Haven’t We Heard This Somewhere Before? A Substantive View of Transnational Migration Studies by Way of a Reply to Waldinger and Fitzgerald

Dialogue and discussion are necessary for the development of any new field of scholarship or analytical framework, especially when the point of contention is a long-established paradigm. However, the development of Transnational Migration Studies has been marred by something less salutary. Often scholars entering the field do so with the fervor of a convert, pronouncing that he or she has seen the light. Unfortunately, in their fervor, some converts tend to misread, misrepresent, put aside, or merely ignore all that has come before them. Among the latest set of scholars to see the transnational light are Roger Waldinger and David Fitzgerald (2004). Because their article American Journal of Sociology article, “Transnationalism in Question,” epitomizes the pitfalls of neglecting or negating fifteen years of scholarly development, we feel it deserves to be critiqued at some length.