Contesting the financialisation of remittances: Repertoires of reluctance, refusal and dissent in Ghana and Senegal

Abstract

This article engages with a global migration-development agenda that aims to harness the development potential of remittances by incorporating remittance flows and households into global finance. Drawing upon 10 months of fieldwork research with remittance recipients in Ghana and Senegal, this paper shows that any attempts to financialise and channel remittances away from so-called ‘informal’ financial circuits face differentiated forms of contestation, namely reluctance, refusal, and dissent. To explain how and why variegated financial practices and subjectivities – that differ from the neoliberal self-disciplined subject – emerge and endure, the paper draws together analyses on everyday financialisation with discussions on the central role of ‘informal’ finance and the concept of relational value in processes of social reproduction and strategies of future-making. In doing so, it contributes to a growing body of work that aims to decentre research on everyday financialisation beyond Anglo-American economies, and the Global North more generally.