300650 Transnational Migration and Development in West Africa (MA: Soziologie der Globalen Welt) (S) (WiSe 2025/2026)

The course/seminar aims to critically look at the ways immigrants contribute to development processes in their home countries, thus, the migration-development-nexus. In particular, it highlights the transnational practices employed in these processes with a concentration on West Africans to their home countries. It seeks to widen students' perspectives of these processes and be able to analyse in its diverse facets. Various actors and their roles in these processes or routines will be looked at. We will discuss these in a post-colonial context.
The following topics will be explored;
1. Migration and Development- General Overview and the Transnational Lens
2. Forms of Development
3. The Role of Traditional Rulers
4. Brain Drain, Brain Gain, or Brain Circulation?
5. Transnational Families
6. Remittances (Financial and Social)
7. Strategies for Raising Funds