Invisible Development? Remittances for Housing and Transnational Reproduction Strategies among Migrant Households in Colombia

Abstract

In recent years, the Colombian government has embraced the migration-development agenda by designing programmes to channel remittances to key sectors such as housing and finance,in an attempt to institutionalise migrant households’ transnational economic practices. However, little is known about migrant households’ multifaceted transnational practices, their broader impact on households’ and localities’ socioeconomic development and migrants’ engagement with these migration-for-development programmes. Drawing on qualitative data collected along the Colombia-UK migration network, this paper contrasts the narrow interpretation of development that underpins the migration-development agenda, as exemplified by the remittances-for-housing programmes implemented in Colombia, with the more nuanced social and economic contributions that remittance-financed housing investments have for migrant households’ and communities’ socioeconomic development. Thus, it provides a more nuanced interpretation of development to account for the often invisible, socioeconomic spinoffs that occur in the process of migrant households’ attempts to produce and reproduce their livelihoods transnationally.