Modes of engagement of immigrants with their home societies: types and measurements of engagement

ABSTRACT

The objective of this article is to review how transnational engagement has been traditionally measured and then offer a proposal for measurements corresponding to how immigrants perceive their transnational practices. Based on the traditional conceptual model of immigrant transnationalism, a system of indicators was developed in accordance with a broad and integral view of the connection with their home societies. This system of indicators was applied to an Andean sample population residing in the Basque Country, Spain, and analysed using factor analysis to produce an empirical model of engagement from the traditional conceptual one. Results show the importance of the private aspect of the relationships with origin and the existence of a continuum in the immigrant connection with their home countries that ranges from the personal to the community. Moreover, two types of intensity of this connection stand out: the first suggests a mere interest in the place of origin while the second implies an active connection with their home countries, both personal and community based.

KEYWORDS:

• Transnational migration
• indicators
• transnational practices
• Andean population

Acknowledgements

The authors want to express their special thanks to Unai Martín and Luisa N. Borrell for their generous and helpful comments on this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The TRANS-NET project, with qualitative methodology, was developed between 2008 and 2011 involving eight countries grouped into four pairs: Estonia/Finland, India/the UK, Morocco/France and Turkey/Germany.

2. The Municipal Population Census is an administrative population census that updates the population on 1 January of every year for the collective of Spanish municipalities. The Census has been revealed to be the best calculation instrument for the Spanish immigrant population, since despite the fact that registry in this census is not obligatory, it permits such rights as schooling for their children, access to social services or health-care coverage (until Royal Decree 16/2012, of 20 April, limiting their right to health-care assistance).

3. Within each of these types, there are practices that are more family based than personal, more community than national, more commitment based than interest based, but the selected term aims to summarise the position in four extremes of the two axes found.

Additional information

Funding

The data on which this article is based were collected under the project ‘Social implications of the transnational migration: beyond the remittances. The case of the migratory system between Andean countries and Spain’, supported by grants from the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain under Grant CSO2009-08469 (subprograma SOCI) and the Department of Education, Universities and Research of Basque Country Government, under Grant BF 109.121 funding a predoctoral scholarship.