Eleanor White – C5206232 TMA – 06 – Option 1

Evaluate the claim that migration creates global connections.

In this assignment, the strengths and weaknesses of the claim that migration creates global connections, will be discussed. This will be done by discovering what counts as migration and how it is valued, how global connections can be both positive and negative, about the concepts of 'diaspora' and 'translocalism' and how important they are when considering both migration and global connections. To enable the discussion of the subject matter, it must first be understood what is meant by the terms 'migration' and 'global connections', migration is used to describe the circulation of people from their country of origin into
Diaspora in turn leads to 'translocalism', where a migrant will create new attachments to and within the places they travel to, whilst maintaining the ones that have already been created in the areas in which they have been, an example of which could be as simple as phoning a loved one whilst living or travelling within or to another place. These ideas of diaspora and translocalism can also be 'imagined', anthropologist Benedict Anderson (1983, cited by Clarke,2009,p229) argued that nations are constructed through symbolism such as flags, ceremonies and borders, and social psychologist Mark Billig (1995, cited by Clarke, 2009, p229) said that nations are constructed and reinforced through small everyday practices such as weather forecasts pertaining to certain territories and the plotting of maps. This means that the idea of nationalism is continually made and remade by conventions, customs and institutions that are put in