Transnationalism refers to that which takes place across national borders. It can be used to describe both material ties and symbolic flows and interconnections. As a concept transnationalism is used most frequently to describe a form of contemporary migration in which migrants form long-standing social ties and allegiances to more than one national community. Transnationalism also delineates new forms of governance and the development of institutions and social spaces that are organized across borders and which either facilitate or resist cross-border flows. As a widely used interdisciplinary term it captures an epistemological shift away from methodological nationalism—the implicit reliance on the nation state as the backstop or container of social processes.