The terms ‘transnationality’ and ‘transnationalism’ are considered by Jackson, Crang and Dwyer (2004, 4) to be trend words in the social sciences, though they believe that the ties and interactions that embody these terms have been in existence for a long time. Al-Ali and Koser (2002, 1) question whether any new developments have occurred since researchers first began describing ‘international migration as “transnational migration”, international migrants as “transnational migrants”, and their activities and identities as examples of “transnationalism”’. The attention given to the subject of transnationalism is ongoing. Yet it is unclear what status is given to those individuals, groups of individuals or communities considered to be transnationals and what it means to the wider society that someone is a transnational.

If transnationalism is about maintaining ties to a homeland or culture, then a distinction between a migrant and a transnational is possible on the basis of the contact that a migrant has with the homeland or culture and whether that contact is limited to other migrants in the host country. Migrants, unlike transnationals, maintain involvement in only one space (Rouse 2004, 28). To a transnational, relationships, connections, and families occur across boundaries though not necessarily involving the mobility that we might expect of a migrant. Transmigrants claim or are claimed by two or more nation-states, one of which is their state of origin (Glick Schiller 1999). This argument is supported by Basch, Glick Schiller and Blanc (1995) and Al-Ali and Koser (2002), who say that transmigrants are immigrants who develop and maintain economic, social, religious, and organisational relationships that span borders. Pacific transnationals, like those transnationals described by Glick Schiller, operate in social fields that transgress geographical, political and cultural borders. Van Amersfoort and Doomernik prefer to keep the term ‘transnational community’ to refer to those ‘that have kept their cultural identity and whose members are still guided by specific cultural norms in important areas of behaviour’ (2002, 59).