1. The Immigrant and the Outsider
Schutz (1999) refers to the anthropological figure of the Outsider, who is disinterested and intentionally abstains from the particular network of plans, means and ends, motives and possibilities, hopes and fears that use the actor situated in the world and to interpret his experiences with him.
According to A. Schutz, acquired knowledge is incongruous, partially clear, and makes sense to the ingroup with apparent coherence, just enough clarity to understand and be understood.
Habitual thinking, according to the idea of (Max Scheler, [1874-1928], The concept of the person, p. 127), is based “on a relatively natural conception of the world” and these are focused on 4 basic assumptions.
1) “what life, especially social life, will continue to be there same thing that lasts now; It is decided, that they will return to present themselves them same problems, which will require them same solutions, and therefore, our previous experiences will be enough to master them future situations;
2) that we can trust he knowledge received from our priests, teachers, governments, traditions, habits, etc., even if we don’t understand his origin and its real meaning;
3) that in the ordinary course of things is enough to master or control them successes that we can find in our world of life, to know something about your type or general style;
4) what the hell recipe systems as interpretation and expression schemes, not them underlying basic assumptions that we have just mentioned, are our private matter, which is equally accepted and applied by our own seeds.”
Therefore, the vision of an ingroup is unique, subjective and inherent to the interpretation arising from parameters perceived only culturally.
The figure of the outsider would allow for a coherent analysis of the complex parameters that shape their reality without the influence of interest or involvement with them.
The immigrant in his natural role initially occupies the role of the outsider in which he is foreign to the environment and culture to which he is located. Basch et al. (1994) state:
“The anthropological set of studies that effectively launched transnationalism as a new perspective was such as to suggest that it was a phenomenon common to all contemporary immigrant communities. This justified, in part, the renaming of immigrants with the designation of ‘transmigrants’, as they had stopped following the traditional path of assimilation and embarked en masse on ‘multi-capillary’ activities undertaken beyond national borders.”
Thus, the role of the outsider and the immigrant allowed the existence of a new group, transnationalism, which arises through the implementation of a new structure based on the interaction of agents and more aligned with what has been coined globalized culture. The influence of the observed on the observed or even the multicapillarity of social formations allowed the immigrant to occupy the role of the outsider, subsequently sharing their culture and finally their influence on society. (Levitt, 2001; Itzigsohn et al., 1999; Ostergaard-Nielsen, 2001), state:
“Despite the small number of those involved, the transnational actions carried out regularly by a given group of activists, added to the occasional activities of other immigrants, end up resulting in a process of significant economic and social impact for the communities and nations themselves in cause. If, from an individual perspective, the act of sending remittances, buying a house in one’s homeland, or even traveling there from time to time, entails merely personal consequences, on balance these acts can alter the fortune and culture of those lands and, including the countries to which they belong. These actions and similar ones, multiplied thousands of times, translate into a monetary flow capable of becoming a primary source of foreign currency for countries of emigration, into investments that support the construction industry in those nations, and into new cultural practices that come to radically change the value systems and daily life of vast regions”
2. The Global Citizen
The concept of citizenship is paradoxical. There is no single theory about citizenship, however, several authors have offered contributions about it.
According to Norman (1995), there would be a legal conception of the term citizenship, in which the citizen would be a member of a specific political community. As a scope, as a desirable activity, citizenship follows different extensions and the quality of city is associated with the community.
Will Kymlicka (1995) presents obstacles where he mentions, firstly, that citizenship could be any involvement between the citizen that includes the State and secondly, a second extension that refers to the community, both of which can coexist.
Initiated with Locke to a first individualist and instrumental conception in which individuals are seen as people outside the State, private people and their interests are pre-political. And secondly, about a conception regarding community that comes from the tradition of Aristotelian philosophy. Since this is no longer passive citizenship, individuals would then be integrated into a political community with their personal identity based on common traditions. (Taylor apud Habermas, 1995), states:
“According to Charles Taylor, there are two models of citizenship. The first is based on individual rights and equal treatment; the second defines participation in government as the essence of freedom, as an essential component of citizenship”
Thus, there are two ways of seeing citizenship, one passive and the other active. A third proposal would be a disruptive way where the citizen interacts with various global agents, influencing and being influenced, absorbing both a national and transnational culture.
3. The Globalized Economic Dilemma
Having discussed the role of immigrants, through various social aspects, let us now talk about how they specifically interact, overcoming limitations, creating new interactions and how economic conditions for sharing and welcoming new cultures corroborate the concept of transnational citizenship.
Luís Guarnizo refers to the very revealing irony that remittances sent by an immigrant worker concerned about the well-being of the family that remained in their homeland are “hoarded” by the government of the country of emigration as a sure source of foreign currency and, even, used as collateral to take out international loans. The financial wizards who rule the capitalist world have learned to rely not only on current remittances but also on the expectation of regular flows in the future as an indicator of confidence in granting credit to nation-states and their eligibility for new investments. In this way, diasporas generated by a myriad of isolated decisions by men and women eager to improve their personal life opportunities become, over time, a key component of the exports of emigrating nations and one of the main means they have at their disposal to remain integrated into the world economy (Guarnizo, 2003; Roberts et al., 1999; Goldring, 1992).
Examples of interdependence and increasing communication between cultures have demonstrated not only the passive role of receiving information, but the active role of transmitting communications. This reason has created citizenships being exercised in different areas.
Research in this field revolves around phenomenology, which is, according to (W. Hamilton, 1788-1856) in eighteenth-century thought, a philosophical description of phenomena, in their apparent and illusory nature, manifested in experience to the human senses and immediate consciousness.
At this point, bringing together the perception and history of new citizenship established between immigrant and outsider in a new ingroup where the latter influences and is influenced. (Al-Ali et al., 2001; Guarnizo et al., 1999; Ostergaard-Nielsen, 2001, 2003; Fitzgerald, 2000; Smith, 1998) state:
Regarding this aspect, existing studies are in agreement, showing that the most diverse countries, from Eritrea to Colombia and from Türkiye to Mexico, have taken steps towards maintaining lasting links with their respective diasporas and encouraging remittances and investments that of them reach them. Such governmental activism gives rise to another paradoxical occurrence, already described by Roberts and his colleagues (1999).
One of the main reasons why, in recent years, countries of emigration where expatriates are interested in dual nationality and dual citizenship have been sought to be granted to emigrants in national and legislative bodies.
Hirschman notes that the authors seek the displacement of foreigners and immigrants who still preserve their own governments and loyalty to their country of origin.
The supranational identity of citizenship reports citizenship as part of the democratic process where the individual seeks to interact in the system in which he finds himself. The 1991 Maastricht treaty finally disconnects the idea of citizenship from nationality and associates it with democratic participation.
4. Conclusion
In the process of formulating this monograph, we explored the aspects inherent to the outsider, going through epistemological processes and discussions about the role and concept of citizenship and the transnational citizen.
We study the role of immigrants in their process of insertion and understanding of a new reality where we discuss the influences of the nation-state and its complex and phenomenological perspective.
This section summarizes the results of Comparative Immigrant Entrepreneurship Project (Projeto Comparado sobre o Empreendedorismo Immigrante, CIEP), the largest survey carried out to date with the explicit intention of collecting factual data on the transnational economic, political and socio-cultural activities of immigrant groups. Although some partial records of the data collected have already been published elsewhere, the summary of the entire study results is not available in any other publication. I present them here to provide an empirical counterpoint to the theoretical arguments previously advanced. CIEP was a cooperative effort between universities on the East and West coasts of the United States of America, encompassing qualitative and quantitative fieldwork carried out between the Fall of 1996 and the Winter of 1998.
Based on comparative studies that discuss the role of the immigrant, we arrive at the discussion of the transnational citizen, who, although not common, is a present and directly active figure in political and social formation.
We then perceive the process of transnationality where the citizen incorporates elements of the host nation as well as sharing ideas and subjective elements learned in their own space.
This new culture allows new citizens to explore the potential of dual nationality and society in turn becomes familiar with habits that are foreign to its own.
Within this process it is an opportunity to revisit your own methods and establish bonds that are not just blood, creating in a certain instance the concept of universal citizen where similarities are perceived and coexistence becomes possible.