A not so multi-sited ethnography of a not so imagined community

TLDR

The article reflects on key analytical concepts in migration anthropology, drawing on the author’s ethnographic work with Lebanese migrants in multiple international locations. It aims to critique and refine concepts such as multi‑sited ethnography, the use of “imagined community,” and the assumption that migration equates to mobility. The author analyzes these concepts through a reflective examination of the literature and the author’s own ethnographic data on Lebanese migrants across multiple international sites. The article finds that the literature rarely provides empirical evidence for “community” and that migrants’ actual movement is less extensive than the notion of “mobility” implies.

Abstract

This article reflects on key analytical concepts used in the anthropology of migration in the light of the author’s own ethnographic work on Lebanese migrants in a number of international locations. It first examines the notion of multi-sited ethnography and argues that in the study of migrants sharing a unifying culture across a number of global locations, multi-sitedness is less helpful than a notion of a single geographically discontinuous site. The article also examines the excessive usage of the notion of ‘imagined community’ in diasporic research. It argues that there is often very little empirical evidence of ‘community’ presented in the literature that uses the concept. Finally, the article examines the uncritical assumption often made that the study of migration is the study of ‘mobility’. It argues that migrants do not really spend that much time ‘moving’ in the sense assumed by the notion of ‘mobility’.