In this sense, we are suggesting a focus on the traditional space of the home,
family, community and neighbourhood, which are often the immediate site of
encounters with ‘otherness’ and where notions of belonging and attachment are
produced. We argue that it is these neighbourhoods which could be seen as the
building blocks of translocality in ways that facilitate – through kin and friendship
networks embedded within them – the ability to migrate, be mobile yet maintain
connections across localities. This possibility is demonstrated in Page’s chapter
that illuminates the dangers associated with the nation as the sole register of
affiliation. In the chapter covering Cameroon inspired home-town association
in London, multiple districts within the home and host nation are found to be
of heightened significance in the individual biographies of club members. In the
case of Tanzanian associations, by contrast, it is also shown how people are more
likely to associate through their church or mosque than through affiliation to their
hometown. Similarly studies have shown, for example how specific urban sites,
like villages, also act as cultural hearts for transnational migrants to connect and
organize translocality (Falzon 2003, see also work being undertaken at Queen
Mary, University of London on ‘Diaspora cities: imagining Calcutta in London,
Toronto and Jerusalem’).