Migration and the transnational habitus: evidence from Canada and the Philippines

The experiences and decisions of migrants frequently confound scholarly expectations. In particular, the transnational linkages maintained by migrants transcend the social scales at which they are often assumed to live, and the spaces in which their integration or assimilation is usually studied—the neighbourhood, the urban labour market, the national society. Studies of transnationalism have shown that immigrants maintain multistranded connections to their places of origin and that these continue to influence the lifeworlds both of migrants and of those they leave behind significantly. In this paper we suggest that these multistranded connections—incorporating social, cultural, and economic ties—can be usefully considered using Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of the habitus as a heuristic framework for integrating the various dimensions of transmigrants’ lives. Drawing on interviews in Canada and the Philippines, we demonstrate the ways in which economic, social, and cultural capital are accumulated, exchanged, converted, valued, and devalued in a transnational habitus.