Migration and Transnationalism: Justice, Security and Harmony

Modernization introduced at least two main dominant interlinked conceptions of human organizations: the state and society conceptions (Beck et al 1994; Inglehart 1997; Pierson 2011). The first is the state conception focusing on the designated space for formal top down decision making and implementing processes. Her one finds the exterior aggregated institutions that presumably monopolize and exercise authoritative power- including the contractual, the legal and legitimacy frames. The second is the society conception supposedly reflecting the internal and the ethnical aspects of human conduct- under which people interact and exchange duties and obligations. Despite the different conceptions both structures remain hierarchical (Weber 2009). Societies need to pursue nationhood and statehood in ensuring justice and security internally and externally. Meanwhile the location of states and the societies seems unclear- whether it is in the earth, in the world or beyond.
This paper argues that neither the state nor the society centrism approaches and conceptions take the aspirations of most people- particularly transnational communities (migrants and diaspora communities)- into consideration. There are people who intend to move beyond the nation-centric state and society structures in their pursuing of justice and security across boundaries. The restricted conception also does not address the relationship between nature and man. The nation-centric conception assumes disjunction between nature and socio-economic and socio-political processes