Global Citizenship, National Minority and Local Neighborhood: Transnational practices among Arab citizens in Tel-Aviv-Jaffa.
The investigation of practices of transnationalism in the context of a democratic ethnically divided society characterized by the dominance of the majority, is the focus of the present study. The paper attempts to contribute to the development of the transnational field of research by addressing a somewhat neglected issue: the issue of constraints on access to transnational practices and the implications of such constraints on the transnational networks that do emerge. It is argued that because transnationalism focuses on crossing borders, it has to deal also with the conditions that enable or prevent such practices. In this context the paper will specifically address the types of networks formed by national minorities who are prevented from associating with their co-ethnics in their mother country or with members of the minority in Diaspora, since such ties are considered as threatening in the nation-state that encompasses them. The research is based on a study of the Arab community in Tel Aviv-Jaffa in the 1990s.