Steering social fields of mobilization in global cities: Latin American transnational political engagement in Brussels

Social scientists and migration scholars have a growing interest in how and why migrants engage in transnational political movements in both their home and host countries. Migrants are active agents participating in transnational social movements. They create, transform, and exploit transnational networks to engage in political movements in their homeland and in their hostland from cities. This chapter aims to answer the following questions: how do global cities shape transnational fields of social mobilization? What is the nexus between these transnational fields of social mobilization and access to welfare states? Theoretically, this contribution introduces a new spatial level of analysis to unpack the dynamics and dimensions of migrant social movements organized in global cities. By focusing specifically on the city of Brussels, this contribution analyzes the impact of global cities shaping the capacity and desire of Latin American migrants in engaging in political movements. Empirically, this chapter presents two case studies where Latin Americans living in Brussels engage in political transnational activities to change their living conditions both in their host and home cities. These examples illustrate the role of migrants influencing and shaping welfare-state and political systems in both their sending and receiving societies.