Contemporary Western society is changing and, controversially, migration is often flagged up as one of the reasons why. The nature of population change challenges the conventional understandings of family forms and networks whilst multiculturalism poses challenges to our understanding of social change, families and social capital. This innovative book provides an overview of the emergence of new understandings of ethnicities, identities and family forms across a number of ethnic groups, family types, and national boundaries. Based on new empirical data from fairly distinct sets of transnational family networks in minority communities with a substantial presence in the United Kingdom - principally, Caribbean and Italian, but also drawing on others such as Indian - it examines their lived experiences and uses the concept of social capital to explore how these families manage to maintain close and meaningful links. Transnational Families discusses, explains and illustrates the substantial problems and issues confronted by communities and families, academics and policy-makers/implementers, and non-governmental organisations within a transnational world. It will be of interest to students and scholars of migration, transnationalism, families and globalisation.

Contemporary Western society is changing and, controversially, migration is often flagged up as one of the reasons why. The nature of population change challenges the conventional understandings of family forms and networks whilst multiculturalism poses challenges to our understanding of social change, families and social capital.

This innovative book provides an overview of the emergence of new understandings of ethnicities, identities and family forms across a number of ethnic groups, family types, and national boundaries. Based on new empirical data from fairly distinct sets of transnational family networks in minority communities with a substantial presence in the United Kingdom ? principally, Caribbean and Italian, but also drawing on others such as Indian ? it examines their lived experiences and uses the concept of social capital to explore how these families manage to maintain close and meaningful links.

Transnational Families discusses, explains and illustrates the substantial problems and issues confronted by communities and families, academics and policy-makers/implementers, and non-governmental organisations within a transnational world. It will be of interest to students and scholars of migration, transnationalism, families and globalisation.

Continuing Perspectives on the Black Diaspora is a response to a 1990 publication that studied the persistence and resilience of black (African) diasporic populations in the Caribbean, Latin America, North America, and the United Kingdom. In that book, the authors used the themes of persistence and resilience to interrogate the social processes and the coping repertoire of these diasporic populations. This volume investigates the often-overlooked African presence in Asia. Researchers sought to determine how many of these diasporic populations have fared in the context of political independence, globalization / economic marginalization, and the presence of ethnic conflict and institutional racism, even with positive class formations and declining significance of race in other geographical areas. Prescriptions for the continued viability of these diasporic populations are provided. India and China are undergoing a global renaissance, emerging as potentially significant economic, political, and cultural actors on the world scene. Meanwhile, ancestral Africa is still socially, politically, and economically fragmented, thereby causing a new migratory "push" to North America and Europe.

This volume examines today's vibrant and creative trans-Atlantic Caribbean community. It advances three central arguments, first, the concepts of diaspora and of Caribbean diaspora are problematic. Second, the African diaspora and its variant Caribbean diaspora are integral parts of the wider Atlantic world making it disingenuous to speak of the West and the rest where Caribbeans in the Atlantic are concerned. Third, Goulbourne insists that meaningful discussions about these aspects of the modern world must be empirically validated while being theoretically informed. Unlike much cultural and literary studies, this text makes a plea for verifiable evidence to inform academic and popular discussions about the exciting experiences of Caribbeans across the Atlantic. Chapters explore questions of definition and theory, the common Atlantic heritage and fate, social and economic contexts of Caribbean transnationality, Africa, the USA and the Caribbean in popular discourses in Britain, transnationality of families and the propensity of Caribbean-born and their offspring to return to the Caribbean from the mother country.

"

Caribbean Transnational Experience "examines today's vibrant and creative trans-Atlantic Caribbean community. Harry Goulbourne advances three central arguments: first, the concepts of Diaspora and of Caribbean Diaspora are problematic; second, the African Diaspora and its variant Caribbean Diaspora are integral parts of the wider Atlantic world making it disingenuous to speak of the West and the rest where Caribbeans in the Atlantic are concerned. Third, Goulbourne insists that meaningful discussions about these aspects of the modern world must be empirically validated while being theoretically informed.
Unlike much cultural and literary studies, "Caribbean Transnational Experience" makes a plea for verifiable evidence to inform academic and popular discussions about the exciting experiences of Caribbeans across the Atlantic. Chapters explore questions of definition and theory, the common Atlantic heritage and fate, social and economic contexts of Caribbean transnationality, Africa, the USA and the Caribbean in popular discourses in Britain, transnationality of families and the propensity for Caribbean-born and their offspring to return to the Caribbean from the mother country. "Caribbean Transnational Experience" concludes with a speculative discussion about possible future directions of what is increasingly being described as the Caribbean Diaspora.

This set brings together published articles, papers and book chapters that are central to an informed understanding of race and ethnicity today. The volumes are arranged around four key themes and will resonate with both researchers and teachers in related fields, as well as those who are engaged in policy issues directly arising from racial and ethnic structures and behaviour.
With a new introduction and index, this internationally focused, multidisciplinary collection is an invaluable reference tool and teaching aid.

Harry Goulbourne's theme is how post-imperial Britain has come to define the national community in terms of ethnic affinity, instead of a traditional multi-ethnic/multi-racial understanding of the nation. He argues that the continuing 'reception-experience' of non-white groups in post-war Britain not only arose out of an ethnic perception of the British nation by the indigenous population, as expressed through state action, but has also, in turn, encouraged an equally ethnic awakening or mobilisation among non-white minorities. The result is a failure to construct a common national ground or sense of community by all those claiming a formal British identity. Goulbourne draws upon a diverse literature, including race relations, politics and history. His two case studies of the Khalistan question in the Punjab and democracy in Guyana are examples of how exilic politics may affect Britain's ethnic minorities, partly as a result of the experience of exclusion from British society.