Transnational Resource Flow and the Paradoxes of Belonging: Redirecting the Debate on Transnationalism, Remittances, State and Citizenship in Africa
Year: 2009
Type: article
Abstract: The rise in the volume of known global foreign worker remittances to countries of origin has sparked considerable academic and policy interest. Much attention has been paid to the assumed ‘development’ potential of these financial remittances, an approach which encapsulates the tendency to envisage the consequences of remittance flows in overwhelmingly economic terms. This article takes issue with such an approach, arguing for a refocusing of the debate on remittances in recipient societies on the crucially important, yet largely neglected, political realm. It posits that in formations where a significant aspect of the population relies on external grants for everyday provisioning, questions on the possible implications of their reliance for civic engagement, social citizenship and political allegiance become imperative. The article proposes a conceptual framework for interrogating the effects of the emergence of a discursive ‘remittance class’ for notions of citizenship, state–society relations, and the changing patterns and forms of identity in African and other remittance-dependent societies.
Authors: Ebenezer Obadare, Wale Adebanwi
Institutions: University of Kansas, University of California, Davis
Language: English
Topic: Migration and Labor Dynamics
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W2003923391