Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

世界経済・社会統計 = World development indicators

Migrant networks and organisations have emerged as development agents. They interact with state institutions in flows of financial remittances, knowledge, and political ideas. In the discursive dimension, the new enthusiasm on the part of OECD states and international organisations, such as the World Bank, for migrant remittances, migrant associations and their role in development, is a sign of two trends which have coincided. Firstly, community as a principle of development has come to supplement principles of social order such as the market and the state. Secondly, in the current round of the migration–development nexus, migrants in general and transnational collective actors in particular have been constituted by states and international organisations as a significant agent. In the institutional dimension, agents such as hometown associations, networks of businesspersons, epistemic networks and political diasporas have emerged as collective actors. These formations are not unitary actors, and they are frequently in conflict with states and communities of origin. The analysis concludes with reflections of how national states structure the transnational spaces in which non-state actors are engaged in cross-border flows, leading towards a tight linkage between migration control, immigrant incorporation and development cooperation. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Migrants as transnational development agents: An inquiry into the newest round of the migration - development nexus.

In this article we revisit the concept of social remittances. First, we show how people's experiences before migrating strongly influence what they do in the countries where they settle; this, in turn, affects what they remit back to their homelands. Second, just as scholars differentiate between individual and collective economic remittances, we also distinguish between individual and collective social remittances. While individuals communicate ideas and practices to each other in their roles as friends, family members or neighbours, they also communicate in their capacity as organisational actors, which has implications for organisational management and capacity-building. Finally, we argue that social remittances can scale up from local-level impacts to affect regional and national change and scale out to affect other domains of practice.

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Social remittances reconsidered

This paper challenges the idea that a “social clause” to enforce global labor standards through international trade agreements serves the interests of women export workers in poor countries. Drawing on fieldwork in Bangladesh and empirical studies, the author argues that exploitative as these jobs appear to Western reformers, for many women workers in the South they represent genuine opportunities. Clearly, these women would wish to better their working conditions; yet having no social safety net, and knowing that jobs in the informal economy, their only alternative, offer far worse prospects, women cannot fight for better conditions. Moreover, global efforts to enforce labor standards through trade sanctions may lead to declining employment or to the transfer of jobs to the informal economy. Lacking measures that also address the conditions of workers in this informal economy, demands for “the social clause” will reinforce, and may exacerbate, social inequalities in the labor market.

Globalization, labor standards, and women's rights: dilemmas of collective (in)action in an interdependent world

The article discusses the transformations of gender relations due to transnational migration between Bangladesh and Malaysia. It is shown that the uneven economic development in Asia during the las...

Transnational Migration and the Transformation of Gender Relations: The Case of Bangladeshi Labour Migrants:

In this article the current debate on migration and development is critically discussed. It will be shown that development as a multidimensional process is hardly ever conceptualised. The diversity of migration flows and patterns and the gendered structure of these processes are leading to different development visions which are hardly ever addressed or related to development. The analysis of the development visions of temporary male and female labour migrants from Bangladesh will reveal that migration experiences and the new connections and networks give rise to new identifications and development visions. The negotiations of these visions locally may initiate cultural, social and political transformations in the countries of origin, which do not necessarily correspond with the development visions articulated by other national and international actors involved. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Migrant visions of development: a gendered approach

Between Conformity and Resistance: Women Garment Workers in Bangladesh

Bangladeshi Migrant Workers in Malaysia: The Construction of the "Others" in a Multi-Ethnic Context

A very noticeable feature of economic development in many Asian countries has been the growing employment of young women in industry. Whereas much has been written about the exploitation of the workers, and this is often related to the wider debates about the links between gender relations and globalisation, there has been relatively little analysis of the ways in which women resist exploitation through collective action, creating organisations, and networking. All these strategies enable women workers to cope with ongoing change, and sometimes to reshape gender power relations. This article analyses collective action, organisation-building, and women's leadership in the garment sector in Bangladesh, where women have rapidly entered a highly visible form of employment.

Petra Dannecker

Papers

Transnational Migration and the Transformation of Gender Relations: The Case of Bangladeshi Labour Migrants:

Migrant visions of development: a gendered approach

Between Conformity and Resistance: Women Garment Workers in Bangladesh

Bangladeshi Migrant Workers in Malaysia: The Construction of the "Others" in a Multi-Ethnic Context

Collective action, organisation building, and leadership: Women workers in the garment sector in Bangladesh