Race, capital and the British migration–development nexus

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, migration and development policy have been connected in British politics in two overlapping ways – one argument is centred on migration being used for development, the other using aid to reduce migration. In this article, I argue that two seemingly contradictory policy configurations – development and migration – and the different articulations of their relationship – migration for development and aid to stop migration – stem from the same framework of racialised capitalism. I show how these relationships are in flux; related to the demands of capital and to the different ideological approaches towards migration. In different ways, the nexus helps to produce varying forms of exploitable subjects and enacts control over surplus populations across the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ world.