Chicago/Michoacan: The construction of transnational political spaces

This empirical study focuses on migrants from the Mexican state of Michoacan who live in Chicago and are engaged in the Federacion de Clubes Michoacanos en Illinois. The article argues that their complex and multidimensional cross-border practices create transnational political spaces. It shows how the practices of Mexican migrant organizations overcome the geographic limits of traditional political spaces - the nation-state and the local community - and bring together intertwined dimensions of "the political," which in this case refers to: the symbolic importance of the struggle for political rights, the feeling of belonging, the public recognition gained by participation in 3-for-1 public infrastructure projects and the empowerment of the migrants as expressed by their transnational political agendas.