Social remittances and the changing transnational political landscape

Abstract

The term “social remittances” was coined over fifteen years ago to capture the notion that, in addition to money, migration also entails the circulation of ideas, practices, skills, identities, and social capital also circulate between sending and receiving communities. The articles in this special issue, which are primarily about migration and politics, drive forward research on social remittances by examining understudied areas such as Poland, Mali, the Ivory Coast, Tunisia, and Senegal. They elucidate transnational politics by showing how emigrants influence social protests, elections, and calls for greater transparency or reform. They bring to light the social underpinnings of social and economic remittance exchanges and the ways in which material constraints shape social remittance circulation. Finally by bringing discussions of the circulation of people and money into conversation with discussions about the circulation of culture and objects, they pave the way toward a better understanding of how objects and subjects, structures and agents, although ontologically distinct, maintain a reciprocal relationship of co-production.