Ties that bind: transnational community-based planning in Southern California and Oaxaca

Abstract

Much of the community-based planning literature focuses on the development of collaborative social relationships in small territorial communities. It is argued that the collective action that is foundational to such planning is based on closed social relationships, trust and the ability of participants to control or punish potential defectors. The article examines how community-based planning and the social relationships that underlie it emerge and are maintained transnationally. The research focuses on immigrants from Oaxaca, Mexico, who have relocated to Southern California and established hometown associations. The associations remit money to their pueblos of origin for community-based planning. The article examines (1) how social networks and the relationships of trust upon which they are built connect immigrants in California to their pueblo of origin, (2) how these social relationships that facilitate community-level collective action are maintained across transnational spaces and (3) the potential of such collective action for broader social and political transformation in Southern California and Oaxaca.

Trust and Hometown Associations in Haitian Post‐Earthquake Reconstruction

“…HTAs are trust networks that enable Haitians to support their beloved communities transnationally (Bashi, ; Chanel‐Blot, ; Tilly, ). This trust via cultural solidarity forms the social ties that bind Haitians transnationally (Beard & Sarmiento, ). Development planning could be used as a planning tool for physically re‐constructing Haitians’ beloved communities or it can continue to be a tool for “gray‐spacing” poor Haitians into informal bidonvils (slum settlements or shantytowns) through the art of not governing (Beckett, ; Yiftachel, ).…”

“…When we consider trust in the context of transnational, collective remittances, a network level analysis is necessary. Thus, we also centred our analysis on trust networks, defined as the transnational social ties that bind group members together to enable d y aspora engagement as an alter(ed)native development strategy (Bashi, ; Beard & Sarmiento, ; Caglar, ). Our project was originally designed to investigate the role of HHTAs in the post‐2010 earthquake reconstruction effort.…”

People in motion, forests in transition: Trends in migration, urbanization, and remittances and their effects on tropical forests

“…Padoch et al (2008) show that in Amazonia many rural-urban migrants keep their rural consumption patterns in cities and continue to play a role in rural forest use decisions (Beard and Sarmiento 2010). Through the use of cell phones, women left behind in Yucatan, Mexico, confer with their migrant husbands in the United States over land-use decisions (Radel et al 2010(Radel et al , 2012, as do women in Nepal (Adhikari and Hobley 2012).…”

Traversing the Border

“…An example is the hometown associations that support migrants from the same village 6 and organize both collectively and transnationally for social and mutual-aid purposes (Alarcon 2002;Caglar 2006;Fox and Rivera-Salgado 2004;Levitt 2001;Theodore and Martin 2007). Despite their physical separation from their village, through participation in hometown associations migrants regulate transnational relations of trust to ensure cooperation and transparency across the border (Beard and Sarmiento 2010). Despite their physical separation from their village, through participation in hometown associations migrants regulate transnational relations of trust to ensure cooperation and transparency across the border (Beard and Sarmiento 2010).…”

“…In some ways, these organizations also represent the migrant’s loss of faith in the state’s ability to meet its economic and political needs (Levitt 2001). Despite their physical separation from their village, through participation in hometown associations migrants regulate transnational relations of trust to ensure cooperation and transparency across the border (Beard and Sarmiento 2010). Participation in the host country affects participation in the home country, and vice versa (Tsuda 2012).…”