THE EMERGENCE OF A TRANSNATIONAL SOCIAL FORMATION AND THE MIRAGE OF RETURN MIGRATION AMONG DOMINICAN TRANSMIGRANTS

Using a transnational perspective, this article analyzes the sociocult ural and political transformation of US-Dominican transmigrants who ha ve relocated to the Dominican Republic as one step in their transnatio nal journey. Transmigrants and their society of origin have forged a d ense web of transnational relations that unites them in a continuous t ransterritorial social formation. This formation is evident in the inc essant back and forth traveling and multidirectional exchanges of mate rial and intangible resources and symbols between the US and the DR. T ransmigration has spread people's lives across national borders and ge nerated a transnational habitus. Thus, even transmigrants who resettle in the DR maintain enduring transnational relationships. However, ins tead of being a social equalizer that empowers all migrants alike, tra nsnational migration tends to reproduce and even exacerbate class, gen der, and regional inequalities. Finally, internal and transnational mi gration seem to form a single system connecting the Dominican rural po pulation to the US via large Dominican urban centers.