Transnational Urbanism Revisited Michael Peter Smith This article revisits the research optic proposed in Transnational Urbanism to take stock of the field. Social relations ‘from the middle’ are conceived in two distinct ways in the field. Transnationalism ‘from in-between’ refers to actors who mediate between transnational actors ‘from above’ and ‘from below’. ‘Middling transnationalism’ refers to the transnational practices of middle-class social actors. Both are useful and potentially complementary. Research on transnational urbanism is aware of the socially situated subjectivity of human agents while also providing a way to study spatially distanciated social relations. Research has begun to attend to the emplacement of mobile subjects and the embodiment of their everyday practices and mobilities. Future studies need to attend to the power-knowledge venues by which states, institutional channels and other actors broker mobile subjects’ cross-border interconnectivity. Keywords: Transnational Urbanism; Distanciated Social Relations; Situated Subjectivity; Translocality; Place-Making Researchers on transnationalism seek to analyse the social organisation and consequences of the complex interconnectivity of cross-border networks in multiple fields of social practice. These range from the social construction of transmigrant networks, to the politics of transnational social movements, the proselytising activities of organised religions, the economic connections of commodity chains and criminal syndicates, and now, sadly, the machinations of transnational terrorist networks. This complex interconnectivity is multidimensional, encompassing social, economic and political relations as well as cultural and interpersonal networks and technological linkages. Given the emphasis in transnational studies on the empirical practices of transnational social networks as both a medium and an outcome of human agency, some have sought to position transnationalism research as an agency-oriented Michael Peter Smith is Professor of Community Studies in the Department of Human and Community Development at the University of California, Davis. Correspondence to: Prof. M.P. Smith, Department of Human and Community Development, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis CA 95616, USA. E-mail: mpsmith@ucdavis.edu ISSN 1369-183X print/ISSN 1469-9451 online/05/020235-10 # 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd DOI: 10.1080/1369183042000339909 Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 31, No. 2, March 2005, pp. 235  /244