The Making of a Transnational Community: Migration, Development, and Cultural Change in the Dominican Republic

Citation:

Georges, Eugena. 1990. The Making of a Transnational Community: Migration, Development, and Cultural Change in the Dominican Republic. New York: Columbia University Press.

Author: Eugena Georges

Abstract:

This book is specifically concerned with the less well-studied sending side of the migration continuum and offers a close-range view from the migrants' communities of origin. It is an anthropological study of how US-bound migration from a village in the Dominican Republic, Los Pinos, and from its surrounding countryside, has been initiated, organized, and articulated with larger social and economic processes through time. It is also an ethnographic account of the various consequences of international migration for those who remain in Los Pinos. Issues central to the study include: the essential characteristics of documented and undocumented migrants to the USA and their reasons for migration; the consequences of intensive migration for the local society in general and its economic development in particular; whether international migration has significantly enhanced social mobility and altered local social structure; whether gender relations and women's status changed as a consequence of migration; and the ideological and cultural impact of migration on those still in the community. The structural-historical perspective provides a valuable framework for identifying the political and economic forces that condition migration at the macro level. However, the concrete process of migration becomes intelligible only when adequate attention is also paid to intermediate processes operating on the ground: the organization of households, the composition of networks, and the local formation of classes and class segments. The study assesses migration from Los Pinos in the context of Dominican state policies and the broader constraints of the world system in which the republic is enmeshed. (EBSCO) 

Topics: Class, Displacement & Migration, Migration, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Households Regions: Americas, Caribbean countries, North America Countries: Dominican Republic, United States of America

Year: 1990