Abstract

Transnationalism prevailing in current anthropological studies of international migration encourages pointing out the other paradigms such as politics of identity and testing their applicability to address the new global flows of human location. The article includes a short account of analytical categories related to transnationalism and politics of identity and also provides a case study of the application of identity empowerment as a research perspective for the analysis of the Lithuanian migration to the US. Two ways – “diasporic” and “recognitionist” – of transatlantic Lithuanian-ness are exemplified. These are enacted and emplaced in politics and practices of: in the first way – retaining nation-ness, culture as well as politics of return to homeland; in the other way – reclaiming local “roots”, culture and ethnic heritage as well as the ambition of “re-writing” the local histories of multiculturalism of the US