The Global Ethnopolis: Chinatown, Japantown And Manilatown In American Society

Features of The Global Ethnopolis: Chinatown, Japantown and Manilatown in American Society

This book focuses on three ethnic neighbourhoods in San Francisco commoditized Chinatown gentrified Japantown and defunct Manilatown and argues that the city is global because it comprises a multiplicity of global niches that interface with and sustain one another at the local level According to the author these enclaves are not simply transnational communities but rather global ethnopoles They must be seen within the logic of globalization and not simply that of transnationality The early emphasis on transnationality is misplaced because it looks at the process and not the outcome Transnationality is the means by which or the conduit through which the global ethnopole is produced The focus here is on various processes of bordercrossing practices connections and flows in order to examine the globalized locality and the localized globality Any theory of transnationality presupposes a theory of globalization In other words transnationality is the process by which globality is effected This new approach of studying ethnic enclaves within the framework of globalization theory forces us to connect local activities and processes to a much larger universe However the view that diasporic communities maintain transnational relations with their homelands is not new though only recently have social scientists begun to unravel their various layers of interconnectedness What is needed now is not simply a description of the enclave homeland relationship but also an analysis and comparison of the transnational modalities of incorporation operation and reproduction of these ethnopoles as well as theglobal city status that is the hallmark of their identity