Introduction: Transnational Cityscapes

The introduction for "Transnational Cityscapes" provides an overview of scholarship on the transnational city in literature and establishes the transnational and city-oriented theoretical frameworks that underpin the essays in this collection. Bringing together theories from the fields of urban studies and transnational studies, the introduction complicates current understandings of transnationalism and the nation by demonstrating the ways in which cities provide discursive sites that move within and, at times beyond, nation spaces. In levying a critique of US and Latin American cities, the introduction outlines a number of global trends and theoretical concepts that have necessitated new approaches to both transnationalism and city studies.