Approaching Transnational Social Protection: Methodological Challenges and Empirical Applications

Abstract

Transnational social spaces are multidimensional in terms of the socio-spatial categoriesthat is, local, global, and nationaland different actors and institutions involved. Recent developments in transnational methodology argue for a thorough reflection on the challenges of methodological nationalism, essentialism, and researchers' positionality. Therefore, in designing and conducting transnational research, reflections on methodological challenges become a crucial step. Yet, as these challenges often remain to be discussed on a methodological level, their implementation still needs to be set out clearly to be useful for empirical research in transnational social spaces such as on social protection. For that reason, we discuss transnational research designs as well as different methods of data collection and analysis. We argue for a multisited and mixed-method research design, which includes the emigration and the immigration countries, as well as the involvement of research teams located across borders. Thereby, a combination of perspectives between emigration and immigration countries in transnational social spaces can be achieved.

Transnationalism, diaspora, and development: A purposive review of the literature

“…Quantitative approaches (which account for the remaining quarter of the 60 influential publications) fell into two main groups: those presenting descriptive statistics and those involving regression models. The former were used to understand the distribution and size of diasporas across geographic locations (Ahrens et al, 2016;Rodriguez-Garcia, 2006;Spoonley et al, 2003), diasporas' occupations in destination countries (Eckstein & Barberia, 2002), the number of dual citizenship holders (Bloemraad, 2004), types of sociocultural transnational activities (Barglowski, Bilecen, & Amelina, 2015), and the characteristics of diasporas (Portes, Escobar, & Radford, 2007). These analyses were based on data derived from either censuses, statistical yearbooks, government documents, or administrative datasets collated by international institutions including the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Labour Organisation.…”

The intersection of social protection and mobilities: a move towards a ‘Practical Utopia’ research agenda

“…While 'transnational social protection' (Faist 2013;Barglowski, Bilecen, and Amelina 2014;Levitt et al 2017) has recently been discussed -and is likely to be discussed in the future -we do not consider these efforts to go far enough. Discussions on 'global' or 'transnational' social protection do not challenge a state-centric perspective in any fundamental way.…”

Migration, family separation and caregiving across borders

“…Accordingly, the significance of locality and nation-state boundaries in structuring daily lives should be recognised in studies on transnational phenomena (Barglowski, Bilecen & Amelina, 2015;Faist, 2012;Kilkey & Merla, 2014). Data collection should therefore include elements of both de-territorialisation and territorialisation, or in other words, both cross-border actions and connections, as well as the institutional contexts of the home and host country that influence and curtail cross-border flows, and which in turn are impacted by the transnational lives of migrants and non-migrants (Faist, 2012;Kilkey & Merla, 2014;Levitt & Glick Schiller, 2004;Mazzucato, Kabki & Smith, 2006).…”

“…Ernestina Dankyi's responses to the children and our conversations helped me overcome this tendency and to place the children's experiences in their own sociocultural context. However, as Barglowski, Bilecen and Amelina (2015) rightly argue, 'in discussing the epistemological and practical implications of insider and outsider research, we must be careful not to essentialise identifications' (p. 218). Hence, when sharing two identifications, this does not necessarily imply that experiences are related, nor do ethnic identifications make one an 'insider'.…”

“…Working together as a team of researchers from different backgrounds and positions vis-à-vis the respondents helped me to not take for granted potentially important data, to combine perspectives, and to balance insider and outsider research. It helped me overcome, or at least minimise, the subjective lens of a researcher working alone, thereby enhancing the validity of my results (Barglowski, Bilecen & Amelina, 2015). However, to take advantage of the teamwork it was essential to continuously discuss our field notes, observations and interpretations by emailing on a frequent basis and by discussing notes more in-depth during regular moments of face-to-face contact.…”