Home Visits: Transnationalism among Australian Migrants

Abstract

As a perspective developed primarily in anthropology, ‘transnationalism’ has until recently been dominated by ethnographic and textual analyses. While not problematic for any particular study, the overwhelming dominance of these methodologies has created two major theoretical shortcomings; a tendency to inflate the prevalence of transnational models of living, and the attribution of an egalitarian or emancipatory character to transnationalism, generally in the absence of systematic evidence. In this article we attempt to remedy these problems by examining the frequency and determinants of one tangible indicator of transnational activity in migrants to Australia: visits home. Our results suggest three important conclusions: 1) not all migrants visit home at all, and only about 11 per cent do so on a regular basis; 2) there are major between-group differences in migrants’ capacity to visit home; and 3) the earlier concepts of assimilation and migration order are of substantial significance in understanding transnationalism.

Keywords:

• Transnationalism
• return visits
• migration
• migration system
• assimilation
• Australia

Acknowledgements

The Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia data was graciously provided by the federal Department of Immigration, Multiculturalism and Indigenous Affairs. Professor Mark Western and Dr. Michele Haynes gave invaluable advice on the technical and statistical aspects of the research, and we also received insightful and helpful comments from two anonymous ERS reviewers. Responsibility for the contents of this article, including any error or omission, rests solely with the authors.

Notes

1. ‘Settlement’ refers to the date when migrants enter Australia in order to take up their offer of a permanent residence visa. We make this point explicitly because in many cases migrants have a grace period of a number of years after being offered their visa, during which time they are able to visit Australia without taking up permanent residence.

2. The visa categories described here are no longer completely current, due to the Howard government's overhaul of immigration policy on gaining office in 1996.

3. All percentages are estimated using weights provided with the data by DIMIA, as appropriate for the sampling design of the LSIA.

4. For a full discussion of logistic regression see Hutcheson and Sofroniou (1999).

5. This is not an ideal measure, but unfortunately the LSIA does not contain comprehensive information on migrants’ networks.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Martin O'Flaherty

MARTIN O'FLAHERTY is a Phd student at the University of Queensland. St Lucia.

Zlatko Skrbis

ZLATKO SKRBIS is Professor of Sociology at the University of Queensland, St Lucia.

Bruce Tranter

BRUCE TRANTER is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Tasmania, Hobart.