Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Informal transnational networks support unauthorized communities, in what I call Shadow Transnationalism. I trace the intertwined fortunes of Postville, Iowa, and El Rosario, Guatemala. I identify shadow network flows through employment recruitment networks, lending networks, remittance transfers, and smuggling networks. I further investigate efforts of transnationalism from “below” scholars by building on the idea of a “shadow place.” I then analyze the transnational networks that are supported by employers, the state, and immigrants, and that create exploitative transnational spaces dependent on unauthorized communities. The study offers planners a better understanding of the vulnerability, risks, and interdependence of shadow transnational networks.

Keywords

community development transnationalism international planning and development immigrants and planning rural planning immigrant networks

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adida

Girod

2001. “Do Migrants Improve Their Hometowns? Remittances and Access to Public Services in Mexico, 1995-2000.” Comparative Political Studies 44 (1): 3–27.

Ahmad

A. N.

2006. “Dead Men Working: Time and Space in London’s (‘Illegal’) Migrant Economy.” Work, Employment and Society 22 (2): 301–18.

Alarcon

2000. The Development of Home Town Associations in the United States and the Use of Social Remittances in Mexico. Washington: Inter-American Dialogue.

Bloom

2000. Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Press.

Bourdieu

1986. The Forms of Capital. In Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by Richardson

J. G.

New York: Greenwood.

Broadway

2000. “Planning for Change in Small Towns or How to Avoid the Slaughterhouse Blues.” Journal of Rural Studies 16: 37–46.

Brooks

M. P.

2002. Planning Theory for Practitioners. Chicago: American Planning Association.

Cantú

1995. “The Peripheralization of Rural America: A Case Study of Latino Migrants in America’s Heartland.” Sociological Perspectives 38 (3): 399–414.

Castells

2000. The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell.

10.

Chávez

L. R.

2007. “The Condition of Illegality.” International Migration Review 45 (3): 192–96.

11.

Chávez

2005. “Community, Ethnicity, and Class in a Changing Rural California Town.” Rural Sociology 70 (3): 314–35.

12.

Cohen

2010. “Oaxacan Migration and Remittances as They Relate to Mexican Migration Patterns.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 36 (1): 149–61.

13.

De Genova

2002. “Migrant ‘Illegality’ and Deportability in Everyday Life.” Annual Review of Anthropology 31: 419–47.

14.

Durand

Jorge

Parrado

Emilio A.

Massey

Douglas S.

1996. “Migradollars and Development: A Reconsideration of the Mexican Case.” International Migration Review 30 (2): 423–44.

15.

Fennelly

Leitner

2002. “How the Food Processing Industry Is Diversifying Rural Minnesota.” Working Paper 59. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University.

16.

Flyvbjerg

Bent

. 2006. “Five Misunderstandings about Case-Study Research.” Qualitative Inquiry 12 (2): 219–45.

17.

Glick Schiller

Basch

Blanc-Szanton

1992. Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered. New York: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

18.

Goldring

2004. “Family and Collective Remittances to Mexico: A Multidimensional Typology.” Development and Change 35 (4): 799–840.

19.

Gouveia

Stull

1995. “Dances with Cows: Beefpacking’s Impact on Garden City, Kansas, and Lexington, Nebraska.” In Any Way You Cut It: Meat Processing and Small-Town America, edited by Stull

Broadway

Griffith

Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.

20.

Grey

Delvin

Goldsmith

2009. Postville: Surviving Diversity in Small-Town America. Boston, MA: Gemma.

21.

Guarnizo

L. E.

2003. “The Economics of Transnational Living.” International Migration Review 37 (3): 666–99.

22.

Huffman

Miranowski

1996. “Immigration, Meat Packing, and Trade: Implications for Iowa.” Iowa State University, Department of Economics, Staff Paper Series, Staff Paper No. 285.

23.

Jensen

2006. “New Immigrant Settlements in Rural America: Problems, Prospects, and Policies.” In Reports on Rural America. Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire.

24.

Kandel

Parrado

2005. “Restructuring of the US Meat Processing Industry and New Hispanic Migrant Destinations.” Population and Development Review 31 (3): 447–71.

25.

Kim

E. C.

2009. “‘Mama’s Family’: Fictive Kinship and Undocumented Immigrant Restaurant Workers.” Ethnography 10 (4): 497–513.

26.

Kyle

2000. Transnational Peasants: Migrations, Networks, and Ethnicity in Andean Ecuador. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

27.

Landolt

2003. “Salvadoran Economic Transnationalism: Embedded Strategies for Household Maintenance, Immigrant Incorporation, and Entrepreneurial Expansion.” Peace Research Abstracts 40 (1): 3–118.

28.

Leerkes

Engbersen

Van San

2007. “Shadow Places: Patterns of Spatial Concentration and Incorporation of Irregular Immigrants in the Netherlands.” Urban Studies 44 (8): 1491–516.

29.

Levitt

2001. The Transnational Villagers. Berkeley: University of California Press.

30.

Levitt

Lamba-Nieves

2011. “Social Remittances Revisited.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 37 (1): 1–22.

31.

Lewis

2009. “From Mexico to Iowa: New Immigrant Farmers’ Pathways and Potentials.” Community Development 40 (2): 139–53.

32.

Longworth

2008. Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism. New York: Bloomsbury.

33.

Mahler

1998. “Theoretical and Empirical Contributions toward a Research Agenda for Transnationalism.” In Transnationalism from below, edited by Smith

M. P.

Guarnizo

New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

34.

Maldonado

M. M.

2009. “‘It Is Their Nature To Do Menial Labour’: The Racialization of ‘Latino/a Workers’ by Agricultural Employers.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 32 (6): 1017–36.

35.

Maldonado

M. M.

Licona

A. C.

2007. “Re-thinking Integration as Reciprocal and Spatialized Process.” Journal of Latino/Latin American Studies 2 (4): 128–43.

36.

Marshall

2007. “Getting Immigration Reform Right.” Economic Policy Institute, 2007. Challenge 50 (4): 26–48.

37.

McConnell

E. D.

Miraftab

2009. “Sundown Town to ‘Little Mexico’: Old-Timers and Newcomers in an American Small Town.” Rural Sociology 74 (4): 605–29.

38.

Menjivar

2000. Fragmented Ties: Salvadorean Immigrant Networks in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

39.

Miraftab

2011. “Faraway Intimate Development: Global Restructuring of Social Reproduction.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 31 (4): 392–405.

40.

Miraftab

McConnell

E. D.

2008. “Multiculturalizing Rural Towns: Insights for Inclusive Planning.” International Planning Studies 13 (4): 343–60.

41.

Orozco

2000. Latino Hometown Associations as Agents of Development in Latin America. Washington, DC: Inter-American Dialogue.

42.

Orozco

Garcia-Zanello

2009. “Hometown Associations: Transnationalism, Philanthropy, and Development.” Brown Journal of World Affairs 15 (2): 57–73.

43.

Parnreiter

2011. “Commentary: Toward the Making of a Transnational Urban Policy?” Journal of Planning Research and Education 31 (4): 416–22.

44.

Passel

Cohn

D’Vera

. 2011. Unauthorized Immigration Population: National and State Trends, 2010. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.

45.

Portes

1978. “Illegal Mexican Immigrants to the United States.” International Migration Review 12 (4): 469–84.

46.

Portes

Borocz

1989. “Contemporary Immigration: Theoretical Perspectives on Its Determinants and Modes of Incorporation.” International Migration Review 23 (3): 606–30.

47.

Portes

Guarnizo

L. E.

Haller

2002. “Transnational Entrepreneurs: An Alternative Form of Immigrant Economic Adaptation.” American Sociological Review 67 (2): 278–98.

48.

Ruiz

V. L.

2008. From out of the Shadows. New York: Oxford University Press.

49.

Simone

2011. “The Urbanity of Movement: Dynamic Frontiers in Contemporary Africa.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 31 (4): 379–91.

50.

Smith

Mazzucato

2009. “Constructing Homes, Building Relationships: Migrant Investments in Houses.” Tijdschrift Voor Economische En Sociale Geografie 100 (5): 662–73.

51.

Smith

M. P.

2001. Transnational Urbanism: Locating Globalization. Oxford: Blackwell.

52.

Smith

M. P.

Guarnizo

1998. Transnationalism from below. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

53.

Staring

2004. “Facilitating the Arrival of Illegal Immigrants in the Netherlands: Irregular Chain Migration versus Smuggling Chains.” Journal of International Migration and Integration 5 (3): 273–94.

54.

Trabalzi

Sandoval

2010. “The Exotic Other: Latinos and the Remaking of Community Identity in Perry, Iowa.” Community Development 41 (1): 76–96.

55.

Tsuda

2012. “Whatever Happened to Simultaneity? Transnational Migration Theory and Dual Engagement in Sending and Receiving Countries.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 38 (4): 631–49.

56.

Valenzuela

2003. “Day Labor Work.” Annual Review of Sociology 29: 307–33.

57.

Waldinger

R. D.

1997. “Social Capital or Social Closure? Immigrant Networks in the Labor Market.” Working Paper Series, The Ralph and Goldy Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. School of Public Affairs, University of California Los Angeles.

58.

Waldinger

R. D.

2010. “Rethinking Transnationalism.” Empiria: Revista de Metodología en Ciencias Sociales 19: 21–38.