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While many studies examine the remittances sent by migrants to their home countries, little is known about the financial resources that flow from home countries to migrants abroad, also known as reverse remittances. Following an in-depth analysis of the limited existing literature, our study focuses on the practice of financial reverse remittances among migrants living in the Italian region of Lombardy to assess their incidence, their relationship with the migrants’ migration stage, and the occurrence of economic hardship. We build on a quantitative survey of 4,000 migrants carried out in 2014. Our research shows that overseas students, long-term migrants living with a partner, and, in general, migrants facing economic hardship and job insecurity are more likely to receive financial reverse remittances. The implications of our findings in light of the 2007–2008 global financial crisis in Italy are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does the receipt of remittances affect the likelihood of engaging in civic and political activities in the Middle East and North Africa? Research in Latin America and Africa has found two contradictory effects. Remittances can increase recipients' capacity for political participation by providing them with greater economic resources. But remittances may also reduce the incentive for political participation by lessening the importance of the domestic economy to the livelihood of recipients. Using survey data from Arab Barometer, I show that remittances are associated with a greater likelihood of engaging in non-electoral political activities, including protests, strikes and contacting elected officials, and (to a smaller extent) with electoral participation. To explore the relationship between remittances and political participation in greater depth, I report the results of interviews with 54 remittance-receiving families in Jordan and Tunisia. This qualitative evidence suggests that the greater relative economic security offered by remittances allows recipients to devote more resources, particularly time, to civic and political participation. The interviews also revealed a strong conditioning effect of gender: women are more likely to use remittances to donate time and money to non-political civil society organisations, while men are more likely to use remittances to conduct explicitly political activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debt-financed migration has been a subject of academic interest for the past two decades. This phenomenon can be divided into two main mechanisms: salary deductions and upfront payments. In salary deductions, facilitators provide migrants with upfront funds that are later deducted from their salaries by their employers. In upfront payments, migrants borrow and mortgage assets to obtain capital to cover migration-related expenses upfront or upon arrival. These expenses are then repaid through remittances. Most of the existing literature on debt-financed migration has taken an economic perspective that emphasizes the risks of debt bondage in salary deductions and vulnerability in upfront payments. Studies critically examine the role of states, brokers, and markets in impacting migrants’ well-being and labor and human rights. However, considering the increasing intensity of migration flows and the widespread use of debt as a funding mechanism, evaluating the relevance of the conventional economic framework is essential. I argue this framework can be supplemented with a richer and more empirical understanding of agency that shows how migrants can effectively use debt for empowerment and protection against debt bondage and vulnerability. To support this argument, I delineate an economic anthropology framework highlighting migrants’ agentic use of debt to their advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of remittances for economic development and the maintenance of transnational social relationships have been widely discussed. Based on data from Switzerland, we analyze the roles of transnational social relations and moral obligations for the likelihood of sending remittances among intra-European migrants from Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Portugal, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Our data shows high levels of remitting among these groups, with migrants from South-East European countries sending remittances primarily to family and friends and migrants from Portugal and Great Britain sending remittances primarily to their own bank account. Furthermore, by using differentiated and direct measures for social relations and moral obligations, we show that strong social ties as well as moral family obligations are relevant predictors of sending remittances, beyond measures of various desires and capacities to remit usually discussed in the literature. However, these effects also vary according to social relation and remittance type. Together, the results make a strong case for the social embeddedness of remittances and the importance of including migrants from western and southern Europe in empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the feminised labour migration in Southeast and South Asian countries, there is a growing body of literature discussing the phenomenon of left-behind fatherhood, with a particular focus on intra-family dynamics (gender reconfiguration) in transnational families. Yet little is known about how left-behind fatherhood is broached in other migratory contexts. To make empirical and theoretical contributions to the contextuality of stayers' fatherhood, this article draws on an ethnographic study of male stayers in Fuqing, a major transnational migrant-labour-sending area in China. Applying the concept of positionality and situated transnationalism, this article addresses these fathers' challenges and practices when coping with their parental role. This study argues that the lack of job opportunities (in rural China), culture of migration (in Fuqing), overseas immigration policies (on clandestine migration), and neoliberal Chinese fatherhood discourses, contribute to their unique parenting dilemmas and strategies when compared to their Southeast and South Asian counterparts. This paper advocates for a conceptual shift from 'left-behind' to 'stay-put' fatherhood, which highlights the complexity of male stayers' socio-spatial im/mobilities and extends the understanding of left-behind fatherhood beyond intra-family dynamics. It suggests gender reconfiguration associated with men's stay-put status should be read in the light of its embeddedness in transnational socio-structural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transnational approaches have led to conceptualisations of migration as a phenomenon that is embedded within globalisation processes. Overwhelmingly, emphasis is placed on the transnational connections migrants maintain with their relatives. Technological advancements have facilitated sustained communication, remittance transfers and return visits between migrants and their relatives. However, the role of shipping companies, as transnational actors based in destination countries with partners in origin countries, that help migrants and their relatives to co-create/maintain their livelihoods has been overlooked. Drawing on data from Ghanaian migrants in the UK who send in-kind remittances, their relatives in Ghana who receive in-kind remittances, Ghanaian migrant-owned shipping businesses in the UK and their partners in Ghana, this paper fills that gap in the literature by discussing the operation of 'door-to-door' shipping businesses as a type of crucial transnational migrant entrepreneurship that empowers migrants from the 'Global South' and their relatives to overcome transnational livelihood making challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transnational family remittances normally indicate the transfer of money from immigrants to their left-behind families in the country of origin. However, a significant remittance pattern in many new Chinese immigrant families in New Zealand demonstrates a reverse money-flow, whereby family remittances are largely from older parents to their immigrant descendants living in the host-society. This paper explores the phenomenon of reverse remittances by demonstrating how socioculturally embedded inter-generational dynamics mediate the practice of remittance-sending in new Chinese immigrant families in New Zealand. It reveals that families' financial statuses and inter-generational relations play a vital role in shaping the formation of reverse remittance practices. Four major patterns of reverse remittances are identified: the medium of the gift, financial support, pooling financial resources for collective family life, and investment; each of which carries distinctive material, cultural, and relational implications. This study broadens the debate on how family remittances are formed socially and culturally and further reinforces the reciprocal feature of transnational family relations across generations in the age of globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because the decision to migrate is a product of gendered negotiations within households, households formed through forced marriage may have different migration strategies than households formed through voluntary marriage. In Kyrgyzstan, we anticipate two possible effects of the traditional practice of bride kidnapping on migration. Households headed by a kidnap couple may be more cohesive and patriarchal, facilitating men's labour migration and remittance-sending. Alternately, women may use migration to escape such households. We test these two hypotheses using a sample of 1,171 households in rural Kyrgyzstan. Kidnap households are more likely to include women migrants, compared to other households. Kidnap households are also more likely to be receiving remittances, even when controlling for migrant household members. However, traditional beliefs about kidnapping are negatively associated with men's and women's migration. While higher levels of remittance receipt among kidnap households resembles the unified, patriarchal households envisioned in the New Economics of Labour Migration, it also appears that women use labour migration as a means to escape patriarchal constraints. We demonstrate that forced marriage in Kyrgyzstan plays a larger social role than is often believed, and highlight a new pathway through which gendered power dynamics can shape household migration strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrants' remittance to close relatives and acquaintances back home has been widely studied. However, little is known about the impact remittances have on the living conditions of migrants who send these remittances. This paper hypothesises that migrants often deprive themselves of better living conditions in their host countries in order to regularly remit home. We test this hypothesis using survey data from 129 Ghanaian migrants living in the United Kingdom. We develop a Living Condition Index based on migrant participants' self-assessment of how remittance has impacted their living conditions in the UK and specify a hierarchical multiple regression model to test this hypothesis. Controlling for migrants' demographic, migration, employment, and remittance information, we find that there is a 19.8% decrease in migrants' living conditions when they remit more than £150 per month, thereby confirming our hypothesis that remittances adversely impact migrants' living conditions in their host countries. The paper reflects on the implications of the findings in light of migrants' living conditions under the current global health pandemic and offers practical suggestions that could help lessen this financial burden on migrants while supporting sustainable businesses back home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a novel approach to understanding the impact of migration on sending countries. It looks at the topic the other way round from conventional approaches. Rather than only studying migrants' influence on countries of origin, as migration scholars naturally do, I recommend first mapping social trends in sending countries to understand the most significant changes, before analysing why change takes place. Such analysis involves qualitative sociological research to understand the causes of change: how social remittances and more indirect migration influences combine with other factors. Focusing on sending country residents, the approach also applies concepts and findings from receiving societies research. The approach encourages a thorough investigation of transnational social space, seeing sociological phenomena such as socialisation or social activism taking place across international borders. The case study is twenty-first century Europe, with its dense and diverse migration patterns. The article discusses my experience of applying the approach to Poland, suggesting that migration exposure's special role may be to reinforce national trends (e.g. towards more open-to-difference attitudes) even in social groups and geographical locations which are generally more conservative. Finally, I discuss how the approach might be applied in other post-communist countries, as well as further afield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remittances have moral dimensions that, albeit implicitly addressed in migration literature, have not yet been the focus of explicit attention and analysis by social scientists. Building on recent developments in the anthropology of ethics and morality, this article proposes theoretical and analytical pathways to address this important but often neglected aspect of remittances. It does so mainly via a critical analysis of existing scholarship on remittances, and ethnographic data drawn from research among Cuban migrants in Cuba and Spain. The reflexive scrutiny of scholars' moral assumptions about remittances opens the way for the study of the moral dilemmas and ethical demands articulated by remittance senders and recipients. Family roles and obligations, and the uses of the money sent by migrants, are identified as key areas of moral difficulty. Their analysis shows how remittances inform moral reassessments of family relations, individual responsibility, economic practice, and development. The notion of 'moral remittances' is proposed as a heuristic comparative tool that serves to illuminate the moral aspects of remittances. This notion is put into perspective to complement and reconsider more metaphorical takes on remittances, notably the concept of 'social remittances', of which it helps reveal some epistemological limitations while opening future research avenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains the emergence of armed vigilante groups in Mexico over the past decade? This article links the recent emergence of armed vigilante organisations to United States-Mexico migration. Drawing on an original dataset collected from 2352 Mexican municipalities between 2002 and 2013, we find that a given community's participation in programmes through which migrant organisations called hometown associations (HTAs) produce public goods in collaboration with sending state authorities is associated with a higher probability of observing an armed vigilante group. More specifically, armed vigilante groups are more likely to operate in those municipalities where HTAs repeatedly participate in the formal co-provision of public goods with government authorities. Contrary to our theoretical expectations, we also find that the presence of vigilante groups does not appear to be driven by HTA's desire to protect their collective investments. We are not more likely to observe vigilante groups in those communities in which HTAs invest the most money. We argue that the positive relationship between frequent HTA participation in programmes where government authorities and migrants co-produce public goods obtains because the processes that this collaboration entails enable community members to act collectively to provide self-help forms of security and justice for their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous work on remittances and incumbency support has focused on recipients' (pocketbook and sociotropic) economic assessments. In Mexico, however, crime has become the second (if not the first) concern of voters and security evaluations have become closely linked to the national executive's performance. In this paper we posit that in Mexico remittances can also increase incumbent support through their effect on recipients' security assessments. We attribute this finding to remittances allowing recipients to take crime-preventive measures and alleviate some of the pressure associated with crime and violence, which in turn improves recipients' assessments of the security situation of the country and evaluations of the incumbent. Using individual data from Mexico for the period 2006–2017, we find that remittance recipients have higher levels of perceived personal safety and better national security evaluations than non-recipients, and that security assessments are a significant predictor of presidential approval rates. The evidence thus suggests that in Mexico, where crime is rising, and presidents are increasingly rewarded or blamed for containing violence, the effect of remittances on presidential approval also operates through improved personal safety perceptions and public security assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the role of workers' remittances in supporting vigilante organisations in Mexico. Research on remittances posits both a positive and a negative effect on collective action from the reception of remittances. On one hand, remittances sent by relatives abroad provide extra resources for political action at home. On the other hand, the reception of remittances makes recipients less prone to protesting, through a reduction in grievances. As a result, remittances can be associated with both an increase and a decrease of collective political activity. In this paper, we claim that both effects can co-exist and that the predominance of one mechanism or the other depends on the degree of penetration of remittances at the municipal level. Using data on the existence of vigilante organisations, we find that in most remittance-receiving municipalities, through a resource effect, remittance inflows increase the probability of observing self-defense organisations, but this probability declines at high rates of remittance penetration at the local level. Nonetheless, we observe an activation effect in a majority of remittance receiving municipalities. The paper contributes both to our understanding of international social networks as determinants of civilian action and to the research agenda on how workers' remittances shape political behaviour in home countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do financial remittances influence electoral participation in violent democracies? Previous work has focused on the 'substitution effect'; if recipients depend on remittances for welfare rather than the state, they become disengaged from formal political processes and less likely to vote in elections. However, while remittances can be used to substitute for state provision of welfare goods, they cannot fully substitute for public security. In this paper, we posit that the ability of governments to contain crime and violence conditions the effect of remittances on electoral participation. Specifically, we argue that high levels of crime can negate the substitution effect and make remittance recipients more likely to vote. Using municipality-level data from Mexico and individual-level data from Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, we find that both the receipt of remittances and crime exposure significantly reduce individuals' propensity to vote and that aggregate remittances and crime rates are correlated with lower turnout. Remittances can, however, negate the turnout-suppressing effects of crime, and crime can negate the turnout-suppressing effects of remittances. Our results suggest a need to account for government provision of both substitutable and non-substitutable goods when investigating the effects of remittances on political participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We can strengthen our understanding of the relationship between transnational migration and origin-country politics by starting with the premise that violence is a key feature of democratic politics in many migrant-sending countries. Violent democracies are peacetime countries in which the legitimate means to accessing power are no longer violently contested; yet at the substate level, manifold political actors regularly use violence to compete for power and make demands within established democratic institutional frameworks. Drawing primarily on the case of Mexico, this issue explores the interactions between migrant transnationalism, particularly migrants' collective and family remittances, and this violent pluralism. The articles show that social and political remittances influence the emergence of armed vigilante groups and that violence modifies the known effects of remittances on the political behaviour of individuals living in migrant-sending households. The violent democracy perspective raises questions overlooked by research on migration and democratisation, diaspora engagement with origin countries plagued by armed civil conflict, and transnational crime. Therefore, research on this topic merits a dedicated theoretical and empirical approach. Building on the Issue's empirical findings, I advance a broad agenda for future research both within Mexico and in violent migrant-sending democracies around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrant houses in countries of origin, referred to as 'remittance houses', are a visible marker of emigration. Case studies from diverse geographic contexts have explored their functions. Unlike the surrounding built environment, these houses span the local and transnational realities of migrant lives, while being grounded in specific places. We argue, first, for the need to move beyond locally-oriented reifying descriptions of what is a global phenomenon; second, for the need to analyse migrant remittance houses as part of a broader agenda for unravelling the practical and emotional significance of 'home' in migration studies. The paper unveils the constitutive dimensions of migrant houses: their roles as symbols of migration; their significance as economic investments; their presence as physical structures necessitating follow-up locally; their function as second homes for holidays and reminders of (elusive) return migration. Researching remittance houses is a source of insights on questions of broader theoretical relevance, like the temporality of migration, the reach and sustainability of migrant transnationalism and the forms of cultural diffusion associated with it. This calls for a distinctive methodological agenda to advance research, based on a typology of transnational housing investments, which differentiates the locations, functions and rationales of migrant houses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration of men has important influences on reshaping family and gender roles in left-behind wives. However, it is unclear whether husbands' out-migration increases the burden on or creates autonomy for left-behind wives. Using new data from Nepal, we examine the associations of husband's out-migration and remittance status with the work burden and autonomy of left-behind wives'. Results of our multi-level multivariate analyses show that the number of months a husband migrated internationally during the last year is significantly associated with an increase in participation in farming activities for the left-behind wives. Husband's out-migration and remittance status are also associated with an increase in wives' number of daily activities outside the home, and leisure activities and media use. In sum, husbands' out-migration might be good and bad for women, by increasing the burden on wives while also promoting their freedom of movement, leisure activities and media use. Importantly these findings are net of wives' individual background characteristics, household characteristics and community context measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to explore the differences in how the Hungarian government relates to the two 'kinds' of Hungarian communities abroad: Hungarian kin-minorities and diaspora Hungarians. The case study addresses how and why the scope and intensity of the engagement practices towards the two kinds of co-ethnic groups abroad can differ significantly, and it points to the different interpretations of political remittances of transnational engagement from the side of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on political transnationalism raises tantalising questions about how people, organisations, and ideologies in both host and homeland countries activate, shape, and constrain political remittances. This article historicises and extends the literature by exploring ways the development of transcultural Danish American identities in fraternal lodges between the wars prepared an institutional conduit for Danish officials to successfully lobby United States policymakers during World War II. In the process it demonstrates that political divisions within the sending state, Denmark, elevated the importance of mutually held values in determining the diaspora's overwhelming support for a pro-democratic diplomatic corps acting against official government policy. Thus it captures the multi-directionality of political remittances while problematising the role of the state and mapping the transformative potential of ideology and ethnic institutions in shaping their currents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to address a rarely researched dimension of political remittances by moving from the (trans)national to the regional level, and from the individual to the institutional level of collective action. We base our analyses of the regional and institutional aspects on the case of the Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA), a regional network comprising migrants' rights organisations that span across Asia (from West to East). Over the past two decades, this network has been instrumental in creating and expanding political spaces at various levels (national, transnational, regional and global) in which political advocacy in the form of organising strategies and the framing of political issues has 'travelled'. We argue that this is done via the diffusion of political remittances within advocacy networks and that such diffusion generates counter-hegemonic knowledge to state-led interpretations of the governance of migration. This paper uses the notion of 'political remittances' not only to highlight the multiplying effect of the flow of ideas and practices in relation to membership of organisations involved in collective advocacy; but also in terms of multiplication of targets of the advocacy. We differentiate between a horizontal dimension, where remittances are being circulated between the (national) members of the network and the vertical dimension, where ideas also circulate as remittances back and forth between the national members of the network and the global level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the transnational networks based in Britain between 1881 and 1914 that aspired to affect Russian politics from abroad. It contends that the emigration of Russian revolutionaries to Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was only the first in a series of continued political movements across national borders and beyond state structures. Rather than examining the migration of Russian political exiles as a singular flight of movement undertaken in desperation, I argue that these émigrés' westward migration initiated transnational communities that coalesced around a common conception of fundamental political rights, that could be claimed regardless of nationality, and that these activist cohorts, in turn engaged in public endeavours designed to influence governmental actions and foment political change. For many prominent Russian radicals, emigration to places like Britain was not an enforced exile from interventions in the politics of their homeland, but rather a means to continue anti-tsarist agitation through transnational collaborative activist networks, and the international movement and exchange, rather than unidirectional distribution, of money, communications, propaganda and people; interventions that I define as political remittances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a key idea that the German Labour Movement originated in the early nineteenth century abroad. In the more liberal atmosphere of Paris, Brussels, Geneva and London political refugees and travelling journeymen came together and founded associations. This turn of events should, however, not be seen solely within the analytical framework of class formation but also as part of the civil societal development of a transnational movement that fought for the acceptance of the workers as 'real citizens'. This paper seeks to place the topic of the (political) formation of the German working class in dialogue with the structure of political remittances and thereby to enquire into the influence of foreign ideas and associational models on the early German working class: which actors, media and ideas helped spread these new forms of associations; how were these shaped by the interplay between national impacts and transnational developments? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We advance a concept of political remittances that offers a distinct analytical perspective and enables a comparative assessment across time and space. By providing a new conceptualisation of political remittances, this article elaborates on the link between different kinds of remittances, delimiting the boundaries between political, social, economic, or cultural remittances. We understand political remittances as influencing political practices and narratives of belonging, thereby linking migrants' places of destination and origin. The state, in this conceptualisation, mediates political remittances. The article distinguishes between factors influencing the transmission of political remittances such as the characteristic of the messengers, the relative space between sending and receiving contexts and the composite nature of political remittances. Illustrating the contours of a future research agenda, we suggest ways to operationalise research into political remittances drawing on the articles in this special issue which closely analyse political practices, narratives of belonging and the role of the state. Covering migration processes since the early 1800s, the case studies exemplify that political remittances are not a new phenomenon as such but rather a relatively recent analytic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration from Cambodia is a major livelihood strategy for rural communities, with most rural families having at least one, usually younger, member migrating in search of work. The pervasive nature of this phenomenon relates to Cambodia's troubled political past, and the country's political economy that structures choice and opportunity. Under-investment in the agrarian economy together with unequal access to credit and productive resources leaves many rural Cambodians with little option but to migrate to boost family income. Thailand is the number one destination for rural Cambodians. Most have an undocumented status, putting them at risk of arrest and deportation. The return of more than 200,000 migrants to Cambodia over a two-week period in 2014 was precipitated by the Thai military's seizure of power and migrants' fear of the consequences of political instability, given their still vivid historical memory of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge's reign of terror during the 1970s. Interviews with Cambodian migrants and members of their families are examined within a wider political and economic context to gain insight into migrants' motivations and decision-making. The expulsion of migrants from Thailand casts light on the compulsive nature of migration, despite the high risks and precarious conditions under which undocumented migration takes place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While remittances have come to play an important part in debates about migration and development, the link between religion, migration and transnational financial flows has yet to be understood in its full complexity. Drawing upon a multi-sited ethnography of a transnational African church, this article addresses this overlooked dimension of migrant transnationalism by analysing how religious donations converted into 'sacred remittances' produce a moral economy of religious life shaped by a politics of belongings at various scales. The article discusses the social meaning that diasporic actors attach to religious donations sent to the homeland (the Congo) and how this compares to the practice of sending remittances to family members. The article also argues that transnational circulation of sacralised money operates within a field of meanings and practices associated with moral expectations, entitlements and differentiated regimes of value. Sacred remittances, as 'global money', may generate a diversity of transnational linkages between donors and recipients but they remain embedded in landscapes of status and power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrants who intend to stay permanently in the host country are less likely to be attached to their origin country, meaning that a temporary migration should increase the likelihood of sending financial transfers to the origin country. We test the relevance of this hypothesis using a unique dataset on the integration of first-generation migrants living in France and who were interviewed three times from 2010 to 2013. Family transfers sent to the origin country are frequent, with an incidence of donors ranging between 40% and 50%, and the probability of remittances is higher among temporary migrants. The return–transfer relationship is not affected by the intention of migrants to bring other family members with them to France and sending money abroad is more frequently observed when migrants express their intention to consolidate their families in France. These findings suggest that remittances help immigrants prepare for an expected return while maintaining relationships with family members remaining in their origin country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a need for further refinement of the complex relationship between diaspora communities, their transnational social networks and fragile states. Research clearly shows that many diaspora mobilise to support their causes, but this often creates unevenness in outcomes and inequalities in access to resource especially in fragile states settings. We argue that remittances address only part of the state fragility problematique and that there are other, equally important roles for diaspora beyond remittance flows. We develop this argument by first explaining why a broader definition of state fragility improves our understanding of the importance of different kinds of diaspora linkages between home and host state. We then identify additional factors that can contribute to a reduction of state fragility and evaluate these against six cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore at the municipality level how the climate of criminal violence has affected the flow of remittances to Mexico. Using a panel of municipalities in the years 2006 and 2010, we find that drug-related crimes and overall rates of homicides have reduced the percentage of families that receive remittances. This result is robust to controlling for net migration, political variables and traditional socioeconomic explanations of remittance sending. It is also robust to potential threats to validity. We interpret this result as suggestive of self-interested concerns when sending money home amidst a climate of rampant violence. Nonetheless, mixed motivations to remit are evident in our analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses ageing Taiwanese returnees to illustrate how older migrants draw on their accumulated knowledge, experiences, and networks in their host society to contribute to their home society. Drawing on data collected from life history interviews with ageing return migrants, I argue that changing notions of social membership across life stages, coupled with the working experiences that professional middle-class migrants accumulate in the destination society, motivate ageing expatriates to return and devote their later lives to their home society. Specifically, I highlight how ageing migrants seek to bridge the gap between their ancestral and destination societies, further prompting social and cultural changes transnationally. Nevertheless, the extent to which ageing returnees can change their home society is conditioned by structural constraints already in place. Many ageing returnees cannot make as many changes as they would like, since they, as individuals, have trouble bringing about structural changes that require collective efforts. It is against this backdrop that many older returnees develop narratives of Americanisation (and insufficient Americanisation) to explain the difficulties that they encountered when trying to contribute to Taiwan. These narratives point to a hierarchy that ageing returnees believe exists between American and Taiwanese society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the interplay between spatial and social distance and financial obligations and goals in the context of migration. On the basis of an ethnographic study of Senegalese migration to Spain, it discusses the idea that distance may be partly sought to gain leverage in renegotiating responses to redistributive demands and responsibilities that come at odds with goals of accumulation and investment. Financial prosperity may be thought easier to attain by temporarily distancing oneself but is also sought to gain a better capacity to assist others. Besides, both accumulation and redistribution contribute to migrants’ overall objective of becoming socioeconomically successful and gaining a respectable presence at home. Many migrants do not wish to break with or ostracise dependents and other relations, and expectations of redistribution often grow as a result of migration. Thus, rather than resolve the dilemma between accumulation and redistribution, migration transforms it. Seeking a balance, some migrants devise strategies to establish the right distance, in socially and morally acceptable terms, to retain control over financial priorities without undermining social ties. Too much distance could result in ostracism; too little might stifle or delay ambitions for savings and investments, which are considered a precondition for return. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Scholars of sending countries emphasise the role of economics in shaping state policies towards emigration. They argue sending states are converging around a set of discursive strategies that aim to facilitate the influx of remittances from emigrants. One such strategy uses discourses of cultural nationalism to celebrate emigrants as ‘heroes’ of the nation. Drawing on a state-sponsored media campaign and ethnographic data, I found the Ukrainian state does the opposite. It stigmatises its emigrants to both Italy and the USA as ‘prostitutes’ and ‘defectors’, respectively. However emigrants are differentially stigmatised. Emigrants to the USA are simply dismissed, but the Ukrainian state constructs migration to Italy as a shameful social problem. It does this even though emigrants to Italy send back significantly more remittances. Economic interests cannot explain Ukrainian state practices towards emigration. Instead, in the context of post-Soviet transformation, I suggest the Ukrainian state has prioritised the construction of a national identity. The state then constructs policy with an eye to cultural rather than economic outcomes. I argue the Ukrainian state actively stigmatises the migration to Italy because it poses challenges to the nation-building process, whereas the migration to the USA is peripheral to this key state concern. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines the size and motivation for remittances of returned migrants, based on the survey data taken in six countries (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kyrgyz Republic, Romania and Tajikistan). In addition to the usual factors that are used in economic analysis to determine the size of remittances (i.e. income, marital status, family size, etc.) we use two additional ones, namely the use of remittances (material or human capital investment vs. consumption) and the identity of the decision-maker (migrant, spouse, parents, etc.). We find that remittances are higher when the decision-maker is the spouse or the migrant him/herself. Furthermore, remittances are higher when they are used for the education of children and adults; whereas they are lower when they are used for food and clothing or medical expenses. Given that the countries of origin cannot easily affect intra-family decisions, e.g. whether the spouse or children are left behind or who decides on how the money is spent, it seems difficult to draw concrete policy prescriptions. However, the findings about education expenses could lend some support for the provision of tax breaks or other benefits for migrants whose money is used for education purposes in the country of origin. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The idea of the active role of migrants in supporting the socio-economic development of their homeland is the subject of growing interest in academic and institutional debates. This expectancy can be framed theoretically in the notion of transnationalism, where the migrant is seen as an actor placed simultaneously in two or more social fields: those of the societies of origin and of destination. This article discusses this view from the point of view of the behaviour of migrants who have settled in a new country of immigration, Italy. It refers to the empirical research concerning three transnational phenomena: (1) the development of independent economic activities, focusing on their transnational projection and the economic promotion of the migrants' homeland; (2) the economic flows, mainly remittances, generated by transnational families, especially by mothers who move abroad leaving their children at home; (3) development cooperation projects which involve migrant associations. The results suggest that we can distinguish a basic transnationalism, typical of a new country of immigration, like Italy, from an advanced transnationalism, found in the US experience of the migrants' elites engaged in many forms of transnational commitment to their homeland. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The cyclical behaviour of remittances with respect to the receiving-country economy has important implications for economic and financial policies. Counter-cyclical remittance flows could form part of broader stabilisation policies in economic downturns and could also encourage receiving countries to adopt fixed (or less flexible) exchange-rate regimes. On the other hand, pro-cyclical flows may create an amplification effect of upturns or downturns in the receiving economy. There is an extant literature dedicated to exploring the cyclical nature of remittances. In general, the results tend to be country-specific and show that, for some migration and remittance corridors, remittances are counter-cyclical while, for others, they are pro-cyclical. This paper argues that the cyclical nature of remittances must be evaluated in a dynamic framework and that the relationship (between remittances and the receiving economy) is unlikely to be stable over time. Using data from Mexico, we show that remittances are counter-cyclical during some periods, but pro-cyclical at others. The changing cyclical nature of remittances questions the potential of remittances to smooth out cyclical fluctuations in output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes the case for a joint redefinition of the concepts of transnationalism and integration in a way that would allow a better combination. Transnationalism is here defined as a coping strategy for migrants who strive to manage their integration into two (or more) settings. Integration is commonly depicted as a multi-level process which combines a social embedding into a web of interpersonal or associational relations and a systemic embedding into wider economic or political systems. Next to these levels, this work highlights a third one, namely the identity integration of migrants who seek to maintain a balance between the poles of their identity. This conceptual framework is applied in order to analyse the emergence of collective practices of development among two North African groups in France (the Moroccan Chleuhs and the Algerian Kabyles) and one UK-based North Indian group (the Sikh Punjabis). It is shown that transnational development practices, in the form of collective remittances, constitute a matrix of identity integration for migrants who want to reinvent their identity of villager despite the transformations induced by their stay abroad. However, the success of their actual engagement into cross-border practices largely depends on the effectiveness of their systemic and social integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between transnationalism and integration by examining the determinants of remittance-sending practices. We base our analysis on the premise that remittance-sending is shaped by a combination of the capacity and the desire of migrants to remit. The capacity to remit depends on access to funds that can be remitted, be it through wages, other income or savings. The desire to remit determines how remittance-sending is prioritised in relation to alternative expenditures. We assume that capacity is shaped by circumstances in the country of residence while desire depends on attachment and commitments in both the country of residence and the country of origin. Our analysis is based on survey data on immigrants in Norway (N=3,053). We find that economic integration is important for remittance-sending, and point to different mechanisms through which this effect could operate. Migrants' socio-cultural integration, however, appears not to have significant effects on remittance-sending. Our approach and results illustrate how different aspects of integration can have divergent impacts on transnationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transnationality—defined as maintaining a sense of familyhood across national borders—is a complex process. This article studies the complexities of transnationality by analysing remittance-sending and practices of connectivity between migrants and non-migrants from the Junín region in Peru, in order to disentangle the factors that influence transnational familyhood. This analysis shows how it is the kind of family relationship between migrant and non-migrant—rather than issues such as gender, class and years of separation—that informs the transnational family relations sustained. While this might seem obvious, few studies on transnational families have analysed this factor. The combination of the various (transnational) family relationships, together with the multi-sitedness and the ideas on family obligations, characterise a transnational family. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When villages are marked by extensive out-migration and become transnationally extended, the dividing line between migrants and non-migrants becomes salient. But how deep do divisions run? In a cluster of Kurdish villages in central Turkey, notwithstanding continued social bonds, divisions between migrants and non-migrants are not least in existence when it comes to the cultural style of consumption practices, behaviour and manners. The mutual stereotyping of migrants and non-migrants seems to confirm that at least one version of the meaning made locally of migration is that it has deepened the social divisions of the village. But non-migrant villagers also point out that migrants have degraded themselves morally in order to obtain their material well-being. This is contested by migrants who find that non-migrants, too, are morally degraded, since they have lost their initiative and become dependents. Thus the transnational village has become a space for contesting how social status is acquired—in material wealth or in moral comportment—indicating the social suffering that migration has brought to the local sending society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the dichotomies which has affected migration studies for some time is that between ‘forced’ and ‘voluntary’ movements. Yet there is a growing realisation of the importance of understanding how the two overlap. Focusing on the Albanian Roma, this paper adds weight to the argument that a ‘mixed migration’ approach is necessary to understand a number of migratory situations which do not neatly fit the forced/voluntary categorisation. The paper draws on empirical material collected through household questionnaires, in-depth interviews, group discussions and ethnographic observation during 2007–08 within the framework of a broader study on gender, remittances and development in Albania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on research conducted with Kenyan migrants in the United Kingdom concerning the support they provide to chronically ill relatives in Kenya. Using qualitative research, we explore the meaning of this support, particularly in relation to the maintenance of transnational identity. The provision of support is considered in the context of gift exchange, and notions of intrinsic reward, reciprocity, obligation, sacrifice, religious conviction and identity are discussed. The research suggests that gift exchange and the maintenance of identity among Kenyan migrants may contribute to a sense of subjective wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There is a duality at the heart of the migration phenomenon, as the very same people who are immigrants are also emigrants, making a living and possibly setting down roots in the receiving society, but still connected to and oriented toward the home society where their significant others often reside. While research has shown that home-country political conditions and experiences affect immigrant political behaviour in the receiving society, scholarship has yet to ask how those same factors affect the ways in which emigrants relate to the body politic left behind. This paper seeks to fill that lacuna. We find that pre-migration political experiences impart a lasting post-migration interest in home-country politics and that such effects are substantial compared with the impacts associated with other cross-border connections, such as remittance sending or return travel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the interest and research on migrant remittances in the past have been concerned with the monetary value of such transactions and their macro-economic implications for the sending countries. It was only in recent years that research has focused on the social impact that remittances have for migrant workers and their families and communities of origin. We discuss some of the conceptual and methodological issues that such research poses in Asia, where a policy of temporary labour migration is widely practised by host governments. We call for greater attention to be paid to the sending, receipt, control and use of remittances as integral to the social process of remittance transfers. We recommend the adoption of existing social research methods such as multi-site and mixed-method designs, both-ways surveys and longitudinal work. We also stress the need to view remittance transfer as a gendered process. The reconfiguration of such research, we argue, will give rise to a sociology of migrant remittances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrant remittances are widely considered as one-way transfers from migrants to families in their communities of origin. Because remittances are unrequited, they can serve developmental purposes. But what if remittances are requited? Reverse remittances—money and goods which families send to their migrant members—do exist and can be substantial. Research on internal migration in South Korea reveals that reverse remittances can even exceed remittances. This paper draws on surveys of migrant transfers to outline patterns of reverse remittances. The high level of reverse remittances in South Korea can be attributed to that society's truncated urban transition: because massive permanent village-to-city migration was not preceded or accompanied by short-term circulation between urban places of varying sizes, migration was poorly integrated into rural economic activities. The South Korean experience raises questions about the role of remittances in the relationship between migration and development in communities of origin. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Existing scholarly literature and public discussions in sending and receiving countries often attempt to assess the costs and benefits of transnational family separation, not from the point of view of the participants but by universalising notions of motherhood and fatherhood without recognising different familial contexts and traditions. Such universalisation often results in separated families being defined as pathological, and transnational parents being blamed for the problems of youth left behind. Immigrant parents, on the other hand, often create a cost–benefit calculus based on fragmentary and inaccurate information and use this calculus to influence their transnational parenting practices to mitigate the costs of their separation from their children. In this article, we argue for the importance of context in understanding the impact of transnational family separation and propose a framework for assessing costs and benefits from the points of view not only of parents but also of others in the transnational chain of care—children, substitute care-givers and members of the communities of departure and reception. The key components of this framework are pre-migration family and child-care traditions and structures; the nature and regularity of contact during the period of separation; the reliability of remittances, the ways in which they are perceived and used by recipients and their communities; the opportunities for and context of reunification; and public policies that shape transnational family separation and reunification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The migration of Nepalis to the United States of America is a recent phenomenon that has not received serious academic attention to date. This paper sheds light on this migration flow by analysing data gathered through a survey of 61 Nepalese migrants in the US. There are five major conclusions to be drawn. First, the migration of Nepalis to the US has escalated over the last decade. Second, the migrants tend to be highly skilled. Third, a lack of educational and career opportunities, along with increased migrant networks and political instability in Nepal, are the major factors driving the surge. Fourth, survey data suggest a rapid assimilation of these migrants into the American mainstream. Finally, although skilled Nepalese migrants are less likely to remit to their families, they contribute significantly towards the development of Nepal through personal initiatives and participation in transnational organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we revisit the concept of social remittances. First, we show how people's experiences before migrating strongly influence what they do in the countries where they settle; this, in turn, affects what they remit back to their homelands. Second, just as scholars differentiate between individual and collective economic remittances, we also distinguish between individual and collective social remittances. While individuals communicate ideas and practices to each other in their roles as friends, family members or neighbours, they also communicate in their capacity as organisational actors, which has implications for organisational management and capacity-building. Finally, we argue that social remittances can scale up from local-level impacts to affect regional and national change and scale out to affect other domains of practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diaspora literature has tended to narrow itself to the marking out and placing of boundaries at the conceptual level. While still contributing to the elaboration of the concept of diaspora, this article seeks to answer two questions. What meanings do Zimbabweans in Britain give to their diasporic condition and experience? How do such meanings influence and shape attitudes towards return to the homeland or feelings of belonging to the hostland? The article is based on multi-sited ethnography, comprising 33 in-depth interviews and participant observation in four research sites, and draws upon concepts of diaspora and transnationalism as theoretical frameworks. It examines the process by which Zimbabweans in Britain negotiate boundaries, assert meanings, interpret their own pasts, and define themselves in relation to others in the hostland. The findings suggest that, whereas the concept of diaspora typically emphasises group cohesion, Zimbabweans in Britain describe their experience in complex ways. Some depict the diaspora as reverse colonisation; some see it in terms of Babylon and Egypt metaphors; and others talk of the diaspora as wenela, an acronym referring to a labour recruitment system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oaxacan migration has grown in recent years, yet there are still many questions about its overall pattern and how it relates to Mexican migration in general. This paper has two goals. First it summarises Oaxacan migration and notes the importance of remittances and internal as well as international movement. Second, it compares Oaxacan movement to general patterns of Mexican migration. While Oaxacan migrants look much like migrants from other parts of Mexico, there are important differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its status as one of the world's leading emigration countries, empirical work on Morocco has been largely absent from the lively theoretical debate on migration and development. The impact of international migration on development in Moroccan migrant-sending regions is assessed through a review of existing empirical studies. Notwithstanding empirical lacunae and methodological flaws, available evidence suggests that migration and remittances have considerably improved living conditions, income and education, and spurred economic activity through agricultural, real-estate and business investment, from which non-migrants indirectly profit. This has transformed migrant-sending regions such as the Rif, Souss and southern oases into relatively prosperous areas that now attract internal 'reverse' migrants. Although this challenges prevailing pessimism, the developmental potential of migration is not fully realised due to several structural constraints. Migration impacts are heterogeneous across space, socio-ethnic and gender groups, and tend to change over time and household migration cycles. Migration and remittances may enable people to retreat from, as much as to invest in, local economic activities, depending on the specific development context. Paradoxically, development in migrant-sending regions seems to be a prerequisite for return and investment, rather than a consequence of migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]