Introduction

This work seeks to explain how migrants have formed transnational community ties from a social cohesion perspective. The topic contains a paradox: while transnationalism is conceived as the simultaneous and permanent contacts that keep migrants connected to their communities of origin and destination (^{Glick Schiller et al., 1992}), social cohesion emphasizes, from the perspective of host countries, the economic, social, or cultural effects that highlight the difficulty of assimilating migrants within the established social order. The first perspective seeks to explain how migrants live their lives across borders that simultaneously connect two countries. The second perspective emphasizes the integration of national communities and the elements that sustain the national social fabric and therefore constitute a well-ordered society (Glick Schiller et al., 1992; ^{Jenson, 1998}; ^{Ratcliffe, 2012}; ^{Portes & Vickstrom, 2012}). Using a historical perspective, this work follows the structures of social bonding that migrants have with their communities of origin to argue that there are social groups that have constituted a form of transnational social cohesion in the rural communities of southern Guanajuato.

Transnational social cohesion refers to mobile social groups that have woven dense social networks (Coleman, 1998) in which they support their sense of community belonging and have established shared values in multiple geographical spaces. The above makes it possible to propose the hypothesis that their forms of association and the subjective representation with which they reconstitute their community membership (^{Dickes et al., 2011}; ^{López Sánchez, 2016}) have been based on two points. The first is the structure of social ties sustained fundamentally by family and friendship bonds and low confidence in the national and subnational political institutions (^{Portes & Vickstrom, 2012}) existing in Guanajuato, first, and in Mexico, later. The second is that the structure of social bonding has historically manifested itself simultaneously in individual and family interactions existing in multiple geographic spaces, reinforcing a sense of multi-spatial belonging.

The concept of social cohesion explored in this work is defined by ^{Jenson (1998}) ─Social cohesion is a process that sustains the social order in which individuals maintain shared values and a commitment to their community─. This definition has the national community as its unit of analysis. Its central concern is given by how the integration of the social fabric within a space geographically delimited by borders is sustained. Despite taking this definition as a basis, when focusing the analysis on mobile populations, it is necessary to ask how the spatial movement of a social group affects that process of community integration. How does this mobile group maintain community values and establish commitments in their communities before migrating, during the migratory process, and upon their return to their communities of origin? In other words, instead of being a characteristic of closed national spaces, insofar as borders delimit them, the structures of social bonding of migrant groups in transnational spaces are analyzed. Bonding structures are considered the individual attributes, relationships, and resources that make up social groups, which, in turn, determine the relationships between individuals and social groups, as well as individuals and society (^{Dickes et al., 2011}). This makes it possible to assume that these bonding structures are maintained despite the division caused by borders by establishing a process that explains how migrant individuals and groups configure their relationships with the market, their families, and their communities in multi-spatial contexts. It also explains how migrants establish incomplete citizenship by being absent from their countries of origin and having limited rights in destination countries. As ^{Anderson (2019}, p. 2) points out, “it is possible to distinguish between the migrant in the law and migration policies, the migrant in migration statistics, and the migrant in the public debate”.

The argument is constructed based on fieldwork conducted in the summer of 2016 that examined the following questions: how do migrants build their sense of community belonging by maintaining a multi-spatial life? How do they establish their political, economic, and cultural socialization activities in both countries? Finally, how have they adapted and readapted their community ties in space and time? By emphasizing how these elements have been historically constructed in the perception of migrants, in their daily interactions before migrating, during their stay in another country, and upon return to their communities of origin (^{Eckstein, 2015}), the social order was identified based on a structure of social bonding that are maintained over time on a multi-spatial basis. The above implies that the migratory movement is sustained in a specific social relations process in which shared values, community commitments, and sense of belonging alternate regularly at different times and in different spaces. To introduce the argument of this work in the following section, the basic concepts used in the questionnaire and the methodology are presented. The third section provides the results of the fieldwork, which will lead to the discussion and conclusions.

Social Cohesion in the Mexico-United States Immigration Regime: Methodological Notes

One of the assumptions of this work is that the century-old migration from Mexico to the United States has structured different institutional arrangements or regimes that, formally or informally, have guided the political, economic, and social conditions. These regimes have also guided the national migration policies that correspond to each of the six periods identified by ^{Durand (2016}) that have characterized this process throughout its more than 100-year history.¹ They have somehow established a social order in which individuals maintain shared values and commit to their community (^{Jenson, 1998, p. 13}) that alternate in different geographic spaces and communities (^{Glick Schiller et al., 1992}). In this process, they have established a structure of economic, political, and social links that can be identified in the five analytical dimensions that make up social cohesion (^{Jenson, 1998, pp. 15-17}; ^{Jenson, 2010}): belonging/isolation; inclusion/exclusion; participation/apathy; recognition/rejection; legitimacy/illegitimacy.

The dimension of belonging/isolation refers to the feelings shared by communities that facilitate the integration of individuals. “A threat to social cohesion is associated with feelings of isolation from the community” (^{Jenson, 1998, pp. 15-17}; ^{Jenson, 2010}). The inclusion/exclusion dimension is related to markets. A well-unified society ensures inclusion, according to the author, and implies equal opportunities, especially in labor markets, to create conditions of cohesion. Therefore, a risk to social cohesion is then associated with market exclusion. The participation/apathy dimension has to do with the different forms of community involvement and organization to assert their interests before national and sub-national governments (^{Jenson, 1998, pp. 15-17}; ^{Jenson 2010}). The fourth dimension, recognition/rejection, establishes (^{Jenson, 1998, pp. 15-17}) “the necessary mediation of differences over power, resources, and values that is ensured by institutions, whether formal or informal, public or private (...) that in different places or moments can be mediators or promoters of conflicts”. Thus, the maintenance of social cohesion depends on the creation of institutions that contribute to, rather than undermine, the recognition of difference. This recognition is “defined as the feeling of citizens that others accept them and recognize their contributions to the community” (^{Jenson, 1998, pp. 15-17}). Rejection and intolerance, on the other hand, as well as efforts to achieve an excessive level of unanimity, make states and communities less “livable”. The last dimension, legitimacy/illegitimacy, Jenson defines as the fundamental role of political mediation (^{Jenson, 1998, pp. 15-17}; ²⁰¹⁰). Specifically, it refers to the State’s capacity to manage conflict in a pluralistic society through “macro-institutions” that guarantee security, access to social programs, and necessary services to diverse communities. This group of intermediary organizations includes social services, political parties, government agencies, and civil society organizations, among others.

This social cohesion perspective contains elements that define who is part of the community and shares values built in social spaces that are closed and delimited by borders. This work uses these five dimensions to construct the items of a closed questionnaire and the topics of semi-structured interviews tested during the field-work. These elements helped to comparatively identify how migrants perceive their community ties before leaving Mexico, during their stay in the United States, and on returning to Mexico. Among them, this work focused on their conditions of inclusion in the market, their perception of the sense of belonging and the problems experienced in formalizing it when returning to or living illegally in the US, their participation in social and political organizations, the recognition and belonging of their communities, and the legitimacy/trust extended toward public institutions. A comparison over time, where possible, allowed the identification of how these bonding structures are maintained and expanded in a multi-spatial way, combining local, national, and transnational experiences.

The survey was applied to the migrant or a close relative of the migrant, such as spouses, parents, or children. The objective was to identify how the migrant felt welcomed by other community members, in which way and how long after returning to Mexico he or she was included in the market and in what conditions, and how he or she participated in community activities. Finally, this work aimed to detect how trust or distrust in their neighbors and different government or health agencies made them turn to them for help, to obtain identity papers for them or their children of age ─especially those born or naturalized in the United States─ to access social services and use financial institutions.² The data presented here are backed up by seven semi-structured interviews that included the migration history and the processes and problems of the reintegration of the interviewees ─young high school and university students between the ages of 15 and 23─ that were detected during the fieldwork. Although the document sometimes uses the concept of the returned migrant, it is not the interest of this project to focus on the migrant as someone who has concluded a migratory cycle, but rather to focus on the undocumented migrant in the United States who at the time of the interview had returned to Mexico.³

The municipalities studied were selected by comparing Guanajuato's results of the Migration Intensity Index 2000 and 2010 (Consejo Nacional de Población, Conapo, 2001; 2012) through two points: households that reported receiving remittances and those that reported having returned migrants. In both cases, the census question is constructed on households with remittances or returning migrants during the previous five years. Thus, this work identified Apaseo el Alto as a municipality with a high return and high reception of remittances. It was assumed that the returning migrants were the relatives of an economic-labor migrant and that that person was still in the U.S. sending money to his family, which would explain the apparent contradiction of the increase in households reporting return, with the increase in households reporting receiving remittances. For the cases of Tarimoro and Celaya ─municipalities where there is a high level of return and where the reception of remittances has fallen─ it was assumed that there was either a return of the entire family (^{Moctezuma, 2013}; ^{Vila Freyer, 2015}) or a return of the economic-labor migrant, which would explain the reduction in remittances. Three rural communities were chosen in the three municipalities, with populations between 4 000 and 5 000 inhabitants, except for Apaseo el Alto, where surveys were also applied in the municipal capital, an urban community with 98 000 inhabitants.

The survey was exploratory;⁴ 658 people participated, representing approximately 2%⁵ of the rural community population. Since these are rural communities whose population is attracted to urban centers such as Celaya and Querétaro, priority was given to market days when the population is concentrated in public squares. The survey was carried out for security reasons between 10 am and 3 pm, to people between 17 and 60. Of the total number of people surveyed, only 41.6% had a family member who had returned from the United States, and of this group, 42.6% were migrants who had returned, 98% of whom had returned alone, and 2% of whom had returned with their entire family. Of the remaining 57.4%, those who responded to the survey were their direct relatives, that is, the wife (23%), one of the parents (15%), one of their children (7%), or another (10.4%). It is important to note that 26.5% of the returned migrants had returned in the last three years (as of 2014). Of the returned migrants, 69% lived between one and six years outside the country (44% from one to three years), 16% less than one year, and 15% had lived more than seven years in the US.

Of those surveyed, 59% were women and 41% men; 7% were illiterate. Of the respondents, 24% had completed primary school, 34% had completed secondary school, 19% had completed high school, and 5% had a University degree or Associate’s degree; the rest had not finished their studies. Another vital piece of information is that 20% took their family with them, either at the beginning of the migration journey (10.2%) or when they were already settled in the U.S. (9.96%). The rest never took their family with them. Only 84% returned, 13% with their family, and only 3% sent their family back to Mexico while the household head remained in the US.

Transnational Social Cohesion in Guanajuato: a First Approach

Guanajuato is a state founded by migrants. Since colonial times it has maintained a population fluctuation that has been related to the conditions of the internal labor market (^{Guevara Sanginés, 2017}). Since the beginning of the 20^th century, it has been part of the so-called traditional region that has expelled emigrants for more than 100 years (^{Durand, 2016}; Durand & Massey, 2003). As a state with high migration, 31 of its 46 municipalities register a high or very high relationship with migration (Conapo, 2012). Therefore, more than half of the respondents (56%) answered that they, or a member of their family, had migrated to the US. Of these cases, the first notable aspect is the generational changes experienced when specifying who the family member who has participated in the migration is. One hundred percent of those surveyed have or had a male grandparent who migrated; when the migrant is the spouse, 86% are male, and 14% are female; in 79% of the cases, it was the father. The percentage continues to change when they are asked if the person with migratory experience is a son (77%), a daughter (23%), or a mother (21%). The migration went from being a strictly male event to one in which between a quarter and a fifth of the people involved in this process are women.

It was also detected that, in Guanajuato's southern region, the migrant is less and less related to agricultural work. When asked about the migration project ─the reason for migration and the use they would make of the wages earned in the United States─ less than 10% of the answers are related with farm work, acquiring land, or agricultural materials. However, before migrating, 11.3% owned land. When returning, 27.4% did. The acquisition of machinery for the countryside went from 6.6% to 11.2%, and livestock acquisition went from 3.7% to 13%.

The next section discusses the specific elements considered in the fieldwork for each dimension of social cohesion.

Discussion

In discussing the results of this work, it should be noted that the fieldwork was conducted in ten communities in three municipalities in southern Guanajuato. This affects the definition and contextualization of national, sub-national, and local communities since while the former is conceived in the notion of social cohesion presented above, the trends shown in this text were found at the local level.¹³ The survey was designed with the original idea of using what this research considers a comprehensive definition of social cohesion to measure the impacts of return migration on Guanajuato communities. By analyzing migration from a historical perspective, the structures of simultaneous and permanent community ties in two geographic spaces were detected as part of the individual process experienced by migrants. This makes it possible to establish the hypothesis that the shared values and commitments within a well-ordered society can exist and be maintained transnationally in spaces where mobile and static populations coexist, such as the communities studied in Guanajuato. Based on the findings, the topic has taken on importance when highlighting the trends that might trigger a research agenda on the existence or not of bonding structures that maintain cohesive communities transnationally. ¹⁴

That said, the first trend detected is that mobile community groups have created a process of shared values in which they maintain daily links across borders. The results seem to indicate that the social commitment and shared values of these mobile groups are lived and displayed transnationally. In other words, the dimensions of social cohesion are maintained simultaneously in time, though in different spaces. In terms of inclusion, migrants are informally included in the United States labor market, but their income is spent in the form of remittances to their families in Mexico. They participate in the organization of the festivities of their patron saints in one country when the festivities are held in another. They are recognized as community members on both sides of the border ─accepted or discriminated against─ but maintain an active presence in them.

This does not mean that they do not live in vulnerable conditions. While they are working in the less qualified market niches of the United States, their families in Mexico have a better material quality of life. Migration makes it possible for them to acquire homes, cars, land, and animals, among other properties. When they return, they have the perception that the material quality of life for them and their families decreases due to the low quality of the jobs they work in, even though, for the most part, they have their own house, car, and financial education, and were able to support the education and improve the health of their children. The above aspects would imply a higher quality of life than their community peers while sacrificing their social lives. Community, intra-group, or family recognition and participation are maintained by frequent telephone contacts, sending remittances, financing the patron saint festivities, and others. Participation in soccer clubs, trust in their neighbors, community recognition, and participation are less frequent but not non-existent. In terms of belonging in the political community and institutions' legitimacy, the percentage drops but with greater recognition of the United States government's institutional effectiveness.

The sense of belonging, recognition, and security is increased by living in Mexico, strengthening the social fabric of the communities of return. It can be stated that the social and family networks that migrants have in the United States are those that help them sustain migration. The density of those same networks in Guanajuato helps support their reintegration into the communities of origin and return. Social and emotional ties are what seems to determine the quality of social life, preparing and justifying the return to the point of origin until economic circumstances pressure them for a new departure.

As other works have shown, migrants have been present in public policies when they are in the United States and absent when they return to Mexico (^{Tse, 2020}; ^{Mateos, 2020}). The legitimacy of a receiving government that sees them as a risk and a delivering government that ignores them is perceived in the low regard in which migrants hold public institutions and the government. In the case of those who have returned, the mistreatment they receive when transporting their things, attending public health services, or the lack of access to some services, the difficulty in obtaining identification documents to work, among others, is added. These elements reduce the legitimacy of Mexican authorities vis-à-vis returning migrants, who in some cases express greater trust in the institutions of the United States, which they perceive as more empathetic in taking an interest in them or their lives, despite the environment of harassment and their undocumented status in the United States, as reflected in the spontaneous responses cited above.

The quality of the social life of migrants improves with an increased sense of security, recognition, and community participation upon their return home. It also contrasts with the change in security perception while living in unstable conditions in communities in the United States that discriminate against them despite hiring them as workers. The above is reflected in the perception of the anti-immigrant environment and the raids of which some of them were victims. Neither the government of Mexico nor the government of Guanajuato offer returned migrants the minimum guarantees that the State should provide to ensure a life without conflict, which is included in the definition of legitimacy analyzed as an integral part of social cohesion. Finally, in both Mexico and the United States, these are vulnerable social groups that are reintegrated into institutionally weak communities, to the extent that they have low participation in social organizations.

Conclusions

The findings of this research make it possible to conclude two points: first, within the communities of Guanajuato, social groups have been formed that have organized their social and economic life by sharing community values and commitments that alternate spatially. The above does not alter the quality of their community life, nor mutual recognition, nor their participation in social activities. On the contrary, the temporal and spatial simultaneity is reinforced by linking some economic, social, and cultural activities in the United States and others in Mexico. These activities reinforce bonds and a sense of multi-spatial belonging based on social networks that, paradoxically, seem to place them at a civic disadvantage (^{Vila Freyer, 2019}; ^{Vila Freyer, 2017}). It is the weak political institutions that negatively affect the relations between migrant groups and the different ways of managing social relations between citizens. The above is what ^{Portes and Vickstrom (2012, p. 100}) define as communities “where the mechanical solidarity of extended families and tribal networks maintains a semblance of order in the face of weak or absent coordinating institutions”.

Second, so far, discussions about how migration impacts host societies assume adverse effects of migration on the social cohesion of host communities. Migrants are seen as a risk because they do not share the cultural elements, values, or sense of solidarity of the host society. Some authors emphasize economic rather than socio-cultural aspects that would explain the difficulties in participating in host societies (^{Ratcliffe, 2012}). ^{Portes and Vickstrom (2012}) state that the conflict created by migrants in host societies is reduced by strong political institutions that manage or, as this work would add, revive it. However, when analyzing these elements from the point of view of the sending societies, much more dense, multi-spatial, and largely self-regulated community relations that reinforce the sense of community and mechanical solidarity within them are found. It is as if migration hinders social complexity processes in migrant communities, reinforcing and maintaining traditional relations within them. It is not only a question of inclusion in the market but also of the density of the social networks with which they are linked, which fragments the social fabric, an element that, in turn, serves to explain and justify emigration in the first place.

Hence, the need to develop a research agenda that analyzes and reflects on the state of social cohesion in Guanajuato, which necessarily requires comparing mobile and immobile populations' conditions to measure the real impact of migration on its social fabric.