- Email: [email protected]
Transnational elites
Geoforum 33 (2002) 505–507 www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum
Introduction
Transnational elites
In August 2000, the authors co-organised a conference in Singapore entitled ‘Transnational Communities in the Asia–Pacific Region: Comparative Perspectives’. 1 Among the diversity of papers in terms of disciplinary background, communities examined and national contexts, it was clear that the majority of papers were concerned with the transnational practices of unskilled or semi-skilled migrants. 2 This reflects the wider patterns in studies of ‘transnationalism’, where particular migrant groups and practices have taken on almost symbolic roles as icons for a globalising age (for example, Mexicans and Dominicans in the USA, and Filipinas in East Asia and North America). In the literature, the role of highly skilled migrants within global migration flows has not been ignored, but rather the study of these groups has usually been from the perspective of ‘transnationalism from above’ (i.e. above the level of the nation-state). A growing literature has highlighted the importance of how the increasing flows of transnational capital as part of ‘globalisation processes’, have been associated with a concomitant growth in flows of managerial and professional employees. Appadurai (1990) in his seminal paper on the dimensions of ‘‘global cultural flow’’ (p. 296), identifies ‘ethnoscapes’ to describe ‘‘the landscape of persons who constitute the shifting world in which we live’’ (p. 297). He links this explicitly to other ‘-scapes’ which he identifies, particularly ‘technoscapes’; the increasingly complex global webs of technology and corporate organisation which both create and are constituted through, the availability of both low or unskilled labour and highly skilled labour. The diverse labour market requirements of transnational capital have been com-
1 The conference was co-sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council’s ‘Transnational Communities Programme’ and The Centre for Advanced Studies, National University of Singapore. We are very grateful for their financial and administrative support. 2 While the vast majority of papers were about migration and migrants, there were a few papers which considered non-mobile individuals and the ways in which they were affected by other forms of transnational flows (e.g. Carstens, 2000). See, also Vertovec (1999) for an overview of the contexts in which ‘transnationalism’ as a concept has been mobilised.
mented upon by many, with Sassen’s discussions of ‘the global city’ (1991) a key example due to the emphasis on the polarisation of social worlds within these urban nodes. The following collection of four papers aims to go beyond the generalisations about the flows of highly skilled migrants, to consider who these migrants are and to stress that while the ease of mobility for these groups may be greater than for their lower-skilled counterparts, they do not live in a ‘frictionless world’; relocations can involve dislocations and discomfort, and ways of living and working have to be tailored to local environments. Three of the papers (Beaverstock, Thang et al. and Willis & Yeoh) deal directly with the professional and managerial workers, posted in key locations around the world by transnational corporations. In her paper, Constance Lever-Tracy considers other members of the ‘transnational capitalist class’ (Sklair, 2001); members of the most elite group––the world’s billionaires, in particular Chinese tycoons. The Chinese diaspora has been one of the key groups considered in transnational migration studies. In particular, the focus has been on the ways in which Chinese business networks have developed, and individuals and families have used transnational connections for economic gain. Research on members of the Chinese diaspora has also been at the forefront of research on the fluidity of identity and how migrants can use their wealth to negotiate nationality or access to resources outside the ‘home’ country (see, for example, Mitchell, 1999, 2001; Ong, 1999). While not all members of the Chinese diaspora can be classified as a member of a ‘transnational elite’, this research on Chinese transnationalism is one of the few examples of work on wealthier groups which engages with lived experiences and identify formation of the people involved. Lever-Tracy’s paper deals with the impact of the 1997 ‘Asian Crisis’ on diaspora Chinese tycoons. Using data from the Forbes Magazine annual ranking of the world’s billionaires, she highlights the diversity of this group, but also examines the potential reasons behind their relative successes and failures. This focus on the ways in which ethnic identity and local knowledge intertwine with the broader macro-economic processes
0016-7185/02/$ - see front matter Ó 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 0 1 6 - 7 1 8 5 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 3 8 - 6
506
Introduction / Geoforum 33 (2002) 505–507
helps to illuminate the importance of considering how individuals are embedded in localities through processes of kinship, ethnic affiliation or other forms of network. The importance of considering the embedded nature of transnational elites’ activities is stressed in the other three papers, most explicitly in Jonathon Beaverstock’s paper on British finance professionals within the International Finance Centre of Singapore. Using qualitative interview material, he demonstrates how the creation of financial capital is based on the social relations of these expatriates, not only their financial knowledge (gained from a range of global locations), but also their ability to develop and mobilise business contacts in specific social and physical sites within the city state. In this paper, Beaverstock highlights how these sites are often outside the formal workplace, including bars and sports clubs, as well as the ‘domestic’ through the incorporation of family members (particularly wives) in the building up of social networks. The explicit recognition of gender within studies of the transnational elite, is clear from the paper by Leng Leng Thang, Elizabeth MacLachlan and Miho Goda, and also the paper by Katie Willis and Brenda Yeoh. Both papers deal partly with the gendered nature of expatriate workforces; the Japanese in Singapore, and Britons and Singaporeans in China. While much of the literature on highly skilled migration assumes male migration or never considers gender at all (see Kofman (2000) for a summary of possible explanations for this in a European context), these papers show how the gender division of labour and gendered assumptions by human resources managers frame the recruitment of employees for overseas postings, and also the routes into employment overseas. Willis and Yeoh expand on a consideration of the domestic sphere in their paper, stressing the importance of looking beyond the confines of the formal ‘workspace’ to look at how workers’ lives overseas are framed by their household situations, and also how (as also shown by Beaverstock in his paper) capital accumulation processes are based on networks which are embedded within a broad community of transnationals. These communities consist of more than employees of transnational corporations; spouses/partners, children and those working in other sectors may also be important. This paper also considers transnational linkages beyond the confines of intra-firm activities. As with the case of the diaspora Chinese, some Britons and Singaporeans are engaged in transnational practices, in these cases usually linked to family and household responsibilities. For the Chinese tycoons described by Lever-Tracy, transnational business practices are a way of consoli-
dating their position within a global economic elite. For the skilled transients described in the other papers, the overseas postings are also primarily for economic gain, and the activities in which these individuals engage act to reinforce their status, and also help contribute to capital accumulation and the promotion of transnational corporations’ interests. However, as with much of the ‘transnationalism from below’ literature (see Smith and Guarnizo, 1998), it is important to consider the possibilities migration has for challenging pre-existing power relations along a number of axes. In the case of single Japanese women in Singapore, Thang et al. highlight how their marginal status relative to both a Japanese expatriate community based largely on patriarchal expectations of male breadwinner and female housewife, and to the local Singaporean society, has resulted in a form of empowerment for some women. Among British and Singaporean female migrants in China, Willis and Yeoh find fewer examples of such celebratory processes of ‘liberation’. This may be partly because of the greater freedoms already afforded British women in comparison to their Japanese counterparts, but also because married British women, and many Singaporean women, regardless of marital status, find gender norms from ‘home’ reinscribed in the activities of transnationals in China. In all four papers, the importance of locality is ever present. Literature on the globalisation of capital and associated skilled migration flows often stresses the ease of movement and lack of dislocation. This positive interpretation of transnational practices has also been identified by those studying cultural dimensions of transnationalism, focusing on the possibilities supposedly inherent in being ‘neither here nor there’. However, as Mitchell (1997) has forcefully argued, there is a need to ‘bring the geography back in’. This holds for transnational elites, just as it does for unskilled or undocumented migrants. While the latter groups may feel the power of nation-state regulations more forcefully, elite groups still have to operate within the confines of state boundaries, whether that be in terms of legislation (rules on residence for example), or in less tangible terms in relation to local business practices and social norms. Transnational elites may be evidence of processes at a global scale, but this ‘global’ is constructed and understood by operations of particular individuals in local spaces.
References Appadurai, A., 1990. Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. In: Featherstone, M. (Ed.), Global Culture: Nationalism Globalization and Modernity. Sage, London, pp. 295–310.
Introduction / Geoforum 33 (2002) 505–507 Carstens, S., 2000. Constructing transnational identities: mass media and the Chinese Malaysian audience. Paper given at International Conference on Transnational Communities in the Asia–Pacific Region: Comparative Perspectives, August 2000. Kofman, E., 2000. Invisibility of skilled female migrants and gender relations in studies of skilled migration in Europe. International Journal of Population Geography 6, 45–59. Mitchell, K., 1997. Transnational discourse: bringing the geography back in. Antipode 29 (2), 101–114. Mitchell, K., 1999. What’s culture got to do with it. Urban Geography 20 (7), 667–677. Mitchell, K., 2001. Transnationalism, neo-liberalism and the rise of the shadow state. Economy and Society 30 (2), 165–189. Ong, A., 1999. Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Duke University Press, Durham and London. Sassen, S., 1991. The Global City. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Sklair, L., 2001. The Transnational Capitalist Class. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford. Smith, M.P., Guarnizo, L.E., 1998. Transnationalism from Below. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick. Vertovec, S., 1999. Conceiving and researching transnationalism. Ethnic and Racial Studies 22 (2), 447–462.
507
Katie Willis Department of Geography University of Liverpool Liverpool L69 3BX, UK E-mail address: [email protected] Brenda Yeoh Department of Geography National University of Singapore Kent Ridge Crescent Singapore 119260 Singapore E-mail address: [email protected] S.M.A.K. Fakhri Independent Researcher Chennai India E-mail address: [email protected]
Introduction
Transnational elites
In August 2000, the authors co-organised a conference in Singapore entitled ‘Transnational Communities in the Asia–Pacific Region: Comparative Perspectives’. 1 Among the diversity of papers in terms of disciplinary background, communities examined and national contexts, it was clear that the majority of papers were concerned with the transnational practices of unskilled or semi-skilled migrants. 2 This reflects the wider patterns in studies of ‘transnationalism’, where particular migrant groups and practices have taken on almost symbolic roles as icons for a globalising age (for example, Mexicans and Dominicans in the USA, and Filipinas in East Asia and North America). In the literature, the role of highly skilled migrants within global migration flows has not been ignored, but rather the study of these groups has usually been from the perspective of ‘transnationalism from above’ (i.e. above the level of the nation-state). A growing literature has highlighted the importance of how the increasing flows of transnational capital as part of ‘globalisation processes’, have been associated with a concomitant growth in flows of managerial and professional employees. Appadurai (1990) in his seminal paper on the dimensions of ‘‘global cultural flow’’ (p. 296), identifies ‘ethnoscapes’ to describe ‘‘the landscape of persons who constitute the shifting world in which we live’’ (p. 297). He links this explicitly to other ‘-scapes’ which he identifies, particularly ‘technoscapes’; the increasingly complex global webs of technology and corporate organisation which both create and are constituted through, the availability of both low or unskilled labour and highly skilled labour. The diverse labour market requirements of transnational capital have been com-
1 The conference was co-sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council’s ‘Transnational Communities Programme’ and The Centre for Advanced Studies, National University of Singapore. We are very grateful for their financial and administrative support. 2 While the vast majority of papers were about migration and migrants, there were a few papers which considered non-mobile individuals and the ways in which they were affected by other forms of transnational flows (e.g. Carstens, 2000). See, also Vertovec (1999) for an overview of the contexts in which ‘transnationalism’ as a concept has been mobilised.
mented upon by many, with Sassen’s discussions of ‘the global city’ (1991) a key example due to the emphasis on the polarisation of social worlds within these urban nodes. The following collection of four papers aims to go beyond the generalisations about the flows of highly skilled migrants, to consider who these migrants are and to stress that while the ease of mobility for these groups may be greater than for their lower-skilled counterparts, they do not live in a ‘frictionless world’; relocations can involve dislocations and discomfort, and ways of living and working have to be tailored to local environments. Three of the papers (Beaverstock, Thang et al. and Willis & Yeoh) deal directly with the professional and managerial workers, posted in key locations around the world by transnational corporations. In her paper, Constance Lever-Tracy considers other members of the ‘transnational capitalist class’ (Sklair, 2001); members of the most elite group––the world’s billionaires, in particular Chinese tycoons. The Chinese diaspora has been one of the key groups considered in transnational migration studies. In particular, the focus has been on the ways in which Chinese business networks have developed, and individuals and families have used transnational connections for economic gain. Research on members of the Chinese diaspora has also been at the forefront of research on the fluidity of identity and how migrants can use their wealth to negotiate nationality or access to resources outside the ‘home’ country (see, for example, Mitchell, 1999, 2001; Ong, 1999). While not all members of the Chinese diaspora can be classified as a member of a ‘transnational elite’, this research on Chinese transnationalism is one of the few examples of work on wealthier groups which engages with lived experiences and identify formation of the people involved. Lever-Tracy’s paper deals with the impact of the 1997 ‘Asian Crisis’ on diaspora Chinese tycoons. Using data from the Forbes Magazine annual ranking of the world’s billionaires, she highlights the diversity of this group, but also examines the potential reasons behind their relative successes and failures. This focus on the ways in which ethnic identity and local knowledge intertwine with the broader macro-economic processes
0016-7185/02/$ - see front matter Ó 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 0 1 6 - 7 1 8 5 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 3 8 - 6
506
Introduction / Geoforum 33 (2002) 505–507
helps to illuminate the importance of considering how individuals are embedded in localities through processes of kinship, ethnic affiliation or other forms of network. The importance of considering the embedded nature of transnational elites’ activities is stressed in the other three papers, most explicitly in Jonathon Beaverstock’s paper on British finance professionals within the International Finance Centre of Singapore. Using qualitative interview material, he demonstrates how the creation of financial capital is based on the social relations of these expatriates, not only their financial knowledge (gained from a range of global locations), but also their ability to develop and mobilise business contacts in specific social and physical sites within the city state. In this paper, Beaverstock highlights how these sites are often outside the formal workplace, including bars and sports clubs, as well as the ‘domestic’ through the incorporation of family members (particularly wives) in the building up of social networks. The explicit recognition of gender within studies of the transnational elite, is clear from the paper by Leng Leng Thang, Elizabeth MacLachlan and Miho Goda, and also the paper by Katie Willis and Brenda Yeoh. Both papers deal partly with the gendered nature of expatriate workforces; the Japanese in Singapore, and Britons and Singaporeans in China. While much of the literature on highly skilled migration assumes male migration or never considers gender at all (see Kofman (2000) for a summary of possible explanations for this in a European context), these papers show how the gender division of labour and gendered assumptions by human resources managers frame the recruitment of employees for overseas postings, and also the routes into employment overseas. Willis and Yeoh expand on a consideration of the domestic sphere in their paper, stressing the importance of looking beyond the confines of the formal ‘workspace’ to look at how workers’ lives overseas are framed by their household situations, and also how (as also shown by Beaverstock in his paper) capital accumulation processes are based on networks which are embedded within a broad community of transnationals. These communities consist of more than employees of transnational corporations; spouses/partners, children and those working in other sectors may also be important. This paper also considers transnational linkages beyond the confines of intra-firm activities. As with the case of the diaspora Chinese, some Britons and Singaporeans are engaged in transnational practices, in these cases usually linked to family and household responsibilities. For the Chinese tycoons described by Lever-Tracy, transnational business practices are a way of consoli-
dating their position within a global economic elite. For the skilled transients described in the other papers, the overseas postings are also primarily for economic gain, and the activities in which these individuals engage act to reinforce their status, and also help contribute to capital accumulation and the promotion of transnational corporations’ interests. However, as with much of the ‘transnationalism from below’ literature (see Smith and Guarnizo, 1998), it is important to consider the possibilities migration has for challenging pre-existing power relations along a number of axes. In the case of single Japanese women in Singapore, Thang et al. highlight how their marginal status relative to both a Japanese expatriate community based largely on patriarchal expectations of male breadwinner and female housewife, and to the local Singaporean society, has resulted in a form of empowerment for some women. Among British and Singaporean female migrants in China, Willis and Yeoh find fewer examples of such celebratory processes of ‘liberation’. This may be partly because of the greater freedoms already afforded British women in comparison to their Japanese counterparts, but also because married British women, and many Singaporean women, regardless of marital status, find gender norms from ‘home’ reinscribed in the activities of transnationals in China. In all four papers, the importance of locality is ever present. Literature on the globalisation of capital and associated skilled migration flows often stresses the ease of movement and lack of dislocation. This positive interpretation of transnational practices has also been identified by those studying cultural dimensions of transnationalism, focusing on the possibilities supposedly inherent in being ‘neither here nor there’. However, as Mitchell (1997) has forcefully argued, there is a need to ‘bring the geography back in’. This holds for transnational elites, just as it does for unskilled or undocumented migrants. While the latter groups may feel the power of nation-state regulations more forcefully, elite groups still have to operate within the confines of state boundaries, whether that be in terms of legislation (rules on residence for example), or in less tangible terms in relation to local business practices and social norms. Transnational elites may be evidence of processes at a global scale, but this ‘global’ is constructed and understood by operations of particular individuals in local spaces.
References Appadurai, A., 1990. Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. In: Featherstone, M. (Ed.), Global Culture: Nationalism Globalization and Modernity. Sage, London, pp. 295–310.
Introduction / Geoforum 33 (2002) 505–507 Carstens, S., 2000. Constructing transnational identities: mass media and the Chinese Malaysian audience. Paper given at International Conference on Transnational Communities in the Asia–Pacific Region: Comparative Perspectives, August 2000. Kofman, E., 2000. Invisibility of skilled female migrants and gender relations in studies of skilled migration in Europe. International Journal of Population Geography 6, 45–59. Mitchell, K., 1997. Transnational discourse: bringing the geography back in. Antipode 29 (2), 101–114. Mitchell, K., 1999. What’s culture got to do with it. Urban Geography 20 (7), 667–677. Mitchell, K., 2001. Transnationalism, neo-liberalism and the rise of the shadow state. Economy and Society 30 (2), 165–189. Ong, A., 1999. Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Duke University Press, Durham and London. Sassen, S., 1991. The Global City. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Sklair, L., 2001. The Transnational Capitalist Class. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford. Smith, M.P., Guarnizo, L.E., 1998. Transnationalism from Below. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick. Vertovec, S., 1999. Conceiving and researching transnationalism. Ethnic and Racial Studies 22 (2), 447–462.
507
Katie Willis Department of Geography University of Liverpool Liverpool L69 3BX, UK E-mail address: [email protected] Brenda Yeoh Department of Geography National University of Singapore Kent Ridge Crescent Singapore 119260 Singapore E-mail address: [email protected] S.M.A.K. Fakhri Independent Researcher Chennai India E-mail address: [email protected]