Migrant Balancing Acts: Understanding the Interactions Between Integration and Transnationalism

Abstract In this article, we explore ways of understanding the interactions between migrant integration and transnationalism, based on a review of quantitative and qualitative literature. Integration is taken as the starting point, and the assumption that integration and transnationalism are at odds with one another is questioned. When considered as constituents of a social process, we argue that there are many similarities between integration and transnationalism. A typology for understanding these interactions is developed, based on an acknowledgment of migrants' agency in straddling two societies—as a balancing act. This typology is presented as a tool to enable migration scholars to move beyond simply acknowledging the co-existence of transnationalism and integration and towards an analysis of the nature of interactions between the two—understood in relation both to particular places and contexts and to the human beings involved and their functional, emotional and pragmatic considerations. Keywords: TransnationalismIntegrationMigrationAgencySocial Process Acknowledgements This paper, and the special issue as a whole, was inspired by three linked sessions which we organised at the 2010 Royal Geographical Society conference, entitled 'Migrant Transnationalism, Integration and Place'. We thank all the presenters and the audience at those sessions, and Jørgen Carling and Russell King for encouraging us to develop this special issue. We thank Ben Rogaly, Naluwembe Binaisa and the JEMS editorial team and peer reviewers for comments on an earlier draft. Notes 1. This is done, for instance, through including measures of self-reported feelings of belonging to the country of settlement (see also Carling and Hoelscher Citation2013; Snel et al. Citation2006). 2. Although Morawska uses the term assimilation.