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Abstract:

Social workers are increasingly confronted with the phenomenon of transmigration: immigrants whose trajectories are characterized by ongoing mobility and permanent insecurity, and whose lives are embedded within transnational networks linking lifeworlds, resources and social relations across national borders. As previous views on unidirectional migration and integration are no longer valid, social work needs to acknowledge how immigrant clients’ migration decisions, experiences and welfare needs are shaped within multiple locations against the backdrop of larger political and socio-economic globalization processes. Based on a qualitative research among social workers and transmigrants in Belgium, we examined how transmigration is affecting and changing the actual practices of social workers confronted with an increasingly mobile and transnationally connected clientele. In a context of superdiversity, we found that the phenomenon of transmigration not only implies specific services targeted at circular or return migration, but affects almost every social worker confronted with newly arriving immigrants. On the micro-level, transmigration prompts the involvement of transnational social networks and resources within individual accompaniment trajectories. On meso- and macro-level, it gives rise to the development of new and unexpected forms of cooperation with actors within and across national borders. Despite the emerging transnational ‘consciousness’ among individual social workers, the structural development of transnational practices in social work is still limited by the locally directed views of local and national policies, which as yet fail to acknowledge the reality of transmigration and the need to transcend national boundaries.