Transnational Theory and South American Immigration across Europe

The South American population living in the UK and Europe has grown decisively over the past decade (Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2007, McIlwaine 2007).1 With an increasing number of economic migrants, students, and family reunifiers supplementing the earlier flows of those moving to seek asylum and to participate in skilled labor markets, the community has greatly diversified. The fact that, like many immigrant populations, South Americans tend to concentrate in some areas and not others introduces further diversity between, in the UK, the South American communities in London and the North. Understanding how growing immigration and diverse communities affects British, European, and South American societies in interdependent ways is important to debates on citizenship, belonging, and multiculturalism (Yuval-Davis 2006), development and position of South America in the global economy (Munck 2009, Robinson 2004), and convergence and divergence across Europe (Koser and Lutz 1998; Pellegrino 2004).