300097 Past and Present Approaches on Migration and Development Linkages (S) (SoSe 2010)

Past and present approaches on migration and development linkages (SoSe 2010)

Topic of the course:
The linkages between migration and development are probably at an all-time high in academic and policy debates. The UNDP’s Human Development Report 2009 is entitled ´Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development´. It is dedicated to the causes and consequences of internal and international migration and its linkages with human development, economic growth and social inequalities. In 2006 the UN General Assembly organized a High Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development, followed by a number of further initiatives and high level meetings. The break-through of the issue on the global agenda can probably be dated to the year 2005. The report of the Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM) as well as the World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects on migrants’ remittances strongly highlighted the importance of the relationship given the fact that migratory movements, in particular from ´South to North´, have been strongly growing over the past decades as well as the financial transfers these involve.
However, the linkages between migration and development are by no means a new issue. Human mobility is historically connected to urbanization, industrialization, and the transformation in norms and values, and thus to the process of modernization. Further, migration is generally regarded a result of uneven or unequal development, wage differentials and socio-economic inequalities between countries, regions and people. Whereas more optimistic accounts predominated concerning the development impact of migration, return and remittances in the 1950 and 1960, throughout the following decades world system and dependency theories formulated stronger scepticism and a more critical stance towards the potentials of migration to overcome under-development. Today again, public and partly academic debates as well as a growing body of empirical studies articulate positive evaluations of the linkages and potentials. Migration is increasingly being viewed as a solution to under-development by transfer of money, knowledge and ideas, and as a livelihood strategy contributing to poverty alleviation. A transnational perspective in migration research has additionally contributed to questioning static categories of permanent settlement versus return and highlighted migrants’ continued engagement with development and change in origin countries and communities while living temporarily or permanently abroad. Nonetheless, studies point to the fact that migration and transnationalization are also related to rising inequalities across the globe.
Migration and development studies, thus, have a long history in discussing migration and development linkages, although current debates often reflect little memory of these. It is the aim of this course to develop a profound understanding of past and present approaches on the migration-development linkages. Earlier and recent theoretical concepts and empirical evidence are discussed, asking what is old, and what is new, and what has changed.

Thematic outline:
1. The state of the debate: World Bank, GCIM, UNDP, IOM
2. Theories of international migration from neo-classical economy and developmentalist modernization theory
3. Migration and the international system
4. Rural-urban and translocal relationships
5. Transnational migration, remittances and community development
6. Multi-local households, gender and development
7. Highly skilled migration and brain circulation
8. The emergence of new transnational actors in migration and development