The author analyses how identities and obligations operate within the spaces of transnational communities and how this affects development. Within spatially diffuse communities, identities are fluid and overlapping, as are the obligations to multiple others—be that kin, ethnic group, or nation—in different localities. The author is concerned with the institutions through which these identities are formed and obligations are fulfilled. These include families, clans, hometown associations, and religious organisations, which link people ‘abroad’ to people ‘at home’. The author understands these spaces as a form of public sphere involving a ‘deterritorialised’ citizenship, which has been termed ‘embedded cosmopolitanism’. In this way, obligations are not legally defined but operate as part of the moral universe of those concerned. The case study is based upon recent fieldwork on Ghanaians in the United Kingdom and their connections to other Ghanaians outside Ghana and to those at home. The ways in which these complex networks of affiliation operate, as well as the ways in which the state seeks to ‘capture’ support from them, and how migrants selectively redefine both ethnic identities and family boundaries, are described.
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