| This dissertation explores how the conditions of interconnectedness, flexibility and mobility engendered by globalization affect people's identifications. It takes multinational corporations as a case of transnational networks and focuses on transnational professionals who work in transnational corporations in two sites -- Istanbul, Turkey and New York City, the United States. It examines, first, the different interpretations and meanings given to transnational processes by professionals from different locations to historicize transnationalism. Second, it explores the consequences of transnationalism at the individual level by concentrating on how transnational practices affect the meaning structures and identifications of individuals. Thus the main research questions are as follows: How do people from different national backgrounds participate in transnational business networks? What does this mean for their identification? Does transnationalism engender cosmopolitanism? If so, does this mean an erosion of national attachments and "denationalization of the elite"?;As such this research contributes to the discussions on 'cosmopolitanisms in practice' by detailing the link between transnationalism and cosmopolitanism. I illustrate how respondents identify as cosmopolitan, relying heavily on their experiences involving multi-and cross-national interactions within work and non-work spaces that they get into through the transnational network. This "rooted" cosmopolitanism that is intrinsically linked to the global market underlines skills and networks, yet is devoid of a sense of a collective and is not based on an abstract belief in humanity. While the transnational network, by creating new spaces for multicultural interaction and mobility, provides the context for strengthening of a particular type of cosmopolitan identity, it does not provide the tools that might alter the respondents' apolitical relationships with their communities.;This research also contributes to discussions on transnational professionals by working against a sense of homogeneity, as there is considerable variation between the Turkish and the American narratives about the significance of the transnational companies. I argue that this variation illustrates how location within the global market, as well as the specific context of the location, affects the way respondents interpret their experiences. |
