The Transnational Villagers

Rating:
Summary: Neo-Modernization Theory at It's Best!
Review: Levitt offers us a number of interesting insights into the lives of Dominican migrants in the 21st Century. She tells us that the lives of Dominicans in the U.S. and those who remain in their local communities at home are shaped by the transnational experience. This is largely the product of what she refers to as "social remittance." Levitt also goes into a long discussion of the role that institutions like political parties, the Church, and community development organizations play in this process. In many ways this analysis is a re-cycled version of earlier analyses of immigrants. For instance, Bodner gives us a version of this story in "The Transplanted." Of course, Levitt attributed this new form of "Transnationalism" to thinks like improvements in technology, communications, transportation, and interpretations of citizenship by governments. For those of us who remember the heyday of modernization theory, much of this sounds familiar, and wanton for a critique focusing on issues of inequality. Although Levitt takes the discussion of Transnationalism further than some of her contemporaries, it remains encumbered by the theoretical limitations of her selected framework.

Rating:
Summary: Accessible scholarly book on important new social phenomenon
Review: This book is a fun read; I enjoyed it very much. It's a well written, well researched account of how Dominican immigrants retain strong, multiple ties to their homeland. Sociologist Levitt explores the nature of these ties and their implications, drawing on many examples from her extensive fieldwork.