Practicing Transnationalism

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, American studies programs began to spread in the Middle East. During a time of rising anti-American sentiment, ten major programs were established in the region. What impulses propelled universities in the Middle East to establish these centers and programs? What motivated students to take courses and pursue degrees in American studies? In part, American studies programs developed as a way to “know the enemy,” to better understand America’s ubiquitous influence in foreign relations, technology, and culture; however, some programs grew because residents admired the ideals set forth as American, including democracy and free speech. Practicing Transnationalism investigates these issues and others, using the experiences and research of the editors and contributors, who worked either directly in these programs or as adjunct to them. These scholars seek to understand what American power means to people in the Middle East. They examine the challenge of developing American studies programs in a transnational paradigm, striving to build programs that are separate from and critical of American imperialism without simply becoming anti-American. In the essays, the contributors provide context for how the field of American studies has grown and developed, and they offer views of cultural interactions and classroom situations, demonstrating the problems instructors faced and how they worked to address them.

A growing number of people immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, displaced individuals, and families lead lives that transcend national boundaries. Often because of economic pressures, these individuals continually move through places, countries, and cultures, becoming exposed to unique risk and protective factors. Though migration itself has existed for centuries, the availability of fast and cheap transportation as well as today's sophisticated technologies and electronic communications have allowed transmigrants to develop transnational identities and relationships, as well as engage in transnational activities. Yet despite this new reality, social work has yet to establish the parameters of a transnational social work practice. In one of the first volumes to address social work practice with this emergent and often marginalized population, practitioners and scholars specializing in transnational issues develop a framework for transnational social work practice. They begin with the historical and environmental context of transnational practice and explore the psychosocial, economic, environmental, and political factors that affect at-risk and vulnerable transnational groups. They then detail practical strategies, supplemented with case examples, for working with transnational populations utilizing this population's existing strengths. They conclude with recommendations for incorporating transnational social work into the curriculum.

This wide-ranging collection brings together an eclectic group of scholars to reflect upon the transnational configurations of the field of American studies and how these have affected its localizations, epistemological perspectives, ecological imaginaries, and politics of translation. The volume elaborates on the causes of the transnational paradigm shift in American studies and describes the material changes that this new paradigm has effected during the past two decades. The contributors hail from a variety of postcolonial, transoceanic, hemispheric, and post-national positions and sensibilities, enabling them to theorize a "crossroads of cultures" explanation of transnational American studies that moves beyond the multicultural studies model. Offering a rich and rewarding mix of essays and case studies, this collection will satisfy a broad range of students and scholars.

Transnationalism in Practice brings together fourteen essays written by Paul Giles between 1994 and 2009 on the subjects of American studies, literature and religion. In an introduction written especially for the collection, Giles traces the evolution of critical transnationalism as it developed through the 1980s and 1990s. The volume includes "e;Reconstructing American Studies"e; (1994), one of the first articles to address the field from a transnational perspective, along with other pieces on methodological and practical issues surrounding the internationalization of American studies. The essays on American literature contain work on Theodore Dreiser, Henry James and the critic F. O. Matthiessen, along with a new study of Jamaica Kincaid in relation to postcolonialism. The section on religion traces the circulation of secularized forms of Catholicism in U.S. culture, from nineteenth-century slave narratives to the musical performances of Bruce Springsteen. Transnationalism in Practice ranges widely, from the culture of colonial America to the novels of Robert Coover and Kathy Acker, while also encompassing a broad range of interdisciplinary topics, from the presidency of George W. Bush to the role of religion in American society. This book will be of interest to all of those concerned with the place of U.S. culture in the world today.

International scholars offer ethnographic analyses of the relations between transnationalism, law, and culture The recent surge of right-wing populism in Europe and the United States is widely perceived as evidence of ongoing challenges to the policies and institutions of globalization. But as editors Carol J. Greenhouse and Christina L. Davis observe in their introduction to Landscapes of Law, the appeal to national culture is not restricted to the ethno-nationalisms of the developing world outside of industrial democracies nor to insurgent groups within them. The essays they have collected in this volume reveal how claims of national culture emerge in the pursuit of transnationalism and, under some circumstances, become embedded within international law. The premise that there is inherent tension between nationalism and globalism is misleading. Whether asserted explicitly as state sovereignty or implicitly as cultural community, claims of national culture mediate how governments assert their interests and values when engaging with transnational law. Landscapes of Law demonstrates how nationalism operates in the contested zone between borderless capital and bordered states. Drawing from the fields of anthropology, international relations, law, political science, and sociology, the book's international contributors examine the ways in which claims of national differences are produced within transnational institutions. Insights from case studies across a wide range of topics reveal how such claims may be worked into policy prescriptions and legal arrangements or provide ad hoc bargaining chips. Together, they show that expressions of national culture outside of state boundaries consolidate claims of sovereignty. The contributors offer innovative frameworks for analyzing the relationships among transnationalism, law, and cultural claims at various levels and scales. They demonstrate how overlapping communities use law to define borders and shape relationships among actors rather than to generate a single social ordering. Landscapes of Law traces the theoretical implications generated by an understanding of transnational law that challenges the conventional separation of individual, community, society, national, and international spaces. Contributors: Katayoun Alidadi, Tugba Basaran, Rachel Brewster, Sandra Brunnegger, Christina L. Davis, Sara Dezalay, Marie-Claire Foblets, Henry Gao, Carol J. Greenhouse, David Leheny, Mark Fathi Massoud, Teresa Rodríguez-de-las-Heras Ballell, Gregory Shaffer, Mariana Valverde.

In Transnational Religious Organization and Practice Stanley John offers a contextual analysis of Kerala (South India) Pentecostal churches formed in the context of temporary economic migration to Kuwait examining the transnational nature of the organization and practice of faith.

This edited volume examines how transnational English language assessment practices are envisioned, enacted, and justified by different stakeholders, including students, teachers, and universities in different geographical contexts, and what would be the multi-level consequences of such practices. Bringing together diverse perspectives from across the Global South and Global North, the book argues that the field of English language assessment has always been transnational, despite an absence of a research that explicitly examines English language assessment practices in relation to transnationalism. The contribution of this volume lies in filling in this critical scholarly gap. Through a wide set of epistemological, theoretical, and pedagogical interventions along with methodological orientations and analytical frameworks, the chapter authors question the social, economic, political, linguistic, and pedagogical consequences of transnational English language assessment practices in higher education (HE) settings and contexts. Offering fresh perspectives on English language assessment practices in relation to transnationalism, this book will be of great interest to researchers, academics, and post-graduate students in the fields of applied linguistics, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), and language assessment more broadly.

Girls and young women, particularly those from rural and indigenous communities around the world, face some of the most adverse social issues in the world despite the existence of protective laws and international treaties. Ethical Practice in Participatory Visual Research with Girls explores the potential of participatory visual method (PVM) for girls and young women in these communities, presenting and critiquing the everyday ethical dilemmas visual researchers face and the strategies they implement to address them, reflecting on principles of autonomy, social justice, and beneficence in transnational, indigenous and rural contexts.