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Transnational Mobility and Associative Life

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Abstract

Transnationally, mobile people have produced a differentiated associative life in many countries. This chapter tries to understand why these people organize themselves and relate forms and logics of these autonomous associations to extrinsic and intrinsic dynamics. It concludes by underlining the pluralism of logics and the societal role of these associations.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This text is partially based on the introductory chapter of Cattacin and Domenig (2012).

  2. 2.

    We use the terminology of “mobile people” to indicate that contemporary movements of people beyond existing frontiers can no longer be captured by the term migration, which has to include such different experiences of mobility such as asylum seekers, expats, and clandestine migration. Furthermore, the notion includes the aspiration to advance not only physically but also economically (see Cattacin and Domenig 2013).

  3. 3.

    We describe this migration as an organized one because it was planned and sustained by governments and companies. Company buses were sent, for example, in southern regions of Italy, to bring people willing to migrate directly to Switzerland (Cerutti 1994).

  4. 4.

    In the sense of Giddens (1991). Associations help to find an existential, non-material security, such as the acceptance of one’s identity through group affiliation.

  5. 5.

    As analyzed in relation to Switzerland by Niederberger (2004) and Gianni and Parini (2005)

  6. 6.

    A special aspect of this demographic dynamics is the role of the descendants of migrants. These “second generations” are largely emancipated from their parents and find themselves often in the role of mediators between various groups representing differences (Atabay 1998, Bolzman et al. 2003). They usually promote a more cosmopolitan (and not national) vision of cohesion between the differences (Soysal 1994) and invest their time rarely in those associations that are organized according to the origins of their members.

  7. 7.

    The regular mobility continues to exist in the flexible and global world of highly skilled people that can move with almost no barriers from one country to another. They can also be affected by xenophobic hostility (Helbling 2011).

  8. 8.

    It would be wrong, of course, to ignore associative logics that could be called anomic, such as conspiracy or terrorist organizations. Even if this kind of association is marginal—at least from a quantitative point of view—we can still include them in our analysis as a reactive strategy (voice), which is oppressive and thus outside of the field of communication in a pluralist society and which can only result in the isolation of the members of this kind of association.

  9. 9.

    As shown in some studies on the local context: Waldrauch and Sohler (2004); Taboada-Leonetti (1989); Mutlu (1995).

  10. 10.

    A dynamic that was highlighted by Baillet for France (Baillet 2000).

  11. 11.

    In terms of networks of mutual reciprocity and mutual trust (see Mutti 1998 and Bagnasco 1999); for the context of migration: Weiss and Thränhardt 2005; Reinprecht 2011.

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  1. Department of Sociology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Sandro Cattacin

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  1. Sandro Cattacin
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  1. Department of Political Science, University of Münster, Münster, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Matthias Freise

  2. Department of Political Science, University of Münster, Münster, Germany

    Thorsten Hallmann

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Cattacin, S. (2014). Transnational Mobility and Associative Life. In: Freise, M., Hallmann, T. (eds) Modernizing Democracy. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0485-3_14

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