The Emergence of a Transnational Social Formation and The Mirage of Return Migration Among Dominican Transmigrants

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Abstract
Using a transnational perspective, this article analyzes the soriocul‐tural and political transformation of US‐Dominican transmigrants who have relocated to the Dominican Republic as one step in their transnational journey. Transmigrants and their society of origin have forged a dense web of transnational relations that unites them in a continuous transterritorial social formation. This formation is evident in the incessant back and forth traveling and multidirectional exchanges of material and intangible resources and symbols between the US and the DR. Transmigration has spread people's lives across national borders and generated a transnational habitus. Thus, even transmigrants who resettle in the DR maintain enduring transnational relationships. However, instead of being a social equalizer that empowers all migrants alike, transnational migration tends to reproduce and even exacerbate class, gender, and regional inequalities. Finally, internal and transnational migration seem to form a single system connecting the Dominican rural population to the US via large Dominican urban centers.