Peggy Levitt

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Peggy Levitt is an American sociologist and associate professor at Wellesley College. Levitt is an expert on immigration and how the religious practices of both new and established immigrant groups are changing America and the homelands from which they come. Her work is centered on migrants who maintain strong ties to their homeland. In The Transnational Villagers, Levitt describes groups in Miraflorenos and Boston, and she posits their transnational status — along with the various conflicts and problems that accompany it — as a new feature of modernity. Levitt’s current study, Comparative and Historical Perspectives on Transnational Migration, builds on this project. It focuses on the role of religious institutions in enabling transnational membership. The study asks: What difference does it make when new migrants’ principal mode of integration into their host country is through religious rather than political arenas? In what ways does migrants’ long-term impact on their countries of origin change when they remain connected through churches rather than political groups?