Welcome to the Club?: A response to The Cross -Border Connection by Roger Waldinger

Abstract

Roger Waldinger's provocative book on migrants’ cross-border lives corroborates many insights already established by transnational migration scholarship. He makes a compelling case for the need to understand migration not just as assimilation – neo, segmented, or otherwise – but also as about how people continue to be simultaneously involved in their homelands, the countries where they settle, and other salient places. I am glad that Waldinger has lent his voice to correct the unproductive divide between immigration and emigration scholarship. But the ‘new’ path he charts forward to right what he sees as wrong with current scholarship is, at times, so selectively formulated and argued that it undercuts its effectiveness.

Keywords:

• transnational migration
• globalization
• immigration
• emigration
• cross-border ties
• Politics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Peggy Levitt

PEGGY LEVITT is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Transnational Studies Initiative.ADDRESS: Department of Sociology, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA and Weatherhead Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02481, USA Email: [email protected]