Diaspora strategies in the sending states ofSoutheast Asia: Rights, skills and questions

of value

Maureen HickeyInternational Studies Program, Portland State University, Oregon, USA*

Correspondence: Maureen Hickey (email: mogeopraxis@gmail.com)

Over the past decade there has been a surge of academic and policy interest in the contributions oftransnational migrants in furthering national development objectives in their ‘home’ countries.These approaches tend to be bifurcated into two distinct categories: (1) ‘diaspora strategies’ thattarget the participation in national development objectives of sought-after elite, high-skilledmigrants and (2) migration-as-development strategies, which focus on facilitating and channelingthe economic and social remittances of nonelite, low-skilled migrants. Although these broadcategorizations have never been entirely adequate in capturing the complexity of internationalmigration flows, a conceptual division between them persists, with very real consequences for statepolicies in migrant-sending countries in Southeast Asia. This paper explores the separationbetween diaspora strategies and migration-as-development frameworks through a focus on rightsand skills, and questions of relative labour value. I argue that while diaspora strategies andmigration-as-development frameworks cannot simply be merged, the academic separationbetween them should be challenged and more in-depth theoretical engagement should be encour-aged. I further suggest that migration policy makers should strive to evaluate their migrationpolicies to address the increasing complexities of contemporary migration.

Keywords: diaspora strategies, international migration, migration-and-development, rights, skills,Southeast Asia

Introduction

Over the past decade, the concept of migration-and-development (MAD) has gainedtraction within the international development community as a policy approach foraddressing global poverty and inequitable development. Transnational migration isviewed as a tool that can be harnessed by migrant-sending states to foster economicgrowth and social development. MAD frameworks posit that development is facilitatedthrough the effective capture and channelling of economic and social remittances sentor brought back by migrants to their ‘home’ countries (De Haas, 2005; Global MigrationGroup, 2010). At the same time, the growing popularity of state-initiated ‘diasporastrategies’, defined here as purposeful initiatives by sending states to engage theircitizens and former citizens in national development, is intimately tied to the emergenceof MAD agendas, even as these ‘diaspora strategies’ have now expanded beyond theinternational development community and been embraced by high-income countries(Agunias & Newland, 2012; Weinar, 2010).

Within the context of high-level development policy forums,1 a practical division hasemerged between MAD approaches and diaspora strategies. As a general rule, initiativesthat fall under the MAD label target the remittance flows of the growing numbers oflow-skilled and unskilled migrants from the Global South who are migrating to work inwealthier countries (Altenburg et al., 2010; Joint Migration and Development Initiative,2011; Omelaniuk, 2012). In contrast, state-sponsored diaspora strategies increasingly

bs_bs_banner

doi:10.1111/sjtg.12102

Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 36 (2015) 147–163

© 2015 Department of Geography, National University of Singapore and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd

seek to engage with high-skilled, elite emigrants and conationals in order to encouragephilanthropy, investment, temporary or permanent return and other forms of financialand entrepreneurial engagement with the ‘homeland’ (Ancien et al., 2009; Aikins &White, 2011).

I argue that this implicit divide has deepened in recent years as enthusiasm fornational diaspora strategies has grown globally, as evidenced by the establishment ofnumerous diaspora forums, consortiums and working groups promoted by multilateralorganizations such as the European Union, various arms of the United Nations and theWorld Bank.2 These forums promote policy convergence for states—including wealthystates—that seek to adopt and implement diaspora strategies, leading to a subtle divorceof diaspora strategies from the policy contexts from which they emerged. Thus, whileMAD literature still regularly, if imprecisely, employs the term ‘diaspora’ to refer to therelationship between a broad cross section of migrants to their ‘home’ countries, withinthe emerging diaspora strategies literature there has been an implicit narrowing of focuson which migrants qualify as members of the national ‘diaspora’ (see for example,Kuznetsov, 2006; Merz et al., 2007; Brinkerhoff, 2009) This literature supposes an elite,professional and highly mobile subject, the type of migrant whose continued involve-ment represents a clear ‘win’ for the ‘home’ country in an increasingly competitive‘global war for talent’ (Brown & Tannock, 2009; Boeri et al., 2012).

The underlying context for this division is grounded in the reality that internationalpolicy agendas are still primarily shaped by high-income migrant-receiving states(Boucher, 2008: 1469). But while the disproportionate role of receiving countries inshaping migration policy cannot be ignored (Nonini, 2004: 47), the growing dividebetween MAD strategies and diaspora strategies should be more thoroughly debatedwithin migration scholarship, where it tends to be reproduced rather than interrogated.Reproducing models that unreflexively frame migrants within one of two entirelydistinct, nonoverlapping groups may limit understandings of the emerging complexityand rapidly proliferating diversity of contemporary migration flows. These limitations,in turn, have implications for governance at both the international and the nationallevels, including missed opportunities to serve diaspora populations and to build thevery economic and social connections that such policies are designed to cultivate (Hoet al., 2015).

Therefore, in this article, I examine the dynamics and implications of the dividebetween MAD approaches and diaspora strategies. This review paper broadly engageswith a number of the key assumptions that shape the agendas of states and suprana-tional organizations invested in developing and implementing policies designed to linkmigration to economic development. In order to ground this discussion, I draw on arange of global case studies with a particular focus on the strategies of sending states inSoutheast Asia. Southeast Asia is under-represented in the current literature on dias-pora strategies, despite the central role that transnational migration plays in the regionaleconomy. As such, this article serves as a companion piece to the empirically groundedcase studies in this special section (Hickey et al., 2015) in the Singapore Journal of TropicalGeography and highlights the underacknowledged role that migration in and from theregion plays in the establishment of contemporary migration policy norms worldwide.3

I acknowledge that the division I engage with here is, to an extent, a rhetoricaldevice designed to tease apart and expose underlying assumptions within developmentpolicy. Yet international development policy itself has been profoundly shaped byneoliberal agendas; as a result that mainstream migration policy literature in recentyears decontextualizes the enormous diversity of migrant flows and the wide variety of

148 Maureen Hickey

state responses to migration in order to promote managerial visions of neutral, objectiveand transferable sets of policy tactics (De Haan, 2006; Raghuram, 2009). As such,neither this literature nor my analysis accurately reflects the considerable variety in howdifferent sending states define and relate to their migrant ‘diasporas’ in practice (seediscussion in Hickey et al., 2015 in this issue).4

I begin with a brief outline of the emergence of MAD and diaspora strategies anddiscuss the points of convergence and divergence between them in development policyliterature. I then probe the growing divergence between them in two interrelated areas:rights and skills. I argue that a common thread between rights and skills is the questionof value: specifically how and why judgments of value shape migrant categories. Iconclude that the growing ‘divide’ between MAD approaches and diaspora strategiesshould be closely interrogated by both migration scholars and national and internationalpolicy makers.

Locating the ‘diaspora’ in development

As a clearly defined and institutionalized focus for international developmentpolicymaking, MAD is only about a decade old. In the first few years of this century,supranational economic institutions and international development organizationsbegan to take notice that measurable migrant remittances were flowing into ‘develop-ing’ countries at much higher levels than official development aid flows. In response,organizations such as the World Bank seized on migration and redefined it as a strategyfor the redistribution of wealth, poverty reduction and ‘grassroots’ economic stimulus(Kunz, 2008: 1396; Raghuram, 2009: 103–4). Tapping into academic and technicalexpertise in migration research across the social sciences, a variety of institutes, com-missions, divisions and task forces were newly formed or reinvigorated, and as aconsequence, MAD quickly became an central pillar of development policy (De Haas,2005: 1276–7; Portes, 2007). The key focus of these policies was on facilitating remit-tance transfers into the ‘right’ kinds of development outcomes (Katseli et al., 2006;Agunias, 2009; Martin & Abella, 2009; Martin, 2012).

At the other end of the economic spectrum, MAD policy agendas participate indebates on the emigration of the highly educated and highly skilled (‘brain drain’) fromthe Global South to the Global North (Black & Sward, 2009; United Nations Conferenceon Trade and Development, 2012). In recent years, a conceptual reframing of ‘braindrain’ into ‘brain circulation’ has emerged, encouraging the transfer of money, expertiseand networks of groups of migrants and expatriates connected through affective famil-ial, cultural or patriotic ties back to their countries of historical origin (Leclerc & Meyer,2007; Brown & Tannock, 2009). Under this rubric, engagements with these networks ofhigh-skilled migrants include not only direct economic remittances, but also philan-thropy, business and financial investments, professional network development, heritageand medical tourism and temporary, part-time or permanent resettlement throughvarious forms of retirement, ‘overseas national’ and partial citizenship schemes (Merzet al., 2007; Leclerc & Meyer, 2007). These policy approaches and tactics are groupedunder the title of ‘diaspora strategies’.5

Thus, while the term ‘diaspora’ is used as a catch-all descriptor within MAD litera-ture (see Hickey et al., 2015 in this issue), the concept of ‘diaspora strategies‘ has cometo imply a more specific set of policies and programmes. Diaspora strategies focus onthose ‘diasporic’ subjects who are better off economically, more educated and underlittle or no compulsion to return. A central concern of state-initiated ‘diaspora strategies’

Diaspora strategies in sending states 149

of this type is in devising and implementing sending state strategies that cultivate andengage their elite and high-skilled emigrant diasporas in the service of developmentobjectives ‘back home’ (Mahroum et al., 2006; Brinkerhoff, 2009).

In addition, over the past decade, the concept of diaspora strategies has been takenaboard by high- and middle-income states seeking to maintain a competitive economicedge in the global economy (Nonini, 2004: 42; Larner, 2007). There has also been aparallel growth in explicit strategies by high-income countries aimed at attractinghigh-skilled and entrepreneurial talent from around the world. The ‘war for talent’ thenbecomes a battle fought on two fronts: first, competition among high-income countriesfor the ‘best and brightest’ in increasingly globalized labour markets and second,implementation of new and competitive diaspora strategies by both developed anddeveloping countries to retain the loyalty and continued investment of national ‘talent’leaving, either temporarily or permanently, for overseas opportunities (Zweig, 2006;Raj, 2015).

Thus, diaspora strategies are now a priority for countries across the economicdevelopment spectrum (Larner, 2007; Brown & Tannock, 2009). In this context, MADby default is now employed primarily to describe programmes targeted towards theparallel growth of low-skilled international migrants from Global South. Therefore,while the line between them remains blurred, a conceptual separation between MADand diaspora strategies has emerged that informs the migration strategies and policies ofmany sending states. Yet the divergence of diaspora strategies and MAD programmes israrely analyzed in depth in the mainstream development literature, and instead theirbifurcation is seen as a natural outgrowth of the different categories of migrant subjectsthat each addresses. In the remainder of this article, I begin such an analysis in two keyareas of migration scholarship, rights and skills, with careful attention to the way that theconcept of value underlies the negotiation between them.

Migration, development and the question of rights

The issue of migrant rights is a contentious topic of debate within MAD dialogues onlow-skilled, contract and irregular migration (for overview, see Piper, 2008), as theexpansion of rights is often framed as being in conflict with the sovereignty of receivingcountries (Pécoud, 2009), as well as with the desired development outcomes of sendingstates (Kunz, 2008: 1397–8). Where directly addressed, the focus has largely been onhow the implementation and enforcement of certain rights can enhance the ability ofmigrants to earn and remit money (Hugo, 2009: 30; Martin & Abella, 2009: 434–5;Gevorkyan & Gevorkyan, 2010; Holzmann & Pouget, 2012). But forceful advocacy bysending-state agencies for the protection of migrants’ rights abroad continues to beviewed as potentially counterproductive to national development agendas (Ruhs &Martin, 2008: 259).

In contrast, within diaspora strategies literature, questions of labour and humanrights are not a central focus, as members of these targeted groups are presumed eitherto be highly incentivized or to have already negotiated a path to successful long-term orpermanent migration (Ruhs & Martin, 2008: 254, Castles, 2008: 270). The desire toattract highly skilled migrants is now considered a key strategy for global competitive-ness, with governments striving to assist corporations, firms and universities in efforts toentice and retain the ‘best of the best’ (Brown & Tannock, 2009: 381). Consequently,states engaged in ‘diaspora strategies’ are less focused on questions of migrant rightsbut instead preoccupied with questions of how to woo diasporic subjects—or more

150 Maureen Hickey

accurately to woo their continued investment—back ‘home’ (Hercog & Siegel, 2011;Dickinson, 2012: 1). An overemphasis in the literature on a narrow subset of elite,corporate transnational migrants reinforces this lacuna. However in recent years, studieson high-skilled migrants who do not fit this model have emerged (Scott, 2006: 1108),pointing to a number of areas of intersection between MAD approaches and diasporastrategies and opening up new spaces for thinking about rights issues across the migra-tion spectrum. I highlight two in the remainder of this section.

First, there is a general movement in economically advanced receiving states andinternational policy circles away from immigration and settlement models of migrationand towards circular, temporary and contract migration programmes (see discussion inHickey et al., 2015 in this issue). As the international consensus on the value oftemporary contract migration schemes has grown over the past decade (Martin &Abella, 2009: 438), this shift has implications for thinking through questions of whichkinds of migrants and mobile subjects might be considered ‘diasporic’ and under whatcircumstances (Ball, 2004: 120). Currently, the movement toward temporary or circularmigration programmes is largely focused on low-skilled and nonelite workers (Hugo,2009: 25, 45). Yet, except the top elite professionals, many high-skilled migrants haveeither been previously incorporated into, or are increasingly being targeted by, complexconstellations of migration regulations and contract regimes by receiving states (Ho2010: 570; Iredale, 2001). These programmes are often based on a model of temporary,controlled migration and designed to discourage long-term settlement, or to at leastraise significant hurdles on the path to permanent residency (Ruhs, 2006: 11;Wickramasekara, 2008: 1256; Hercog & Siegel, 2011).

A well-known example is the United States’ H-1B visa for information technology(IT) workers, which places primarily Indian high-skilled workers in structurally exploit-ative systems of subcontracting as a result of their employer-dependent immigrationstatus (Raghuram, 2004; Banerjee, 2006). A high degree of flexibility is built into thecontemporary global IT industry, and as a result, ‘some people are required to behyper-mobile without the perks that much of the literature on skilled migrationassumes’ (Raghuram, 2004: 172). Similarly, highly skilled migrants in less clearlydefined professional roles may also encounter a great deal of ambiguity in negotiatingtheir status as ‘temporary’ migrants in obtaining long-term employment overseas. Forexample, writing on high-skilled Singaporeans in temporary and contract positions inLondon, Ho (2009: 125) notes that ‘[a]s contract workers, these individuals expand theskilled labour pool in the UK by providing flexible and disposable labour for employerswhile holding limited working rights and privileges’ (see also Nonini, 2004: 47).

Whether or not clear avenues for the permanent emigration and settlement ofhigh-skilled migrants exist, there is often a ‘mismatch’ between the emerging discourseof global ‘talent meritocracy’ and immigration policies in action (Mahroum et al., 2006;Khoo et al., 2008). States still retain the sole ability to confer citizenship, which hasimplications for the rights of migrant workers of all kinds. And while high-skilledmigrants may be desired for their ‘talent’ in countries facing demographic crises, theyoften fill second-tier positions within those labour markets. High-skilled migrants,particularly those from the Global South, are slotted into less desirable and less lucrativepositions, at least partially because of their relative disadvantage as outsiders who do nothave access to the range of rights afforded to national citizens (Brown & Tannock, 2009:386). Examples include foreign doctors and nurses who take up positions in less popularspecialities or work in public hospitals with fewer resources in North America (Desbiens& Vidaillet, 2010) and South African and Indian teachers recruited to work in United

Diaspora strategies in sending states 151

Kingdom government schools in challenged communities (Appleton et al., 2006;Sharma, 2012).

The gap between discourse and practice signposts a second point of intersectionbetween diaspora strategies and MAD when considering questions of rights. Migrantsare positioned along a continuum of employability or desirability in receiving states—onethat is contextual, constantly shifting and simultaneously place, person and time depen-dent. This geographically and historically shaped desirability or employability is deter-mined by relative labour value, and it is perceptions of value that sorts migrants into twodistinct categories in state discourses. For receiving states, labour value is largely per-ceived as being determined by fungibility, or lack thereof; the more difficult it is toreplace someone, the more leverage they will have in setting the terms of their employ-ment. Replace-ability, in turn, is often discussed in terms of professional skills, a form ofshorthand that is problematic. While skills and professional competencies play a majorpart in determining relative value, other factors are also at play. These include thehistorical relationship between the sending and receiving states; the political, demo-graphic and social context of the receiving state; the nationality, ethnicity, ‘race’, gender,age and religion of the potential migrant; and many other factors (for discussions seePiper, 2004; Barber, 2008).

I will give two examples here. First, migrants from rural Thailand are heavily recruitedto work in the agricultural sector in Israel, because as Theravada Buddhists they serve asa religiously nonthreatening substitute for locally displaced Palestinian labour (Bartram,1998). Second, a more complex rubric of professional qualifications, pedagogical debates,colonial history and racial discrimination comes into play in the rapidly expandingEnglish language education sector in East and Southeast Asia. Teachers from ‘outer circle’English-speaking countries such as the Philippines and Nigeria are routinely categorizedas less qualified than their ‘inner circle’ counterparts on the grounds that the former, asmembers of multilingual societies, are ‘non-native’ English speakers (Selvi, 2010; Walcutt& Lazo, 2011). In Thailand, my preliminary fieldwork confirms that non-white, ‘non-native speaking’ English teachers with education degrees and professional teachingexperience are consistently paid significantly less than their counterparts from Australia,North America and the United Kingdom, even when these ‘native speakers’ arrive withno recognized professional qualifications and no classroom experience.6

Thus, the elevation of ‘temporary migration’ as a ‘best practice’ challenges scholarsto rethink the relationship between rights, state sovereignty and relative value inmigration policy regimes. Emerging research on nonelite yet high-skilled migrantsfurther challenges us to think through how value is determined through the emergentpractices of transnational migration. Migrants of all kinds must negotiate with complexconstellations of brokers and agents, informal and formal gatekeepers, legal require-ments, social surveillance, biocontrol and border regimes. Considerations of migrantrights within sending-state policies should therefore be delinked from determinations ofrelative value—which in turn are linked to conceptualizations of skill levels—to betterserve the needs of migrants across the board. Such a delinking would involve reassessingthe relative value of less skilled and unskilled migrants, as well as an acknowledgmentof the relative vulnerability of many high-skilled migrants, who despite their skill sets,are nevertheless enmeshed within complex webs of temporariness and precariousnessabroad. Such a move would also call into question the policy divide between MAD anddiaspora strategies approaches by foregrounding the commonalities and points ofoverlap between the different populations that the policies are designed to serve. In thenext section, I expand this discussion to interrogate the relationship between skill and

152 Maureen Hickey

questions of value, and the implications for states in devising MAD policies and diasporastrategies.

Differentiating skills and determining value in migration

Assumptions shaping high-skilled and low-skilled labour categories are under-interrogated within current migration policy literature. And despite a growing body ofwork on ‘middling’ migrants, a neat bifurcation of skill levels is still widely assumed atthe policy level, contributing to underlying rationales for the growing divergencebetween MAD and diaspora strategies approaches in sending states. While it can beargued that this binary model reflects geopolitical realities, nevertheless the high-skilled/low-skilled binary should not be taken as a given, but rather as a point ofdeparture for further investigation. I argue that this tradition bifurcation of skill catego-ries can be further interrogated along a number of axes.

First, there is significant evidence that despite efforts and assertions to the contrary,labour-importing countries have less control over migration flows than they would like,and that new immigration regulations are often responding to migration flows andpatterns that are already well established or currently underway, rather than activelyshaping migration in the future (Castles, 2004: 852, 868; Munck, 2008: 1238;Srivarathonbul, 2010). This reality highlights that in many high- and middle-incomecountries, demographic change has resulted in significant labour shortages and agenuine need for low-skilled labour (Wickramasekara, 2008: 1249–51; Skeldon, 2010;Bruni, 2013: 45) For sending states, demand for labour can serve as a valuable nego-tiating wedge for effectively advocating for labour across the skills spectrum in specificbilateral contexts, because in practice, labour from one place is not immediately replace-able by labour from somewhere else, at least not in the short term.

The complex dynamics between the supply and demand for low-skilled migrantlabour is illustrated through the recent difficulties in recruiting domestic workers inMalaysia. In 2009, the Indonesian state banned the migration of women as domestichelpers in Malaysia following a high-profile case that highlighted the pervasive prob-lems of exploitation, violence and abuse faced by these vulnerable workers (Kneebone,2012: 375). After Malaysia turned to Cambodia to fill the labour shortage created by theIndonesian ban, the Cambodian government enacted a nearly identical moratorium in2011 in response to similar reports of abuse (Holliday, 2012: 465). Both countries liftedthese bans only after negotiating new bilateral agreements with Malaysia (Holliday,2012: 467; Kneebone, 2012: 375).

This case highlights that the occupational skill levels of migrants do not map neatlyonto questions of relative labour value. Where the demand for low-skilled workers ishigh, migrant-sending states have increased leverage to push for bilateral and multilat-eral policies that benefit low-wage workers overseas. Southeast Asia’s largest labourexporter, the Philippines, has capitalized on growing international demand for low-skilled workers by promoting a two-pronged strategy of promoting Filipino workers asthe ‘gold standard’ of international migrant labour, while simultaneous negotiatingbilateral agreements to guarantee that Filipino workers are paid a minimum wage whenundertaking overseas contracts (Asis, 2008). This more expansive and inclusive vision ofits ‘diasporic’ community, while not exempt from critique, nevertheless provides theFilipino state with the opportunity to pursue ‘diasporic strategies’ through a widevariety of legal, diplomatic, cultural and economic avenues and to advocate on behalf ofits citizens.

Diaspora strategies in sending states 153

Second, considerations of supply and demand lead back to questions of which factorsdetermine that one worker is ‘high-skilled’ while another worker is not (see discussionin Koser & Salt, 1997). On the surface this seems an easy question to answer, but thepicture quickly becomes less clear when we consider the complexities that link skill setsto migration within actual labour markets (Massey et al., 1993: 449). I consider thisquestion in more depth below.

Understandings of high-skilled migration have been disproportionately informed byresearch on elite executives and highly paid professionals (Ho, 2009: 122). In fact, awide diversity of experiences and socio-economic statuses exists among skilled interna-tional migrants in the world today (Nagel, 2005). Recent work draws attention to thegrowing numbers of transnational ‘middling migrants’ who are technically highlyskilled and nominally middle class in both their origin and destination countries, butthat do not enjoy the same levels of mobility and status as the transnational corporateelite (Smith, 2005: 242; see also discussion in Ho, 2009). ‘Middling’ migrants come froma wide variety of backgrounds and have different trajectories of mobility. Examplesinclude the spouses (usual female) of other high-skilled migrants (Raghuram & Kofman,2004; Raghuram, 2004; Aure, 2012), academics and professionals on overseas sabbati-cals and exchanges (Conradson & Latham, 2005), students enrolled in foreign univer-sities who stay on following graduation (Ho, 2010), young people travelling on ‘workholiday’ programmes (Chen et al., 2009; Kawashima, 2010) and other groups of self-directed, middle-class migrants seeking opportunities and experiences abroad (Thomaset al., 2005; Mendoza & Guitart, 2008; Tzeng, 2012).

These diverse streams of migrants often do not migrate under employment visas oras part of programmes specifically targeted to attract ‘high-skilled’ labour (Capps et al.,2010: 2) but instead search for and secure employment once they arrive. ‘Middling’migrants may choose not to, or be unable to, work in positions that are commensuratewith their educational achievements and professional qualifications and may find them-selves effectively ‘deskilled’ as a consequence of migration. In the case of professionalsin fields such as law, medicine, accountancy or engineering, deskilling may result fromthe circumstances of migration (Nonini, 2004: 44). Migrants may also be hindered intaking up work in their chosen professions because of visa restrictions, immigrationrequirements or other factors, such as age, ethnicity and gender discrimination (Ho,2009; Siar, 2013).

Still other workers may deliberately ‘deskill’ themselves in order to undertakemigration (Sims, 2009). One study found that a growing number of medical studentsand doctors in the Philippines were ‘retraining’ as nurses because of demand resultingfrom nursing shortages in many parts of the world (Brush & Sochalski, 2007: 40).Within Southeast Asia, many Filipino women with technical training and even collegedegrees seek contracts as domestic helpers in Hong Kong and elsewhere, work that iswell below their qualifications but better paid than the employment they can find athome (van Milink, 2011). Burmese healthcare workers, including trained nurses, alsoseek work as domestic workers and health care aides in Singapore as a pathway tomigration (Huang et al., 2012).

Furthermore, in some professions, being ‘highly skilled’ does not automaticallytranslate to high ‘value’, even in fields where there is a growing demand. A primeexample is the teaching field, and particularly for teachers working in the growingEnglish language education industry in East and Southeast Asia. Despite growingdemand of English language teachers, wage levels are low when compared to otherprofessional categories, and the labour market is rife with unregulated agencies and

154 Maureen Hickey

exploitative employment practices. Nevertheless, teachers cite migration as strategy notonly for economic gain, but also as a way to compensate for underemployment and lackof opportunities in their home countries and to gain experience and status that willenhance their future socio-economic mobility.7

The growth in teacher migration also highlights the education industry, and studentand young adult migrants are another group that deserves more attention from bothresearchers and policy makers. The growth in higher education as a global industrydominated by countries (such as the United States and Great Britain) with establishedprestigious international ‘brands’ is linked to the emergence of a global ‘war for talent’(Brown & Tannock, 2009) and therefore directly relevant to discussions of diasporastrategies at the national level. Initially, many ‘middling migrants’ begin as students(Baas, 2010; Peñafiel, 2015 in this issue), reflecting the growing importance of interna-tional qualifications within many national labour markets (Iredale, 2001; Waters, 2009).The result is increasing numbers of ‘highly skilled’ youth who become, and continue as,migrants through pathways that do not adhere to the neat visa categories and entryrequirements of states (Ho, 2010). Young people facing under- or unemployment backhome may also elect to remain overseas or to migrate after graduation to undertakepositions that do not accurately reflect their qualification levels or specialities(Conradson & Latham, 2005; Smith, 2005; Ho, 2010). Given these linkages, sending-state policy makers could consider incorporating more thorough understandings of theconnections between education, skills and migration into their initiatives to targetdiasporic nationals (Zweig, 2006).

A more nuanced analysis of deployment of skill levels and categories in migrationpolicy would also take into account the growing numbers of transnational migrants whoare currently classified as ‘middle skilled’: a term that is usually defined as those with atleast a secondary school degree and some level of technical training or vocationaleducation (Holzer & Lerman, 2007: 8; Capps et al., 2010: 2). Although they often occupyan ambiguously defined position in labour markets, these ‘middle-skilled’ jobs are anecessary component of a number of globally growing economic sectors, including thosethat that are usually defined as high skilled (IT and health care) and low skilled(construction and hospitality) (Capps et al., 2010: 2; Holzer & Lerman, 2007: 4).However, ‘middle-skilled’ migration is rarely discussed in-depth in either academic orpolicy literature,8 as transnational migration has historically followed a demographic‘hourglass’ model with large numbers at the top and even larger numbers of migrantsat the bottom of the economic and skills spectrum, with the ‘middle skilled’ consideredto be the least likely to migrate internationally. Nevertheless, recent research into U.S.employment patterns suggests that the immigration by the ‘middle skilled’ is on the rise,and interesting intersections in labour migration, educational migration and skills devel-opment are contributing to these changes (Capps et al., 2–4).

In Southeast Asia, as elsewhere, the line between ‘low skilled’, ‘middle skilled’ and‘high skilled’ are increasingly blurred, and many of the ‘middle-skilled’ and ‘middling’migrants discussed above, particularly those ‘deskilled’ through the migration process,may find themselves traversing these categories in both policy literature and in life. Asof the time of writing, changing dynamics of middle-skilled migration in Southeast Asiaare not systematically considered, although this is a topic of growing importance,particularly in light of the ASEAN’s (Association of Southeast Asian States) plannedeconomic integration in 2015 and member states’ seeking to create more globallycompetitive workforces. Indeed, middle-income countries in Southeast Asia with largenumbers of out-migrants (Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia) are already moving

Diaspora strategies in sending states 155

forward with educational initiatives and training programmes designed to preparepotential migrants for specialized middle- to high-skilled employment. The Philippinesagain leads this trend, with a dramatic rise in vocational and higher educational initia-tives to ‘upgrade’ skills training in a number of key sectors (Tullao, 2003). Similarly,Thailand and Indonesia are striving to upgrade their vocational and technical educationcapacities, both to meet the growing labour demand domestically and to promote theemployment of middle-skilled labour migration abroad (Walsh & Anantarangsi, 2008;Doner, 2012; Bruni, 2013).

Conclusion: rethinking & relinking ‘diaspora strategies’ and MAD frameworks

An increasing emphasis on both growing temporary labour regimes and winning the‘war for talent’ has led to a growing, if still porous, divide between MAD and diasporastrategies approaches in policy settings. As a consequence, this division results indifferentiated policy programmes that are administered by separate agencies and uncon-nected departments within sending-state bureaucracies. For governments and organi-zations seeking to craft meaningful migration initiatives, the persistence of this dividemay also discourage potentially beneficial linkages between migration policy and otherkey policy areas, such as human resource and workforce development, national edu-cation strategies and economic development priorities. In addition, such policy separa-tion is reinforced by the ways that international organizations, including academicinstitutes, corporations, nongovernmental organizations and supranational governancebodies both directly and implicitly frame the debate and fund policy initiatives andprogrammes (Castles & Wise, 2007: 7–8; Wise & Covarrubias, 2009: 85–6).

Thus, while this division may have practical roots,9 it should be interrogated morethoroughly, as it has important implications for sending-state policies across SoutheastAsia and throughout the Global South. I have suggested here that the growing divisionbetween MAD approaches and disapora strategies initatives could potentially be bridgedthrough careful considerations of how rights and skills are defined and deployed withincontemporary international migration policy. Key to my argument is that scholars andpolicy makers should carefully examine the way in which migrant labour skill levels arebifurcated into two categories—high-skilled and low-skilled—where migrants in eachcategory are assumed to have little in common. I argue that careful attention to migrantswho do not fit neatly into the high-skilled/less-skilled binary can offer fresh approachesto theorizing the relationship between migration and development, and perhaps lead tonew ways of assessing the relationships between rights, skills, needs and the potentialcontributions of migrants to development. Furthermore, in considering the more imme-diate implications for policymaking, paying attention to these ‘in-between’ migrants isa practical first step to encourage convergence and re-engagement between diasporastrategies initiatives and MAD approaches. In some cases this might lead to redirectiontowards policy programmes intended to facilitate the successful migration experiencesand encourage the development initiatives of migrants across the skills and incomecontinuum. In other cases it may lead to more nuanced sets of development initiativestargeted towards differently positioned groups of migrants based on a state’s specifictransnational migration profile and development needs.

For example, either one or both models of high-skilled/low-skilled migration ininternational development policy agendas increasingly fail to account for conditions ofprecariousness and exploitation across the migration spectrum, particularly for growingnumbers of ‘middling’ migrants who may be technically classified as high skilled and

156 Maureen Hickey

middle class, but are nevertheless still vulnerable in a political environment that increas-ingly favours flexibility and temporariness in global labour markets (Brown & Tannock,2009). States that wish to build relationships and maintain ties with all of their out-migrants should consider how questions of working conditions, citizenship and humanrights, and the role of state advocacy—all areas that are more commonly associated withMAD policy agendas—can be more explicitly incorporated into national diaspora strat-egies. For example, ‘middling’ migrants are often more likely to have undertakenmigration either because they feel that they lack employment and economic advance-ment opportunities at home, or because they feel otherwise politically or socialdisenfranchized (Koh, 2015 in this issue); therefore, a more considered and contextualapproach towards diaspora engagement on the part of sending-state governments couldgo a long way towards building or even actively repairing relationships with key sectorsof their increasingly savvy and globalized ‘middle class.’ (Ho et al., 2015).

In addition, scholars and policy makers may be overlooking the changing demo-graphics and specific needs of emerging groups of migrants who are at the lower end ofthe ‘middling’ or ‘middle skilled’ spectrum. Perhaps ironically, these migrants are suc-cessfully leveraging themselves out of poverty, or are capable and are actively remittingincome and engaging with social and political life back home not only as individualeconomic contributors but also as organized networks and associations that can befurther tapped into through more broadly conceived state diaspora strategies (Sidel,2007). Furthermore, engaging the middle skilled within more broadly conceived dias-pora approaches may also be a smart strategy for middle-income countries seeking tostrengthen overseas economic networks. The number of middle-skilled workers migrat-ing internationally is growing, a trend that seems likely to continue, and evidence showsthat this group is still the most likely to permanently settle overseas. Ivanova and Jeong(2011), in a recent analysis of data from the United States and Spain, concluded thatmigrants in the ‘middle educated’10 category are much less likely to engage in returnmigration after an average period of five years abroad, and far more likely than those inthe ‘highly educated’ and ‘less educated’ cohorts to actively seek avenues for permanentsettlement in their destination countries. Thus, crafting initiatives for the continuedparticipation of middle-skilled migrants in building global economic and social networkscould prove to be an effective form of diaspora strategy that stretches beyond narrowpreoccupations with engaging with ‘elite’ and ‘talent’ migrants and potentially opens upnew ways of thinking about engaging ‘diasporic subjects’ with a diverse range ofbackgrounds and migration experiences.

The danger, of course, in calling for increased attention to the ‘middle’ is that insteadof challenging the current high-skilled/low-skilled binary, a new third category will justbe retrofitted between them. But coupled with careful analysis, this direction has thepotential to influence migration research at a more profound level, leading to are-evaluation of current typologies and a recognition that the hourglass model ofinternational migration needs to be updated and perhaps even discarded in the light ofchanging global migration patterns. This shift, in turn, would encourage a reintegrationof MAD and diaspora strategies approaches in both theory and in the policy sphere, tothe benefit of both.

Endnotes

* Maureen Hickey was at Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore when theresearch and writing for this paper were done.

Diaspora strategies in sending states 157

1 The most high-level and comprehensive of these is the Global Forum on Migration andDevelopment (GFMD) which was established as a separate, non-United Nations forum, out ofthe 2006 United Nations High Level Dialogues on migration and development (see Newland,2012 for discussion).

2 The most well known of these initiatives is the Global Diaspora Forum, which was spear-headed by then United States Secretary of State Hilary Clinton (International DevelopmentEngagement Alliance, 2011).

3 Much of the emerging literature focuses on state-diasporic relations in the Western Hemi-sphere, for an overview of this literature, see Sives (2012) and Conradson and Latham (2005).

4 I also acknowledge that I am using the terms ‘sending’ and ‘receiving’ states in a way thatendorses, rather than problematizes this categorization. In Southeast Asia as elsewhere, thesecategories are not mutually exclusive, particularly when a broad range of migration activity istaken into account (including but not limited to the migration of the wealthy and very highlyskilled, marriage migration and student migration). Thailand, for example, is discussed pri-marily as a ‘sending’ state in the case studies referenced here, when in fact it receives manymillions more migrants from neighbouring countries than it sends each year. However,the broad distinction between ‘sending’ and ‘receiving’ countries at the global level is arelevant distinction as the wealthier ‘receiving’ countries of the Global North (and increasinglymiddle-income countries in the Global South) continue to have a disproportionate impact onmigration and development policy at the highest levels.

5 Some of the most high-profile programmes include the World Bank’s Knowledge for Devel-opment programme, the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Transfer ofKnowledge Through Expatriate Nationals (TOKTEN) programme. See also Dumont andLemaitre (2005) for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)perspective.

6 There are longstanding debates in the TESOL education field over the relative importance oflearning English from ‘native speakers’ and the importance of, for example, hearing ‘native’accents while learning a foreign language (see Sung & Pederson, 2012 for an overview). Thesedebates do inform determinations of relative labour value for teachers across the range ofdifferent English-speaking countries in the world today. However, in current labour marketsin East and Southeast Asia, the nuances of these debates are blunted, the label ‘native speaker’functions as a racialized code for ‘white’, and the invocation of concerns over ‘native’ and‘non-native’ accents and other forms of proper ‘usage’ tend to serve as thinly veiled justifi-cations for both discriminatory hiring practices and lower wages for nonwhite, ‘non-native’English teachers (Walcutt & Lazo, 2011). Recently completed fieldwork conducted by theauthor in Thailand found that both hiring and wage discrimination is particularly blatantwhen the professional qualifications (an education degree, TESOL certification, etc.) andrelevant professional experience (job training and years as a classroom teacher) of both‘native’ and ‘non-native’ teachers are taken into account.

7 Based on the author’s preliminary analysis of 2013 fieldwork interviews with Asian andAfrican teachers of English in Thailand.

8 One recent exception is Holzmann and Pouget (2012).9 For example, see the study prepared for the Global Forum of Migration and Development by

Holzmann and Pouget (2012)which divides temporary contract migrants into three categoriesand makes targeted policy recommendations for extending social protections to each group.

10 Ivanova and Jeong (2011) use educational categories as a proximate equivalent to skillcategories.

References

Agunias DR (2009) Guiding the invisible hand: making migration intermediaries work for devel-opment. Human Development Research Paper 2009/22. United Nations Development Pro-gramme, New York.

158 Maureen Hickey

Agunias DR, Newland K (2012) Developing a Road Map for Engaging Diaporas in Development: Ahandbook for policymakers and practitioners in home and host countries. International Organizationfor Migration, Geneva; Migration Policy Institute, Washington DC.

Aikins K, White N (2011) Global Diaspora Strategies Toolkit: Harnessing the Power of Global Diasporas.Diaspora Matters, Dublin.

Altenburg F, Bouniol B, Fisken MA, Joseph G, Liebsch M, Dinh LQN, Verger D, Verhageghe P(2010) A Reflection on the Dynamics Between Migration and Development. Caritas Europe,Brussels.

Ancien D, Boyle M, Kitchin R (2009) Exploring diaspora strategies: an international comparison.Workshop report, June 2009. Presented at the Exploring Diaspora Strategies Workshop, 26–28January, NUI Maynooth, Ireland.

Appleton S, Morgan WJ, Sives A (2006) Should teachers stay at home? The impact of internationalteacher mobility. Journal of International Development 18 (6), 771–86.

Asis MMB (2008) How international migration can support development: a challenge for thePhilippines. In Castles S, Wise RD (eds), Migration and Development: Views from the South,175–202. International Organization for Migration, Geneva.

Aure M (2012) Highly-skilled dependent migrants entering the labour market: gender and place inskill transfer. Geoforum 45, 275–84.

Baas M (2010) Imagined Mobility: Migration and Transnationalism among Indian Students in Australia.Anthem Press, London.

Ball R (2004) Divergent development, racialised rights: globalised labour markets and thetrade of nurses—The case of the Philippines. Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2),119–33.

Banerjee P (2006) Indian information technology workers in the United States: the H-1B visa,flexible production, and the racialization of labor. Critical Sociology 32 (2–3), 425–45.

Barber PG (2008) The ideal immigrant? Gendered class subjects in Philippine–Canada migration.Third World Quarterly 29 (7), 1265–85.

Bartram D (1998) Foreign workers in Israel: history and theory. International Migration Review32 (2), 303–25.

Black R, Sward J (2009) Migration, poverty reduction strategies and human development. HumanDevelopment Research Paper 2009/38, August. United Nations Development Programme, NewYork.

Boeri T, Brucker H, Docquier F, Rapoport H (2012) Brain Drain and Brain Gain: The Global Compe-tition to Attract High-skilled Migrants. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Boucher G (2008) A critique of global policy discourses on managing international migration. ThirdWorld Quarterly 29 (7), 1461–71.

Brinkerhoff J (2009) Creating an enabling environment for diasporas’ participation in homelanddevelopment. International Migration 50 (1), 75–95.

Brown P, Tannock S (2009) Education, meritocracy and the global war for talent. Journal ofEducation Policy 24 (4), 377–92.

Bruni M (2013) Labor market and demographic scenarios for ASEAN countries education, skilldevelopment, manpower needs, migration flows and economic growth (2010-35). DEMBWorking Paper Series no. 6, January. Department of Political Economy, University of Modenaand Reggio.

Brush BL, Sochalski J (2007) International nurse migration: lessons from the Philippines. Policy,Politics, & Nursing Practice 8 (1), 37–46.

Capps R, Fix M, Lin SYY (2010) Still an hourglass? Immigrant workers in middle-skill jobs. Report.Migration Policy Institute, Washington DC.

Castles S (2004) The factors that make and unmake migration policies. International MigrationReview 38 (3): 852–84.

Castles S (2008) Comparing the experiences of five major emigration countries. In Castles S, WiseRD (eds) Migration and Development: Views from the South, 225–84. International Organization forMigration, Geneva.

Diaspora strategies in sending states 159

Castles S, Wise RD (2007) Introduction. In Castles S, Wise RD (eds), Migration and Development:Views from the South, 1–16. International Organization for Migration, Geneva.

Chen BT, Lu CY, Chang D (2009) Working holiday makers: a qualitative study of Taiwanesestudents experience in Australia. The Business Review, Cambridge 12 (2), 267–72.

Conradson D, Latham A (2005) Friendship, networks and transnationality in a world city: antipo-dean transmigrants in London. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31 (2), 287–305.

De Haan A (2006) Migration in the development studies literature: has it come out of its margin-ality? Research Paper, UNU-WIDER, United Nations University (UNU), No. 2006/19. Availableat: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/63550 (accessed 14 October 2012).

De Haas H (2005) International migration, remittances and development: myths and facts. ThirdWorld Quarterly 26 (8), 1269–84.

Desbiens N, Vidaillet H (2010) Discrimination against international medical graduates in the UnitedStates residency program selection process. BMC Medical Education 10 (5), doi:10.1186/1472-6920-10-5.

Dickinson, J (2012) Decolonising the Diaspora: Neo-Colonial Performances of Indian History inEast Africa.Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 37 (4), 609–23. Doi:10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00496.x.

Doner R (2012) Success as trap? Crisis response and challenges to economic upgrading in export-oriented Southeast Asia. JICA-RI Working Paper, no. 45, March.

Dumont JC, Lemaitre G (2005) Counting Immigrants and Expatriates in OECD Countries: A NewPerspective. OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, no. 25, 22 June. Orga-nization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris.

Gevorkyan Al-V, Gevorkyan Ar-V (2010) Factoring Turbulence Out: Diaspora Regulatory Mecha-nism and Migration Development Bank. International Migration 50 (1), 96–112.

Global Migration Group (2010) Mainstreaming Migration into Development Planning:A Handbook for Policy-Makers and Practitioners. International Organization for Migration,Geneva.

Hercog M, Siegel M (2011) Promoting return and circular migration of the highly-skilled. UNU-MERITWorking Papers #2011-015. Maastricht Economic and social Research Institute on Innovationand Technology, Maastricht.

Hickey M, Ho ELE, Yeoh BSA (2015) Introduction to the special section on establishing state-led‘diaspora strategies’ in Asia: migration-as-development reinvented? Singapore Journal of TropicalGeography 36 (2), 139–46.

Ho ELE (2009) Migration trajectories of ‘highly-skilled’ middling transnationals: Singaporeantransmigrants in London. Population, Space and Place 17 (1), 116–29.

Ho ELE (2010) ‘Claiming’ the diaspora: elite mobility, sending state strategies and the spatialities ofcitizenship, Progress in Human Geography 35 (6), 757–72.

Ho ELE, Boyle M, Yeoh BSA (2015) Recasting diaspora strategies through feminist care ethics.Geoforum 59, 206–14.

Holliday J (2012) Turning the table on the exploitative recruitment of migrant workers: theCambodian experience. Asian Journal of Social Science 40, 464–85.

Holzer HJ, Lerman RI (2007) America’s Forgotten Middle-Skill Jobs. The Urban Institute, WashingtonDC.

Holzmann R, Pouget Y (2012) Social protection for temporary migrant workers: what programsserve them best? In Omelaniuk I (ed), Global Perspectives on Migration and Development: GFMDPuerto Vallarta and Beyond, 61–85. Springer, New York.

Huang S, Yeoh BSA, Toyota M (2012) Caring for the elderly: the embodied labour of migrant careworkers in Singapore. Global Networks 12 (2), 195–215.

Hugo G (2009) Best Practice in temporary labour migration for development: a perspective fromAsia and the Pacific. International Migration 47 (5), 23–74.

International Development Engagement Alliance (2011) 2011 Global Diaspora Forum: InauguralConference. Web archive. Available at: http://diasporaalliance.org/2011-global-diaspora-forum/ (accessed 31 May 2013).

160 Maureen Hickey

Iredale R (2001) The migration of professionals: theories and typologies. International Migration39 (5), 7–26.

Ivanova R, Jeong B (2011) Why don’t migrants with secondary education return? Paper providedby The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education—Economic Institute, Prague inits series CERGE-EI Working Papers with number wp449. Center for Economic Research andGraduate Education–Economics Institute, Charles University and Academy of Sciences of theCzech Republic.

Joint Migration and Development Initiative (2011) Migration for Development: A Bottom-up Approach:A Handbook for Practitioners and Policymakers. The European Union and the United Nations(UN/UDP, ILO, IOM, UNFPA and UNHCR), Brussels.

Katseli L, Lucas R, Xenogiani T (2006) Effects of migration on sending countries: what do weknow? Research Programme on Economic and Social Effects of Migration on Sending Coun-tries, OECD Working Paper 250, June. OECD, Paris.

Kawashima K (2010) Japanese working holiday makers in Australia and their relation-ship to the Japanese labour market: before and after. Asian Studies Review 34 (3),267–86.

Khoo SE, Hugo G, McDonald P (2008) Which skilled temporary migrants become permanentresidents and why? International Migration Review 42 (1), 193–226.

Kneebone S (2012) Introduction migrant workers between states: in search of exit and integrationstrategies in South East Asia. Asian Journal of Social Science 40 (4), 367–91.

Koh SY (2015) State-led talent return migration programme and the doubly-neglected ‘Malaysiandiaspora’: whose diaspora, what citizenship, whose development? Singapore Journal of TropicalGeography 36 (2), 183–200.

Koser K, Salt J (1997) The geography of highly-skilled international migration. International Journalof Population Geography 3 (4), 285–303.

Kunz R (2008) ‘Remittances are beautiful’? Gender implications of the new global remittancestrend. Third World Quarterly 29 (7), 1389–409.

Kuznetsov Y (2006) Diaspora Networks and the International Migration of Skills: How Countries Can Drawon Their Talent Abroad. The World Bank Institute, Washington DC.

Larner W (2007) Expatriate experts and globalising governmentalities: the New Zealand diasporastrategy. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 32 (3), 331–45.

Leclerc E, Meyer JB (2007) Knowledge Diasporas for Development. Asian Population Studies 3 (2),153–68.

Mahroum S, Eldridge C, Daar AS (2006) Transnational diaspora options: how developing countriescould benefit from their emigrant populations. International Journal on Multicultural Societies8 (1), 25–42.

Martin P (2012) Reducing migration costs and maximizing human development. In Omelaniuk I(ed), Global Perspectives on Migration and Development: GFMD Puerto Vallarta and Beyond, 25–52.Springer, New York.

Martin P, Abella M (2009) Migration and development: the elusive link at the GFMD. InternationalMigration Review 43 (2), 431–9.

Massey D, Arango J, Hugo G, Kouaouci A, Pellengrino A, Taylor JE (1993) Theories ofinternational migration: a review and appraisal. Population and Development Review 19 (3),431–66.

Mendoza C, Guitart AO (2008) Spanish skilled migration to Mexico City: TNC transferees andmigrants in the middle. Analele stiintifice ale Universitatii ‘Alexandru Ioan Cuza’ din Iasi-seriaGeografie 54, 91–108.

Merz B-J, Chen L, Geithner, P (2007) Diasporas and development, Global Equity Initiative, HarvardUniversity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

Munck R (2008) Globalisation, governance and migration: an introduction. Third World Quarterly29 (7), 1227–46.

Nagel C (2005) Skilled migration in global cities from ‘Other’ perspectives: British Arabs, identitypolitics, and local embededdness. Geoforum 36 (2), 197–210.

Diaspora strategies in sending states 161

Newland K (2012) The GFMD and the Governance of International Migration. In Omelaniuk I(ed), Global Perspectives on Migration and Development: GFMD Puerto Vallarta and Beyond, 227–40.Springer, New York.

Nonini D (2004) Spheres of speculation and middling transnational migrants: Chinese Indonesiansin the Asia-Pacific. In Yeoh BSA, Willis K (eds) State/Nation/Transnation: Perspectives on Transna-tional in the Asia-Pacific, 67–92. Routledge, London.

Omelaniuk I (ed) (2012) Global Perspectives on Migration and Development: GFMD Puerto Vallarta andBeyond. Springer, New York.

Pécoud A (2009) The UN Convention on migrant workers’ rights and international migrationmanagement. Global Society 23 (3), 333–50.

Peñafiel J (2015) Regulating migration to Australia and back to the Philippines: applying a‘diaspora strategies’ framework. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 36 (2), 201–14.

Piper N (2004) Rights of foreign workers and the politics of migration in South-East and East Asia.International Migration 42 (5), 71–97.

Piper N (2008) The ‘migration-development nexus’ revisited from a rights perspective. Journal ofHuman Rights 7 (3), 1–18.

Portes A (2007) Migration and development: a conceptual review of the evidence. In Castles S,Wise RD (eds), Migration and Development: Views from the South, 17–42. International Organiza-tion for Migration, Geneva.

Raghuram P (2004) Migration, gender, and the IT sector: intersecting debates. Women’s StudiesInternational Forum 27 (2), 163–76.

Raghuram P (2009) Which migration, what development? Unsettling the edifice of migration anddevelopment. Population, Space and Place 15 (2), 103–17.

Raghuram P, Kofman E (2004) Out of Asia: skilling, re-skilling and deskilling of female migrants.Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2), 95–100.

Raj D (2015) The overseas citizen of India and emigrant infrastructure: tracing thedeterritorializations of diaspora strategies. Geoforum 59, 159–68.

Ruhs M (2006) The potential of temporary migration programmes in future international migra-tion policy. International Labour Review 145 (1–2), 7–36.

Ruhs M, Martin P (2008) Numbers vs. rights: trade-offs and guest worker programs. InternationalMigration Review 42 (1), 249–65.

Scott S (2006) The social morphology of skilled migration: the case of the British middle class inParis. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 32 (7), 1105–29.

Selvi AF (2010) All teachers are equal, but some teachers are more equal than others: Trendanalysis of job advertisements in English language teaching. WATESOL NNEST Caucus AnnualReview 1, 156–81.

Sharma R (2012) Teachers on the move: international migration of school teachers from India.Journal of Studies in International Education 20 (10), 1–22.

Siar SV (2013) From highly-skilled to low skilled: revisiting the deskilling of migrant labor. PIDSWorking Paper Series.

Sidel M (2007) Focusing on the state: government responses to diaspora giving and implications forequity. In Merz BJ, Chen L, Geithner P (eds) Diasporas and Development, 25–54. Global EquityInitiative, Harvard University, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

Sims C (2009) Skills, migration and development. CSD Working Paper Series, Working Paper No.3,1–20.

Sives A (2012) Formalizing diaspora-state relations: processes and tensions in the Jamaican case.International Migration 50 (1), 113–28.

Skeldon R (2010) Managing migration for development: Is circular migration the answer? White-head Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations 11 (1), 21–33.

Smith MP (2005) Transnational urbanism revisited. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31 (2),235–44.

Srivarathonbul V (2010) Controlling Migrant Workers: Thailand’s perspective (PhD dissertation).Department of Political Science, Northern Illinois University.

162 Maureen Hickey

Sung K, Pederson R (2012) Critical ELT Practices in Asia. Springer, London.Thomas DC, Lazarova MB, Inkson K (2005) Global careers: new phenomena or new perspectives?

Journal of World Business 40, 340–7.Tullao T (ed) (2003) Education & Globalization. Philippine APEC Study Center Network, Philippine

Institute for Development Studies, Legaspi Village.Tzeng R (2012) Middle Class International Migration: French Nationals Working in the UK.

Advances in Applied Sociology 02 (02), 120–6.United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (2012) The Least Developed Countries Report

2012: Harnessing Remittances and Diaspora Knowledge to Build Productive Capacities. UNCTAD, NewYork.

Van Milink R (2011) Reskilling the Skills of the Skilled? A Report Anlyazing the Pre-Departure andHong-Kong Based Reintegration Training Programs Their Effects on the Lives of FilipinoDomestic Workers in Hong Kong (Masters thesis). Department of International DevelopmentStudies, Universiteit Utrecht, in collaboration with the Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants

Walcutt B, Lazo CM (2011) The economics of discrimination in Korea’s ESL industry. TESOL Review12, 49–73.

Walsh J, Anantarangsi S (2008) The perceptions of Thai manufacturers toward training coursesprovided by the Department of Skill Development. NIDA Development Journal 48 (2), 49–63.

Waters JL (2009) Transnational geographies of academic distinction: the role of social capital in therecognition and evaluation of ‘overseas’ credentials. Globalisation, Societies and Education 7 (2),113–29.

Weinar A (2010) Instrumentalising diasporas for development: international and European policydiscourses. In Bauböck R, Faist T (eds) Diaspora and Transnationalism: Concepts, Theories andMethods, 73–91. IMISCOE Research, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam.

Wickramasekara P (2008) Globalisation, International labour migration and the rights of migrantworkers. Third World Quarterly 29 (7), 1247–64.

Wise RD, Covarrubias HM (2009) Understanding the relationship between migration and devel-opment: toward a new theoretical approach. Social Analysis 53 (3), 85–105.

Zweig D (2006) Competing for talent: China’s strategies to reverse the brain drain. InternationalLabour Review 145 (1–2), 65–89.

Diaspora strategies in sending states 163

Modernisation, Migration, andMobilisation: Relinking Internal andInternational Migrations in the ‘Migrationand Development Nexus’Maureen Hickey*Asia Research Institute National, University of Singapore, Singapore

ABSTRACT

There is growing enthusiasm in academic andpolicy circles for the positive role thatinternational migrants can play in thedevelopment of their home countries andcommunities. Supranational developmentorganisations, national governments, and otherinstitutions have scrambled to assess thelinkages between ‘migration and development’and to implement new policies and programs tomore effectively ‘capture’ transnationalremittances in order promote greaterdevelopment outcomes. This international‘migration and development’ (MAD) paradigmnevertheless draws heavily on olderdevelopment models, grounded inmodernisation theory, which promoted rapidinternal rural-to-urban migration. Yet, theseconnections are rarely acknowledged oranalysed within official policy discourses;rather, this MAD nexus is regularly depicted asa new paradigm, one that exists without histor-ical or ideological context. This paper traces outthe conceptual connections between past andcontemporary linkages of MAD theory. I arguethat relinking internal and international migra-tions literature in development reveals the waysin which modernisation theories that rest onproblematic contrasts between modernity/tradition and development/backwardness areunconsciously replicated within current policydiscourses. Utilising my own research with in-ternal migrants in Thailand, I argue that a return

to a close interrogation of the concept ofdevelopment–as defined by migrant actorsthemselves–has the potential to both bridge thedivide within migration studies and to produc-tively critique migration and development pol-icy discourses in ways that do not elide theirhistorical emergence and political effects.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Accepted 24 January 2015

Keywords: internal migration; internationalmigration; development; modernisation;Thailand; Southeast Asia

INTRODUCTION: MIGRATION ANDDEVELOPMENT REVISITED

O ver the past decade, there has beengrowing enthusiasm for the role thatinternational migrants can play in the

development of their home countries. Suprana-tional development organisations, national gov-ernments, non-governmental organisations, andother civil-society institutions have scrambled toassess the linkages between ‘migration and de-velopment’ (hereafter ‘MAD’) and to implementnew policies to facilitate transnational remit-tances and promote development. This emer-gence of ‘the migrant’ as a celebrated agent ofdevelopment is usually dated to a short chapterof the World Bank’s 2003 Global Finance Reporthighlighting that the remittances of transnationalmigrants regularly outstrips formal currencytransfers of foreign aid (Kapur, 2004; de Haas,2005). Based on an emerging body of researchinto migrant remittances, the report signalled a

*Correspondence to: Maureen Hickey, PhD, Asia ResearchInstitute National, University of Singapore, Bukit TimahRoad, Singapore, Singapore.E-mail: mogeopraxis@gmail.com

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

POPULATION, SPACE AND PLACEPopul. Space Place (2015)Published online in Wiley Online Library(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/psp.1952

major shift in development thinking, and policyframeworks quickly emerged and proliferated.At the same time, there has been a simultaneousgrowth of research scholarship on what hasbecome known as the ‘migration-developmentnexus’ (Kapur, 2004; Geiger & Pécoud, 2013).

The focus in most work on MAD, both inpolicy and academia, has been on internationalmigration (Faist, 2007). But for those familiarwith the history of international developmentpolicy (hereafter ‘ID policy’), much in this ‘new’paradigm is strikingly familiar (Faist & Fauser,2011). Indeed, mainstream ID policy attitudestowards migration have come full circle. Oldermodels promoting rapid industrialisationthrough internal migration from rural-to-urbanlabour markets have been supplanted by view-ing the movement of people internationally forlabour migration as a means to foster develop-ment. Yet despite significant differences betweenthem, the underlying economic rationales ofearly modernisation theory are reproduced inthese new internationally oriented MADframeworks.

This sense of déjà vu in MAD agendas washighlighted by migration scholar Hein de Haaswhen he noted that, ‘the current “remittance eu-phoria” often coincides with a certain perceptionthat it concerns a “new” issue. However any sug-gestion that the topic is new testifies to a strikinglevel of amnesia of decades of prior research andpolicies on this issue’ (de Haas, 2007, p.1). DeHaas points to a pattern within mainstream IDpolicy in which previous development orthodox-ies are rendered absent from the most currentparadigm. Since the 1990s, critical developmentscholars have examined how this selective amne-sia functions as a process of decontextualisationand depoliticisation on the one hand, and oftechnicalisation and objectification on the other(Ferguson, 1994; Porter, 1995; Hout, 2012).1 Inthe case of MAD agendas, the ‘M’ of migrationhas come to denote international migration al-most exclusively, and earlier debates and policiesconcerning the role of internal migration anddevelopment have largely disappeared from thebroader discussion (King & Skeldon, 2010), savefor brief mentions in institutional reports ontransnational migration, or for the periodic dedi-cated policy reports on internal migration in keyeconomies with large and internally mobile pop-ulations (see Deshingkar, 2006, for discussion).

This article examines the implications of theerasure of internal migration from MAD policyagendas and makes two arguments. First, thelack of sustained attention within current scholar-ship over MAD to the ongoing importance ofinternal migration in the Global South, as wellas to its historical role in early developmenttheory and policy, reproduces practices of selec-tive memory within international developmentpolicy regimes, with important implications forhow migrants and migration are theorised andpositioned within contemporary developmentagendas. Second, shifting the analytical focus ondevelopment, rather than on migration, in MADresearch allows scholars to historically ‘relink’internal and international migrations in order togain fresh insights on how they are mutually con-stitutive of each other in contemporary globallabour migration.

I set out these arguments as follows. In the firstsection, I provide a brief historical outline of thedominant policy perspectives that have definedthe relationship between migration and develop-ment, focusing on how assumptions framinginternal migration embedded in early modernisa-tion theories are crucial for understanding thecurrent policy focus on international migration.In the second section, I analyse how these keyassumptions about internal migration continueto shape current MAD policy frameworks. I endwith a brief consideration of scholarship that cen-tres on ‘migrant’ definitions of ‘development’ as aproductive avenue for theorisation. Conceptualin nature, this paper serves as a starting pointfor a theoretical reframing of the relationshipbetween migration and development throughcareful analysis of the historical continuities in in-ternal and international migrations in ID policy.

HISTORICAL PRECEDENTS: THE ROLE OFMIGRATION IN INTERNATIONALDEVELOPMENT POLICY

If the emergence of MAD took place in the early2000s, then the birth of ID policy itself is markedby the 1949 inaugural address of US PresidentHarry S. Truman (Olukoshi, 2007, p. 20).2 In his‘Four Points’ speech, Truman calls for the USand its allies to ‘embark on a bold new programfor making the benefits of our scientific advancesand industrial progress available for the improve-ment and growth of underdeveloped areas’

M. Hickey

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2015)DOI: 10.1002/psp

(Truman, 1949). Truman’s agenda was groundedin Keynesian economic policies and in a strongfaith in the abilities of science, technology, and ra-tional planning (Engerman, 2011). These princi-ples had informed the founding of the globalfinancial system 5years previously, and werelater codified in ID policy frameworks with mod-ernisation theory, the cornerstone of early interna-tional development economics and policy (Willis,2011, pp. 44–45; Kivisto, 2011, pp. 205–207).

Although migration issues are not directlymentioned in Truman’s speech, one of the impliedunderlying rationales for aiding ‘underdevel-oped’ countries centred on concerns over possiblelarge-scale immigration into ‘First World’ coun-tries in the aftermath of decolonisation andindependence in Africa and Asia following theSecondWorldWar. However, policy-makers werealso cautiously optimistic about the potential ofinternational migration to foster development,particularly in light of theories that advocatedthe redeployment of ‘unproductive’ surplus‘Third World’ labour to fill labour shortages inthe developed economies (Faist, 2007, p. 25; deHaas, 2010, p. 232). Nevertheless, promoting di-rect large-scale state-led development in thesenewly established countries was perceived notonly as a way to counter potential Soviet influ-ence3 but also as a long-term strategy to discour-age unwanted immigration, seen as a possiblethreat to the future security and stability of ad-vanced industrial economies (Willis, 2011, p. 47).

In contrast, the early shapers of the ID policywere much more positive about migration withinless-developed states. Modernisation theory pos-ited development as a linear process directlybased on the historical development of moderncapitalism, and grounded in principles of perpet-ual economic growth (Bichler & Gaderer, 2009,p. 409; Kivisto, 2011, p. 206). Drawing on thehistorical precedents of land dispossession andthe rapid growth of urban labour forces in theindustrial revolutions of Europe and NorthAmerica, theorists argued that internal rural-to-urban migration could play a significant role inmoving ‘undeveloped’ states quickly along suc-cessive stages of development (Nemeth, 2008,pp. 90–91; Willis, 2011, pp. 46–47). Economist W.Arthur Lewis developed a ‘dual-economy’ modelof Third World states: theorising a large, rural,agricultural, and mostly unproductive ‘tradi-tional’ sector on the one hand and a much smaller

urban-based ‘modern’ industrial sector on theother (Lewis, 1965). To encourage the growth ofthe ‘modern’ sector, Lewis and others advocatedstate-led programmes to modernise agricultureand encourage the large-scale migration of ‘sur-plus’ and ‘underemployed’ rural workers to ur-ban areas within countries in order to fosterrapid industrialisation and development (Lewis,1965; see also Todaro, 1969).

Although there was indeed large-scale internalrural-to-urban migration in the developing worldin the post-war era, the results in terms of foster-ing economic development were extremely dis-appointing. Large-scale industrialisation oftenfailed to materialise or, where established, failedto absorb the growing urban workforce. Instead,large numbers of new urban residents wereforced to eke out a marginalised existence in thegrowing informal economies while living in theslums that mushroomed on the outskirts ofexpanding ‘Third World’ cities (Mountjoy, 1976;Roberts, 1978; Rogers & Williamson, 1982). In re-sponse, modernisation theorists revised modelsand debated over why states had not developedas predicted, but remained largely focused oncultural and political explanations for failure(Mazrui, 1968; Fleming, 1979; Woolcock, 1998,pp. 152–153).

Modernisation theory in ID policy increasinglycame under attack as the social and economictransformations it promised failed to materialise.Structuralist perspectives emerging from LatinAmerica and Africa, which stressed that ‘devel-opment’ in the ‘First World’ was, in fact, depen-dent on the systematic ‘underdevelopment’ ofthe Third World, were reworked into ‘world-systems theory’, and gained some traction as acritique of ID policy in the 1970s and 1980s(Wallerstein, 2004; Kivisto, 2011, pp. 208–210).These approaches had limited success in pene-trating the insular organisational culture of su-pranational financial institutions (Roxborough,1988; Baber, 2001, p. 72; Bakewell, 2008,pp. 1342–1343), but did foster more pessimisticperspectives on the relationship between migra-tion and development, particularly in regard tothe emigration of medical professionals and otherhighly skilled workers (known as ‘brain drain’)(Kivisto, 2011, p. 212). Migration –both internaland international–was increasingly viewed as aresponse to structural underdevelopment, andthus as an undesirable phenomenon that would

Modernisation, Migration, and Mobilisation

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2015)DOI: 10.1002/psp

spontaneously slow and diminish over time ifcountries were able to achieve meaningful levelsof economic development (Bakewell, 2008, p. 1342).

The rise of neoliberal economic models in the1970s signalled a much more influential para-digm shift within ID policy. Following the debtcrisis initiated by Mexico in 1982, a new policy or-thodoxy emerged to stabilise the financial system(Babb, 2002, pp. 9–12). Known as the ‘Washing-ton Consensus’, and emphasising the need formarket-based reform and strict economic auster-ity measures, the cornerstones of this new policymodel were the International Monetary Fund’s‘structural adjustment programs’, which imposeda long list of neoliberal economic policy reformson countries needing to service ballooning debt(Sumner, 2006, pp. 1403–1404). The rise of neolib-eralism in the broader global political – economicsystem is inexorably tied to the adoption of the‘Washington Consensus’ and structural adjust-ment programs within ID policy at the highestlevels (Harvey, 2005, pp. 73–76, 92–94).4

Much has been written about the intersec-tions between neoliberalism, development, andmigration (for overviews, see Brohman, 1995;Castles & Wise, 2008), but I emphasise twopoints for the purpose of this discussion. First,the foremost assumption of modernisationtheory – that economic growth is, de facto, thedefinition of development – emerged virtuallyunscathed in the shift towards neoliberalism,even as the economic models it was groundedin came under attack (Gendzier, 1998; Cole,2005, pp. 330–331; Bichler & Gaderer, 2009). Sec-ond, while neoliberal proponents promote thefree circulation of goods, capital, and people asa matter of market principle, in practice, viewson international migration have always beenheavily conditioned by the immigration politicsand priorities of wealthier countries5 (Boucher,2008, p. 1464; Munck, 2008).

As a consequence, a consensus has emerged incurrent policy debates on the need to encouragelegal and enforceable temporary international la-bour migration programmes in migrant-receivingstates as a means to ensure that the labour needsof advanced economies are met, while the long-term migration by large numbers of low-skilledworkers is actively controlled and discouraged(Faist, 2007, p. 22; Briones, 2009, p. 135).6 Thus,while renewed enthusiasm for international mi-gration seems to signal a significant break from

more pessimistic views, closer examinationreveals that current priorities draw on many ofthe same rationales as their predecessors. Newscales and actors are incorporated, including, ina limited sense, the agency of the individual andthe scales of the household and the community(Faist, 2007, pp. 23–24), but the long-term devel-opment outcomes envisioned for these new formsof migration remain the same: ongoing controland the eventual projected decline, of interna-tional migration, particularly into the GlobalNorth (Boucher, 2008, p. 1469; Bakewell, 2008,p. 1342).

Thus, both modernisation theories and emerg-ing MAD frameworks rely on persistent assump-tions about the economic and geographicrelationships between migration and develop-ment. In both paradigms, understanding ofdevelopment remain linked to concepts of con-tinuing economic growth, as well as to underly-ing narratives that large-scale internationalmigrations are counter to the interests of alreadydeveloped countries (Castles & Wise, 2008, p. 8;Wickramasekara, 2008, p. 1252). In other words,ID policy has historically failed to discourage in-ternational migration through development, butby embracing the MAD paradigm, these institu-tions claim that this goal is still achievable in thelong term. Such claims are made by rewritingthe narrative into one in which growing interna-tional migration is, in fact, a windfall to develop-ment for less-developed migrant-sending states,one that can now be harnessed, enhanced, andredirected towards local and national develop-ment (Castles & Wise, 2008, pp. 3–4; Piper, 2009,p. 94; Raghuram, 2009, pp. 103–104). Followingthis line of thinking, temporary internationallabour migrations, and the remittances that aregenerated from it, are viewed as a response tolocalised poverty, but also, simultaneously,envisioned as fostering national development,which in turn will lead to an overall reductionin international migration, particularly by thepoor and unskilled, at an unspecified point inthe future (Raghuram, 2009, p. 106).

In this light, and given the shortfalls of previ-ous generations of policy programmes in achiev-ing their self-defined development objectives, itis useful to maintain a healthy scepticism regard-ing the growing enthusiasm for migrant remit-tances in ID policy. Growing levels ofinternational migration can, at least in part, be

M. Hickey

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2015)DOI: 10.1002/psp

attributed as a response to the macroeconomicconditions actively promoted by the same high-level policy organisations that are now condition-ally advocating for international migration as apathway to development (Phillips, 2009).7 Yet,the complex historical role that ID policyinstitutions, and particularly global financial in-stitutions, have played in fostering current migra-tion trends remains conspicuously absent fromMAD policy initiatives (Piper, 2009, p. 94;Raghuram, 2009, pp. 103–104).

Indeed, within the current emphasis in MADon ‘development from the grassroots’, there isthe further danger of an implied abdication ofresponsibility to address the structural causes ofglobal inequality. Rescaling development to themicroscale allows policy-makers to zero in on‘migrant groups’ and ‘migrant organisations’ askinds of targeted aid delivery systems(Raghuram, 2009, p. 112). Such formulations alsocomplement the centrality of individual agencywithin neoliberal economic theory (Kiersey,2009; Read, 2009), even as ID policy institutionsreturn to focus in modernisation theory on therole of the state as both the manager and thetargeted beneficiary of development policyinitiatives (Maxwell, 2005; see also discussion inRaghuram, 2009).

Such an interpretation can quickly dissolveinto a reading that would be unduly harsh to-wards the many policy-makers, activists, andscholars working to create more equitable andtransparent migration policy regimes. That isnot my intent here; rather, I wish to highlighthow the history of migration within developmentpolicy uncovers assumptions about the connec-tions between ‘modernisation’ and ‘mobility’ thatpersist in ways that may subtly reinforce, ratherthan challenge, underlying geospatial frame-works. Attention to these historical lineages andcontemporary linkages has a potentially signifi-cant role to play in both understanding the grow-ing popularity of MAD and in constructivelyrelinking and rethinking ‘migration’ and ‘devel-opment’ within ID policy.

RELINKING/RETHINKING INTERNAL ANDINTERNATIONAL MIGRATIONS WITHINDEVELOPMENT THOUGHT

Within development studies, periodic reviewsseeking to assess the current ‘state’ of the field

often, if unintentionally, emphasise change andde– emphasise continuity in the evolution of pol-icy (e.g. Schuurman, 2000; Humphrey, 2007;Olukoshi, 2007). Although it is important to doc-ument paradigm shifts, an unintended side effectis to reinforce narratives of the constant forwardmomentum of development thought, whileunderplaying the degree to which shifts areusually partial and have come about only at greatcost (Porter, 1995; Gendzier, 1998). Developmentliterature that directly addresses MAD policypriorities tends to follow a similar pattern,downplaying or overlooking the historical roleof internal migration in ID policy, and engagingwith its own history only in reference to howthe successes and failures of the past can be ap-plied to the present (for an overview of this issue,see de Haan, 2006; see also Piper, 2009, p. 95;Raghuram, 2009, pp. 106–107). In contrast, withinmigration studies, scholars are keenly sceptical ofproblematic assumptions that structure discus-sions of migration in mainstream ID policy, yetmay be less attentive to development critique intheir analyses, relying on economic definitionsof development, rather than engaging with de-bates over the meaning of ‘development’ itself(Dannecker, 2009, p. 121; Piper, 2009, p. 98).

As a counterpoint to both these tendencies, inthis section, I argue that critiques of MAD frame-works in ID policy should incorporate morethorough analyses of the historical relationshipbetween internal and international migrations,as well as more nuanced understanding of the in-terconnected linkages between internal and inter-national labour flows in the contemporary globaleconomy. A focus on the often overlooked con-nections between different forms of migrationwithin these institutional discourses provides aconceptual space to further probe both the ex-plicit and implicit meanings of ‘development’ atwork within ID policy.

I begin with the focus on financial remittanceswith current MAD research and policy. The cen-trality of financial remittances within MAD relieson – and reinforces – the historical foundation ofID policy, namely that ‘development’ is equiva-lent to perpetual economic growth, particularlyat the national scale. International migrants arenow positioned as active contributors to nationalgross domestic product ‘back home’ through di-rect economic remittances, reinvoking the logicof modernisation. Although widespread across

Modernisation, Migration, and Mobilisation

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2015)DOI: 10.1002/psp

the region, nowhere is this logic more apparentthan in the Philippines, where overseas workersare labelled as national ‘heroes’, and where anenormous and complex state-sponsored appara-tus has emerged over the past half-century toactively promote and support out-migration(Asis, 2008). International remittances continueto be a key economic strategy, and were esti-mated to account for 5.2% of gross domesticproduct and over 20% of export earnings in thePhilippines during the 1990s (Quisumbing &McNiven, 2010, p. 92).

Yet, even as the current emphasis on interna-tional remittances embraces the linear logic ofeconomic modernisation, it also, simultaneously,positions remittances as short-term pragmatic‘fixes’ for countries affected by cyclical globaleconomic crises. Again, the Philippines providesan illustrative example, as the rapid growth inoverseas workers can be traced back to theMarcos regime, a kleptocracy financed by mas-sive, foreign loan-financed, modernisationschemes. These schemes failed to deliver prom-ised development and led to an unsustainabledebt load following the oil shocks of the 1970s(Goss & Lindquist, 1995, pp. 320–321). In re-sponse to the global recession and the need forforeign currency, the Marcos administrationbegan encouraging greater flows of both internaland overseas migrants in 1974 (Martin et al.,2004, p. 1548), a trend that intensified in thepost-Marcos era as the Filipino state struggledto service its debt and meet the requirementsof International Monetary Fund-mandated aus-terity measures (Parreñas, 2008, pp. 49–52). Asthe case of the Philippines illustrates, there areclear linkages between modernisation policyregimes, economic crises, neoliberal austeritymandates, and the current (post)neoliberal focuson international remittances as a form of ‘grass-roots’ development ‘aid’. Tracing out these con-nections illuminates the historical sleight ofhand at work in current portrayals of migrantsas development ‘heroes’ in contemporary MADpolicy.

When internal migration is discussed in con-temporary MAD literature, it tends to be in thecontext of economic remittances. The role of inter-nal migration in MAD is usually linked to thelarger discussion by noting that while interna-tional remittances are easier to track, and there-fore easier to address through concrete policies,

globally, the total number of internal migrantsfar exceeds international migrants. In addition,remittances from internal migrants are estimatedto be higher in total aggregated monetary valuethan overseas remittances. Finally, it is oftennoted that the evidence suggests internal remit-tances more directly benefit the poor (Adams &Page, 2005, p. 279; DeWind & Holdaway, 2005,pp. 2–3; UNDP, 2009, p. 21). Yet, while thesubstantial economic contributions of internalmigrants should be more thoroughly incorpo-rated into development planning (IOM, 2005,pp. 11–19; Deshingkar, 2006), I argue that focus-ing only on a straightforward reinsertion side-steps potentially transformative engagementswith the meaning of ‘development’ (the ‘D’ inMAD) itself. Tracing out the linkages betweeninternal and international migrations also re-veals continuities that tie contemporary assump-tions about migration to historical definitions of‘progress’ and ‘development’ in a Western con-text (Cresswell, 2010, p. 21) and –paradoxi-cally – to deep-seated notions on the intrinsicpreferability of ‘rural life’ for poor ‘peasants’ inthe Global South (Rigg, 2005; Scoones, 2009).

Conceptualised as necessary not only for eco-nomic transformation, rural-to-urban migrationwas also thought necessary to initiate cultural(and political) ‘modernisation’ and propel coun-tries towards conditions of economic ‘take-off’(Kivisto, 2011, pp. 205–209). To develop, coun-tries needed to throw off old traditions andways of thinking, particularly those attributedto populations engaged in subsistence agricul-ture. Advocates believed that once these peas-ants were incorporated into capitalist modes ofproduction, a new urban working class wouldemerge and rapidly shed traditional customsand beliefs (Bernstein, 1971; Escobar, 1992,pp. 22–23). At the same time, these changeswere expected to diffuse to the peripherythrough agricultural modernisation and massmedia (Arce & Long, 2000; Shah, 2011), as therewas little expectation of migrant return in theseframeworks.

But in the 1970s and 1980s, the shift towardsstructural views of underdevelopment in ID pol-icy circles flipped this narrative on its head witharguments that decried the loss of agriculturalwork and the exodus of rural people to urbanareas as signs of failure or maldevelopment.Jonathan Rigg (2005) notes that Farrington et al.

M. Hickey

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2015)DOI: 10.1002/psp

(2002) term this ‘the yeoman farmer fallacy’ andargues that it

is not unusual for government officials, devel-opment practitioners as well as researchers toexpress a strong moral preference (Bryceson,1997, p. 9) for village life and rural pursuits.There is a normative position that rural peopleshould remain in the countryside and infarming .... It is when villages are fragmentedby modernity, when village production isundermined by industrialization, and whenvillagers are extracted from their natal homesthat things are perceived to go wrong (Rigg,2005, p. 187).

In the same time period, inquiry into the ‘so-cial’ remittances of migrants emerged as a coun-terpoint to the consistent focus on economicdefinitions of development within both ap-proaches (Però & Solomos, 2010; Levitt &Lamba-Nieves, 2011). Social remittance re-searchers focus on the non-monetary contribu-tions of migrants to their home communities,and argue that while contemporary patterns ofmigration contribute to social, cultural, and eco-nomic changes in social relations across a numberof sites and spatial scales (de Haas, 2007), thesecontributions must be contextualised and cannotsimply be assumed to be positive or negative inregard to delivering social benefits back ‘home’(Kunz, 2008, pp. 1401–1404, Levitt & Lamba-Nieves, 2011). While this work has offered a richand important rethinking of economic-centric IDpolicy frameworks (Rao & Woolcock, 2007), stillmore can be performed to tease out the ways inwhich concepts of ‘social’ remittances also maydraw implicitly on outdated assumptions about(internal) rural-to-urban migration transforming‘backwards’ peasants into ‘modern’ and ‘produc-tive’ workers.

Furthermore, assumptions that draw on nos-talgic notions of migration leading to the ruin ofpresumably ‘pristine’ and ‘isolated’ rural areasmust also be challenged. In truth, poorer coun-tries and rural places have already been ‘trans-formed’ or –more accurately –been furtherincorporated into capitalist modes of productionand consumption (Popkin, 1980; Hirsch, 1993;Keyes, 2012). In addition, cultural practices circu-late, and ‘new’ rural assemblages are constitutednot only through the movement of people but

also through the movement of capital and goodsacross borders, as well as the circulation of cul-ture, money, and ideas through the electronic me-diums of telecommunications and computingnetworks, and these technologies are penetratingrapidly into even the most previously remote and‘disconnected’ rural areas (Bidwell et al., 2011;Heley & Jones, 2012).

Interestingly, discussions of ‘social remit-tances’ in MAD policy acknowledge that socialand cultural flows are not limited to the physicalmobility of human beings (JMDI, 2011,pp. 35–44), particularly in the growing literatureengaging with the concept of the ‘brain circula-tion’ as a counterpoint to ‘brain drain’ (Agunias& Newland, 2012, pp. 159–186). Initiatives seek-ing to cultivate national diasporas comprised ofelite and professional migrants increasingly ac-knowledge the need to engage these ‘diasporicsubjects’, without necessarily calling for their per-manent return to their origin countries (Aikins &White, 2011, pp. 5–8). But policy-makers, particu-larly at the national and regional level, are morecircumspect about the ‘brain circulation’ of less-skilled and low-wage migrants, as demonstratedby the growing centrality of return in initiativestargeting less-skilled migrants. The growing fo-cus on return implies that less-skilled migrantscan best introduce these ‘new ways of thinking’through their bodily presence, a concept that isconveniently reinforced by the beliefs that ruralpeople should, in the long term, remain rural(UNDP, 2009; Ratha et al., 2011, p. 17).8 Thus,we must be cautious about embracing return mi-gration as a way to remit ‘social’ values (Sassen,2008; Gaetano & Yeoh, 2010), particularly withina policy context that increasingly favours legaltemporary contract worker schemes as a meansto manage transnational migration (Ruhs, 2008;Hugo, 2009; Skeldon, 2010).

The problem with these echoes within ID pol-icy that position rural places in the Global Southas ‘less modern’ or ‘backwards’ does not lie inthe belief that migrants and returned migrantsoffer benefits through ‘social’ as well as financialremittances; the research evidence suggests thatmigrant contributions can have lasting impactson their ‘home’ communities (for an overview,see de Haas, 2007). Rather, the problem is that anarrow focus on economic and social remittancessidesteps a larger debate over the meaning andpurpose of the D in ‘MAD’. The result is that

Modernisation, Migration, and Mobilisation

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2015)DOI: 10.1002/psp

even the most nuanced MAD document startswith the premise that migration should be apathway to ‘development’. In contrast, I arguethat the focus in MAD research needs to be noton the means to, but on the meaning of,development.

A focus on ‘development’ rather than migra-tion raises practical questions of how ‘develop-ment’ might more productively be defined andunderstood. To this end, I draw on the work ofscholars who seek to reframe migration not as astraightforward causal phenomenon (that thenleads to the outcome of ‘development’) but ratheras a range of activities that both responds to andparticipates in larger political-economic processes(Briones, 2009; Wise & Covarrubias, 2009). Xiang(2015) argues that the persistent academic separa-tion between internal and international migra-tions is the result of both methodologicalnationalism and what he terms as ‘epistemologi-cal behaviouralism’, which views migration as adistinct activity that can be separated from thecircumstances in which it takes place. Both ofthese tendencies, he asserts, perpetuate the per-sistent theoretical divide between internal and in-ternational migrations, and serve to obscure thecomplex ways in which they are dependent onone another. As a corrective, Xiang calls for a re-focus on how migration, in its various forms, isconceptualised by different actors as intersectingsets of choices, events, and conditions thatcontribute and respond to larger processes of‘development’.

In addition, Xiang challenges us to ‘reconnect’internal and international migrations byrecentering the discussion onto migrants’ defini-tions and evaluations of ‘development’. RecentMAD handbooks regularly assert that the em-powerment of migrants is a necessary componentfor achieving development (UNDP, 2009; JMDI,2011, pp. 41–42). Yet often, migrants’ perspectivesare not referenced again in the text (GMG, 2010)or remain relegated to text boxes detailing care-fully selected case studies (JMDI, 2011, p. 43). Incontrast, one starting point for thinking throughhow the perspectives of migrants might be placedat the centre of development policy can be foundin recent scholarship arguing that migrants’ per-sonal goals and visions of development –bothfor themselves and for those ‘back home’ – cannotbe separated from their labour choices and expe-riences in migrancy (Dannecker, 2009, p. 119).

As Leah Briones (2009, p. 136) argues in herstudy of Filipina domestic workers in Paris,migrants’ own understandings of ‘development’and their own critical evaluations of the correla-tion between (their) migration and (their)development are rarely considered in any sys-tematic manner. Utilising Martha Nussbaum’scapabilities approach (2003), she argues for moreresearch and a more nuanced analysis of mi-grants’ own evaluations of how they are enabled(or disabled) from overcoming constraints fortheir own development and that of their familiesand communities back ‘home’ (Briones, 2009,p. 141). These approaches, which foreground thehistorical continuities of migration for ‘develop-ment’ purposes within particular social andcultural contexts, open up possibilities for explor-ing the connections between internal and interna-tional migrant narratives and assessments. Theycritique dominant MAD spatialities, which arebased on the historical division of rural and ur-ban spaces in internal migration models, andnow position migrants’ activities in receivingcountries as being completely distinct from theeffects of their activities, that is as leading to de-velopment ‘back’ in the migrants’ home commu-nity and country.

CONCLUSION

A careful accounting of the way in which ideas ofmobility and migration have been deployedwithin MAD frameworks and by internationaldevelopment planning institutions providesvaluable insights into the state of the current‘gap’ between internal and international migra-tion scholarship, and provides a pathway to re-connect them in migration research. Like theother contributors in this special issue, I seek tointerrogate the academic and policy ‘gap’between internal and international migrations toargue that by reframing the discussion to focuson the contexts in which various migration(s)take place and under what conditions, the ‘gap’between them may cease to exist as a meaningfuldistinction altogether. A critical analysis of thehistorical, theoretical, and contemporary relation-ship between migration and development in IDpolicy is one avenue for such a reframing, andas economic development remains the dominat-ing preoccupation of the global political econ-omy, it is one in which the stakes are

M. Hickey

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2015)DOI: 10.1002/psp

unquestionably high, with social and materialconsequences for hundreds of millions of migrantactors in the world today.

With these implications in mind, I have builton the work of a growing number of scholars toargue that a critical focus on the ‘D’ of develop-ment rather than the ‘M’ of migration in theMAD nexus provides an opportunity to move be-yond current debates and evaluations of whetheror not (international) migration lead to (national)development in the Global South, and allows usto examine instead how a limited and economicgrowth-oriented conceptualisation of ‘develop-ment’ has been consistently reproduced withindevelopment policy. This approach holds ID pol-icy institutions and processes accountable for therepeated failures to achieve their own definitionsand targets for development, and highlights theinability of ‘migration’ –and of migrants – toshoulder the burden of development in the ab-sence of meaningful and committed developmentpolicy objectives at the national and suprana-tional levels.

Furthermore, by tracing out the historical andtheoretical continuities between internal and in-ternational migrations within ID policy develop-ment frameworks, I have suggested onedirection for reconnecting different categories ofmigration within the broader field of develop-ment studies. By reframing migration not as adiscrete activity, but rather as a process that con-sists of interrelated sets of decisions and actionsthat take place within the context of migration ac-tors’ own development capabilities, constraints,and aspirations, I examine the possibilities fortransforming MAD into a policy framework thatis potentially more successful and responsive tothe goals and dreams of those subjects –migrantsand other actors – that ID policy aspires to‘develop’.

NOTES

1. For a recent analysis of how this process ofdepoliticisation and managerialism operates in in-ternational organisations working in migration pol-icy, see Geiger and Pécoud (2013).

2. Although Truman’s speech marks a convenient mo-ment, the roots of development reach much furtherback and are closely linked to the colonial and impe-rial projects of modern Europe (for discussion, seeCowen & Shenton, 1995).

3. The bulk of Truman’s inaugural speech was devotedto the need to vigorously combat the threat ofcommunism. Thus, the origins of contemporaryIDP are inexorably tied to the birth of the ColdWar (Truman, 1949).

4. In the wake of unrelenting criticism and global debtcrises, in recent years neoliberal orthodoxy ID policyhas increasingly come under attack, leading todeclarations that we have entered into a newphase of as of yet, undefined, post-Washington(dis)consensus (Maxwell, 2005; Rodrik, 2006).Others are more sceptical, arguing that currentmoment of crisis and questioning represents ‘achange in the speed, not the direction’ (Sumner,2006, p. 1411) of policy agendas within ID policyinstitutions (see also Wade, 2010).

5. Indeed, as van Houte and Davids (2008) point out,destination countries have been quick to seize onthe rhetoric of MAD in framing programmes of in-voluntary return.

6. For a broader discussion of the discourses of returnmigration in ID policy institutions, see Koch (2013).

7. In fact, the dismantling of welfare states and theprivatisation of public services has been describedby a number of scholars as the ‘new enclosuremovement’ (see overview in Cole, 2005, p. 330).

8. Furthermore, return is usually conceived of asreturning to a migrants’ rural place of origin – ratherthan simply to an (international) migrant’s homecountry. For example, the Migration for DevelopmentHandbook notes in reference to the Philippines,‘empowering local sustainable businesses makesthe option of return attractive even in otherwiseunattractive remote rural locations Migrants fromthese areas may perceive their own places of originas offering fewer opportunities, and prefer returningto larger cities, therefore leading to the overcrowd-ing of already congested urban areas’ (JMDI, 2011,p. 58). Such rationales not only reflect the ‘yeomanfarmer fallacy’ but also actively erase the complexrelationship between internal and international mi-grations at different points during the migratoryprocess.

REFERENCES

Adams R, Page J. 2005. The impact of international mi-gration and remittances on poverty. In Remittances:Development Impacts and Future Prospects, MaimboSM, Ratha, D (eds). World Bank: Washington, DC;277–306.

Agunias DR, Newland K. 2012. Developing a Road Mapfor Engaging Diaporas in Development: A Handbook forPolicymakers and Practitioners in Home and HostCountries. International Organization for Migration

Modernisation, Migration, and Mobilisation

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2015)DOI: 10.1002/psp

(IOM): Geneva, Migration Policy Institute (MPI):Washington, DC.

Aikins K, White N. 2011. Global Diaspora StrategiesToolkit. Diaspora Matters: Dublin.

Arce A, Long N (eds). 2000. Anthropology, Development,and Modernities: Exploring Discourses, Counter-Tendencies, and Violence. Routledge: London.

Asis MM. 2008. The social dimensions of internationalmigration in the Philippines. In Moving Out, Backand Up: International Migration and DevelopmentProspects in the Philippines, Assis MM, Baggio F(eds). Scalabrini Migration Centre: Quezon City;78–108.

Babb S. 2002. Managing Mexico: Economists from Nation-alism to Neoliberalism. Princeton University Press:Princeton, NJ.

Baber Z. 2001. Modernization theory and the Cold War.Journal of Contemporary Asia 31: 71–85.

Bakewell O. 2008. ‘Keeping them in their place’: theambivalent relationship between development andmigration in Africa. Third World Quarterly 29:1341–1358.

Bernstein H. 1971. Modernization theory and the socio-logical study of development. Journal of DevelopmentStudies 7: 141–160.

Bichler RM, Gaderer E. 2009. Position paper number 2for the workshop ‘Towards Criteria Of SustainabilityAnd Social Meaningfulness In Development’: criticalreflections on modernization theoretical thinkingand its implications for ICTs in development. TripleC:Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open AccessJournal for a Global Sustainable Information Society 7:408–414.

Bidwell N, Winschiers-Theophilus H, Koch Kapuire G,Rehm M. 2011. Pushing personhood into place: situ-ating media in rural knowledge in Africa. Journal ofHuman Computer Studies 69: 618–631.

Boucher G. 2008. A critique of global policy discourseson managing international migration. Third WorldQuarterly 29: 1461–1471.

Briones L. 2009. Reconsidering the migration-development link: capability and livelihood in Filipinaexperiences of domestic work in Paris. Population,Space and Place 15: 133–145.

Brohman J. 1995. Economism and critical silences in de-velopment studies: a theoretical critique of neoliber-alism. Third World Quarterly 16: 297–318.

Bryceson D. 1997. De-agrarianisation in sub-SaharanAfrica: acknowledging the inevitable. In Farewell toFarms: De-agrarianisation and Employment in Africa,Bryceson D, Jamal V (eds). Ashgate: Aldershot;3–20.

Castles S, Wise RD. 2008. Introduction. InMigration andDevelopment: Perspectives from the Global South,Castles S, Wise RD (eds). International Organizationfor Migration: Geneva; 1–15.

Cole K. 2005. The last putting themselves first (II): thepractice of praxis. Progress in Development Studies 5:329–335.

Cowen M, Shenton R. 1995. The invention of develop-ment. In Power of Development, Crush J. (ed.).Routledge: London; 27–43.

Cresswell T. 2010. Towards a politics of mobility.Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 28:17–31.

Dannecker P. 2009. Migrant visions of development: agendered approach. Population, Space and Place 15:119–132.

de Haan A. 2006. Migration in the development studiesliterature: has it come out of its marginality? ResearchPaper, UNU-WIDER, United Nations University(UNU), No. 2006/19. Availble at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/63550 (accessed 14 October 2012).

de Haas H. 2005. International migration, remittancesand development: myths and facts. Third WorldQuarterly 26: 1269–1284.

de Haas H. 2007. Remittances, migration and social de-velopment: a conceptual review of the evidence.Social Policy and Development Programme PaperNumber 34, October 2007. United Nations ResearchInstitute for Social Development: Geneva.

de Haas H. 2010. Migration and development: a theo-retical perspective. International Migration Review 44:227–264.

Deshingkar P. 2006. Internal migration, poverty anddevelopment in Asia: including the excluded. IDSBulletin 37: 88–100.

DeWind J, Holdaway J. 2005. Internal and internationalmigration in economic development, paper pre-sented for the Fourth Coordination Meeting on Inter-national Migration. Population Division Departmentof Economic and Social Affairs United Nations Secre-tariat: New York; 26–27 October.

Engerman DC. 2011. The anti-politics of inequality:reflections on a special issue. Journal of Global History6(01): 143–151. DOI: 10.1017/S1740022811000088

Escobar A. 1992. Imagining a post-development era?Critical thought, development and social move-ments. Social Text 31: 20–56.

Faist T. 2007. Migrants as transnational developmentagents: an inquiry into the newest round of themigration–development nexus. Population, Space andPlace 14: 21–42.

Faist T, Fauser M. 2011. The migration-developmentnexus: toward a transnational perspective. In TheMigration-Development Nexus: Transnational Perspec-tives, Faist T, Fauser M, Kivisto P (eds). PalgraveMacmillan: Houndsmill; 1–26.

Farrington J, Christoplos I, Kidd, AD with Beckman M.2002. Extension, poverty and vulnerability: the scopefor policy reform. Working paper no. 155, OverseasDevelopment Institute: London.

M. Hickey

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2015)DOI: 10.1002/psp

Ferguson J. 1994. The Anti-Politics Machine: Development,Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho.University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, MN.

Fleming WJ. 1979. The cultural determinants of entre-preneurship and economic development: a casestudy of Mendoza Province, Argentina, 1861–1914.The Journal of Economic History, 39: 211–224.

Ferguson J. 1994. The Anti-Politics Machine: Development,Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho.University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, MN.

Gaetano AM, Yeoh BSA. 2010. Introduction to thespecial issue on women and migration in globaliz-ing Asia: gendered experiences, agency, and activ-ism. International Migration 48: 1–12.

Geiger M, Pécoud A. 2013. Migration, developmentand the ‘migration and development nexus’. Popula-tion, Space and Place 19: 369–374.

Gendzier IL. 1998. Play it again, Sam: the practice andapology of development. New Political Science, 20:159–183.

GMG (Global Migration Group). 2010. MainstreamingMigration into Development Planning: A Handbookfor Policy-makers and Practitioners. InternationalOrganization for Migration (IOM): Geneva.

Goss J, Lindquist B. 1995. Conceptualizing interna-tional labor migration: a structuration perspective.International Migration Review 29: 317–351.

Harvey D. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. OxfordUniversity Press: Oxford.

Heley J, Jones, L. 2012. Relational rurals: somethoughts on relating things and theory in rural stud-ies. Journal of Rural Studies 28: 208–217.

Hirsch P. 1993. Introduction: the village revisited. InThe Village in Perspective: Community and Locality inRural Thailand. Hirsch P (ed.). Social ResearchInstitute, Chiang Mai University: Chiang Mai; 1–8.

Hout W. 2012. The anti-politics of development: donoragencies and the political economy of governance.Third World Quarterly 33: 405–422.

Hugo G. 2009. Best practice in temporary labour mi-gration for development: a perspective from Asiaand the Pacific. International Migration 47: 23–74.

Humphrey J. 2007. Forty years of development research:transformations and reformations. IDS Bulletin 38:14–19.

IOM (International Organization for Migration). 2005.Internal Migration and Development: A Global Perspec-tive, IOM Migration Research Series, No. 19, Interna-tional Organization for Migration: Geneva.

JMDI (Joint Migration and Development Initiative).2011. Migration for Development: A Bottom-upApproach: A Handbook for Practitioners and Policymakers,the European Union and the United Nations. UN/UDP,ILO, IOM, UNFPA and UNHCR: Geneva.

Kapur D. 2004. Remittances: the new developmentmantra? G-24 discussion paper series, no. 29, April.

United Nations Conference on Trade and Develop-ment, Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four:New York and Geneva.

Keyes CF. 2012. ‘Cosmopolitan’ villagers and populistdemocracy in Thailand. South East Asia Research 20:343–360.

Kiersey NJ. 2009. Neoliberal political economy and thesubjectivity of crisis: why governmentality is nothollow. Global Society 23: 363–386.

King R, Skeldon R. 2010. ‘Mind the gap!’: integratingapproaches to internal and international migration.Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 36: 1619–1646.

Kivisto P. 2011. Migration, development and migrationin a skeptical age. In The Migration-Development Nexus:Transnational Perspectives, Faist T, Fauser M, Kivisto P(eds). Palgrave Macmillan: Houndsmill; 204–225.

Koch A. 2013. The politics and discourse of migrantreturn: the role of UNHCR and IOM in thegovernance of return. Journal of Ethnic and Migra-tion Studies 40: 905–923.

Kunz R. 2008. ‘Remittances are beautiful?’ Gender im-plications of the new global remittances trend. ThirdWorld Quarterly 29: 1389–1409.

Levitt P, Lamba-Nieves D. 2011. Social remittancesrevisited. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 37:1–22.

Lewis A. 1965. A review of economic development. TheAmerican Economic Review 55: 1–16.

Martin P, Abella M, Midgley E. 2004. Best practices tomanage migration: the Philippines. InternationalMigration Review 38: 1544–1559.

Maxwell S. 2005. The Washington Consensus is Dead!Long Live the Meta-narrative. Working Paper 243,January 2005. The Overseas Development Institute:London.

Mazrui AA. 1968. From social Darwinism to currenttheories of modernization: a tradition of analysis.World Politics 21: 69–83.

Mountjoy AB. 1976. Urbanization, the squatter and de-velopment in the Third World. Tijdschrift voorEconomische en Sociale Geografie 67: 130–137.

MunckR. 2008.Globalisation, governance andmigration:an introduction. Third World Quarterly, 29: 1227–1246.

Nemeth D. 2008. Blame Walt Rostow: the sacrifice ofSouth Korea’s natural villages. In Sitings: Critical Ap-proaches to Geography in Korea, Tangherlini TR, Yea S,(eds). Center for Korean Studies Monograph Series.University of Hawaii Press: Honolulu; 83–97.

Nussbaum M. 2003. Capabilities as fundamental enti-tlements: Sen and social justice. Feminist Economics9: 33–59.

Olukoshi A. 2007. From colonialism to the new millen-nium and beyond. IDS Bulletin 38: 20–25.

Parreñas RS. 2008. The Force of Domesticity: FilipinaMigrants and Globalization. New York UniversityPress: New York.

Modernisation, Migration, and Mobilisation

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2015)DOI: 10.1002/psp

Però D, Solomos J. 2010. Introduction: migrant politicsand mobilization: exclusion, engagements, incorpo-ration. Ethnic and Racial Studies 33: 1–18.

Phillips N. 2009. Migration as development strategy?The new political economy of dispossession andinequality in the Americas. Review of InternationalPolitical Economy 16: 231–259.

Piper N. 2009. The complex interconnections of themigration-development nexus: a social perspective.Population, Space and Place 15: 93–101.

Popkin S. 1980. The rational peasant. Theory and Society9: 411–471.

Porter D. 1995. Scenes from childhood: the homesicknessof development discourses. In Power of Development.Crush J. (ed.). Routledge: London; 63–86.

Quisumbing A, McNiven S. 2010. Moving forward,looking back: the impact of migration and remit-tances on assets, consumption, and credit constraintsin the rural Philippines. Journal of Development Studies46: 91–113.

Raghuram P. 2009. Which migration, what develop-ment? Unsettling the edifice of migration and devel-opment. Population, Space and Place 15: 103–117.

Rao V, Woolcock M. 2007. The disciplinary monopolyin development research at the World Bank. GlobalGovernance: A Review of Multilateralism and Interna-tional Organizations 13: 479–484.

Ratha D, Mohapatra S, Scheja E. 2011. Impact of migra-tion on economic and social development: a reviewof evidence and emerging issues. World Bank:Washington, DC.

Read J. 2009. A genealogy of homo-economicus: neolib-eralism and the production of subjectivity. FoucaultStudies 6: 25–36.

Rigg J. 2005. Land, farming, livelihoods, and poverty:rethinking the links in the rural South. WorldDevelopment 34: 180–202.

Roberts B. 1978. Cities of Peasants: The Political-Economyof Third-World Urbanization. Edward Arnold:London.

Rodrik D. 2006. Goodbye Washington consensus, helloWashington confusion? A review of the WorldBank’s economic growth in the 1990s: learning froma decade of reform. Journal of Economic Literature 44:973–987.

Rogers A, Williamson, JG. 1982. Migration, urbaniza-tion, and Third World development: an overview.Economic Development and Cultural Change 30: 463–482.

Roxborough I. 1988. Modernization theory revisited: areview article. Comparative Studies in Society andHistory 30: 753–761.

Ruhs M. 2008. The potential of temporary migrationprogrammes in future international migration policy.International Labour Review 145: 7–36.

Sassen S. 2008. Two stops in today’s new globalgeographies: shaping novel labour supplies andemployment regimes. American Behavioral Scientist52: 457–496.

Schuurman FJ. 2000. Paradigms lost, paradigmsregained? Development studies in the twenty-firstcentury. Third World Quarterly 21: 7–20.

Scoones I. 2009. Livelihoods perspectives and ruraldevelopment. The Journal of Peasant Studies 36(1):171–196.

Shah H. 2011. The Production of Modernization: DanielLerner, Mass Media, and the Passing of TraditionalSociety. Temple University Press: Philadelphia, PA.

Skeldon R. 2010. Managing migration for develop-ment: is circular migration the answer? WhiteheadJournal of Dimplomacy and International Relations,11(1): 21–33.

Sumner A. 2006. In search of the Post-Washington (dis)consensus: the “missing” content of PRSPS. ThirdWorld Quarterly 27: 1401–1412.

Todaro MP. 1969. A model of labour migration andurban unemployment in less-developed countries.American Economic Review 59: 138–148.

Truman HS. 1949. Truman Inaugural Address, 20January 1949. Available at: http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/50yr_archive/inagural20jan1949.htm (accessed 12 April 2013).

UNDP (United Nations Development Programme).2009. Human Development Report 2009. Palgrave Mac-millan: New York.

van Houte M, Davids T. 2008. Development andreturn migration: from policy panacea to migrantperspective sustainability. Third World Quarterly29: 1411–1429.

Wade R. 2010. Is the globalization consensus dead?Antipode 41: 142–165.

Wallerstein I. 2004. World-Systems Analysis: An Intro-duction. Duke University Press: Chapel Hill, NC.

Wickramasekara P. 2008. Globalisation, internationallabour migration and the rights of migrant workers.Third World Quarterly 29: 1247–1264.

Willis K. 2011. Theories and Practices of Development.Routledge: London.

Wise RD, Covarrubias HM (2009) Understanding therelationship between migration and development:toward a new theoretical approach Social Analysis,53(3): 85–105.

Woolcock M. 1998. Social capital and economic devel-opment: toward a theoretical synthesis and policyframework Theory and Society, 27: 151–208.

Xiang B. 2015. Beyond methodological nationalism andepistemological behaviouralism: drawing illustra-tions from migrations within and from China.Population, Space and Place, DOI: 10.1002/psp.1929

M. Hickey

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2015)DOI: 10.1002/psp