice
"The Limits of Transnationalism is a provocative, timely, and necessary book. Green begins the conversation that will, this reviewer anticipates, carry on through the field for many years."
— Caroline Waldron, Journal of American Ethnic History
"Like other sympathetic critics of transnational theorizing, Nancy Green does not dispute the reality of the phenomenon. Her central message is that while transnationalism exists, it is far more difficult to live a genuinely transnationalism life than Glick-Schiller, Alejandro Portes, Steven Vertovec, and others presumed. There are, as her title makes clear, “limits” to transnationalism. . . . [An]invaluable book-length diagnostic [assessment] of transnationalism."
— Journal of Modern History
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction. The “Transnational Moment” and Its Limits - Nancy L. Green
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226608310.003.0001
[agency;comparative history;connected history;globalization;historiography;migration studies;mobility;transnationalism;migration]
The frequent interchangeability of “transnationalism” with the terms “globalization,” “comparative history,” or “connected history” shows the flexibility of the term(s), the use of which may depend on discipline, country, or historiographic posturing. This book questions the recent “transnational moment” as it relates especially to human mobility. This is neither to say that transnationalism does not exist nor that it is not a fruitful line of study. However, two criticisms may be raised. First, as has by now been amply shown, it is not necessarily a new phenomenon. Migration historians have been studying it all along, albeit without designating it as such. Second, transnationalism is also not as easy as it looks. Insofar as transnationalism has come to emphasize a somewhat heroic sense of individual opportunity and mobility, the difficulties of transnational activities have been lost from sight. While the idea of transnationalism arose as an understandably powerful antidote to the older sturm und drang of migration studies, it has too often led to an overly optimistic vision of migrant agency, ignoring, among other things, the state’s capacity for interference. It is time to take a closer look at the metaphoric and real obstacles to transnational mobility from a historical perspective. (pages 1 - 6)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Chapter 1. Fake Wine and Future Cadaver: The Trials of an American in France - Nancy L. Green
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226608310.003.0002
[American in France;artificial wine;citizenship;country of origin;France;networks;transnationalism]
The book starts with the tragi-comic story of an American in France, Frank Gueydan aka François Gueydan de Roussel. In 1907, Gueydan de Roussel was condemned to six months in prison and 7,500 francs in fines and damages for having manufactured artificial wine. He fled to Switzerland, from where he tried to draw upon powerful networks in both France and the United States to clear his name -- unsuccessfully. Gueydan’s travails highlight two oft-ignored aspects of transnationalism: the perspective – and doubts – of the country of origin with regard to its absent citizens; and the ways in which citizens abroad may try to use their citizenship of origin to plead their cause, even though it does not always work. Gueydan’s story is a cautionary tale about the potential weakness of networks that serves as an introduction to more general questions about individuals and states, about contrasting views of protection and citizenship from the perspective of the home state, and about how individuals may use their citizenship while trying to live transnational lives. (pages 7 - 32)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Chapter 2. Old History, New Historiography - Nancy L. Green
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226608310.003.0003
[agency;anthropologists;historians;historiography;mobility;post-structuralism;sociologists;transnationalism]
Chapter2 reviews the historiography on transnationalism both in order to explicate Gueydan de Roussel’s tale and to introduce the succeeding chapters. It discusses the different terms used to describe transnational activities, the ways in which different disciplines have approached them, and reviews what can be called the “newness debate.” As other migration historians have pointed out, transnationalism-as-practice is not that new, contrary to what many more present-oriented anthropologists and sociologists have claimed. However, the “discovery” of transnationalism, or what can be called the historiographic turn to writing about transnationalism, is new. Its advent, as this chapter argues, is linked not only to the political and economic environment of the late 20th century but also to larger epistemological trends, notably post-structuralism. The question then is to what extent has the emphasis on mobility, fluidity, and individual agency, as fundamental elements of transnationalism, blinded us to other, more constraining aspects of international movement? (pages 33 - 55)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Chapter 3. Expatriation: The Obverse of Transnationalism - Nancy L. Green
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226608310.003.0004
[citizenship;expatriation;home state;immigrants;immigration history;transnational studies;transnationalism;United States;women]
During the period of Gueydan de Roussel’s settlement in France, the United States started looking into the matter of its transnationals abroad. The 1907 Expatriation Act was passed just as Gueydan was condemned in France. While immigration history has mostly focused on those who arrive, this book argues for the importance of incorporating departure and expatriation into transnational studies. The perspective of the home state helps understand the ways in which it can encourage or raise obstacles regarding its citizens abroad. Women have been particularly at risk of losing their citizenship, as the case of Lily Oelrichs aka Duchess of Mecklenburg demonstrates. Chapter 3 shows how the meaning of expatriation shifted in the United States from an inclusive view, stressing the individual’s right voluntarily to expatriate to another country (with British nationals in the US and then the immigrants of the mid-nineteenth century in mind), to a more troubled view as suspicion arose concerning a new, more worrisome figure: those leaving the United States. For those transnational citizens, the potential acts that could incur citizenship loss were codified and lengthened from 1907 to 1967. Expatriation law both reflects ideas about transnationalism while it can act to constrain it. (pages 56 - 82)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Chapter 4. On States and Exit: Letting People Go . . . with Gritted Teeth - Nancy L. Green
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226608310.003.0005
[emigration;France;Germany;Great Britain;homeland;Hungary;Italy;mobility;remittances;transnationalism]
Beyond the US, other countries – notably those with much higher rates of emigration in the 19th century – all debated the issue of departures, with considerable worry. Chapter4 continues to look at emigration from the perspective of the home state, in order to see the ways in which it can have an impact on transnational ties. Focusing on several countries of emigration of the 19th century – France, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and Hungary – this chapter shows how their policies could affect the possibilities of mobility. Attitudes ranged – from country to country and within one country over time – from fear of loss of manpower (both labor- and soldier-power) to an encouragement of departure if it could be helpful to national stature abroad. Emigration, after all, could help spread one’s culture across borders and, importantly, result in remittances. But concerns about the loss of and the protection of citizens overseas mean that at different moments homeland policies could also create obstacles to transnational movement. (pages 83 - 108)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Chapter 5. “Au secours”: Individuals Betwixt and Between - Nancy L. Green
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226608310.003.0006
[citizenship;consulate;divorce;home ties;homeland;mobility;networks;overseas citizens;State Department]
Chapter5 returns to the ways in which citizens draw upon home ties while abroad – with success but also, at times, failure. Mobile lives create their own problems, most notably at the crossroads of different legal systems. Returning to the perspective of individual experience, this chapter highlights, among others, the life trajectories of Gertrude Moulton and Clara Steichen, two American women living abroad, who, in turning to their lawyer in Paris for help in their divorce settlements, expressed the twists and turns of transnational existences in Paris, Salzburg, and Majorca. Other Americans abroad turned to their consulate as a hub of aid for transnationals abroad, both in times of war and during peacetime. Calling upon home networks for help, seeking protection from the US government, overseas citizens first need to prove their citizenship. Letters from grateful individuals to the State Department show how the homeland could help out at its best, but other letters, from irate citizens, reveal the dashed expectations of some and the fact that transnational ties do not always work. (pages 109 - 138)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Conclusion: It’s Not as Easy as It Looks - Nancy L. Green
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226608310.003.0007
[agency;citizenship;domicile;ethnicity;homeland;post-structuralism;power relations;migration;mobility;transnationalism]
Transnationalism in migration and mobility studies has been conceptualized at two ends of the spectrum: elite, multiple passport-holders; ordinary migrants moving back and forth or settling in but sending money home. In both cases, the celebratory image of poststructural connectedness and agency is, this book argues, overdrawn. The point is not to dismiss the activities of the active subject but to remind us of the obstacles faced. Agency does not ensure success, and domicile can trump citizenship. Transnational individuals do not just send packages and money home; they turn to their home state for help in being transnational. Yet both outgoing and incoming states have historically erected different types of barriers to mobility. This book takes a new look at egress, looking at how states worry about those who have left and then help them, or not, depending on the case. Ultimately transnationalism remains anchored in a fundamental paradox that this book identifies as super-agency or super-ethnicity. For some, it means going beyond the nation-state, for others it allows a reinforcement of homeland connections. In either case, mobility is still limited by power relations. This book serves as a reminder of transnationalism’s complexity and the bumps along the road. (pages 139 - 144)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
