The Disruption of Social and Geographic Space

In the last decade of the 20th century globalization as a key concept in social sciences and political debate indicated a general shift in the (perception of the) relation between the social and the spatial. At the same time, in migration studies, as a central field for studying this ongoing reconfiguration of social and spatial relations, the focus of transnationalism became very promising. Based on empirical research and conceptual reflections this article focuses on the growing importance of transmigration as a specific type of migration in transnational social spaces. It considers transnational social spaces as a key concept for understanding the current dynamics of international migration as well as new arrangements of the social and the spatial in human life in general.