Which migration, what development? Unsettling the edifice of migration and development

Abstract

In recent years migration has been rediscovered as a key intervening apparatus in facilitating development, offering a route to mitigating deepening inequalities. National governments, international funding organisations and diasporic organisations have all mobilised migrants to fund development initiatives in 'origin' countries. This has led to a range of calculative processes whereby some forms of migration and particular forms of development come to be visible, while others become 'invisibilised'. This paper explores some narratives of migration and development to illustrate how current debates on migration and development ignore certain scalar politics and specific temporalities, while scaffolding others. It suggests new ways of thinking about migration and development. © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.