Abstract

Contemporary societies are facing new phenomena and challenges that were previously unknown. These phenomena and challenges arise more from the collective actions and organization of modern humans than from nature. These human-made phenomena are increasingly globalized and encompass various layers of human collective life, a process that evolves as well as generates new realities and trends. Transnational phenomena are among the global phenomena that are increasingly manifesting themselves in different ways in national and local communities. For decades, many scholars in various fields have attempted to address transnationalism. The result of these efforts has been the production of an extensive literature on the nature and various aspects of transnational phenomena, along with methodological proposals for research designs. But what transnational studies still suffer from is the lack of a precise yet concise approach to understanding these complex phenomena. These realities, on the one hand, are rooted in several entities, including local, national, regional, and global entities, and on the other hand, they go beyond them and show different levels of durability and density as independent entities. Drawing on Ludger Pries’ central claims on the quiddity of transnationalism, the current article aims to zero in on the construction of transnational entitles through the uneven intersections of the national/local and the global/cosmopolitan. Transnational entitles are considered as indeterminate and contingent configurations at the particular level that are formed through the intersections. By reviewing theories of transnationalism, the article takes into account Pries’ idea of transnational space and of transnational units of reference. Then, by addressing Ulrich Beck’s notion of cosmopolitanization of the world, the dialectic between the national and the global will be elaborated, and finally, the idea of transnational configurations as the unit of analysis in transnational studies and their methodological implications will be discussed.