The Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) has the pleasure of inviting you to a Migration Seminar on:
Reviewing the Migration-Development Nexus
in the light of the current global crisis
Monday, 28 September 2009, 15.00-17.00
Danish Centre for International Studies and Human Rights
Nordskov Meeting Room
Wilders Plads 8H, 3rd floor, 1401 Copenhagen K
Background
Over the last 5-10 years, it has generally been assumed that international migration contributes to social and economic development in migrant sending countries in the developing world. Research and policy work have focused attention to migrant remittances, transfer of social capital through skills acquisition, and organizational practices in Home Town Associations (HTAs) as drivers of local development. Theory and policy have been based on growth: growing numbers of migrants, growing remittances, strengthening of social networks between migrant destinations and origins, etcetera. However, the current global financial crisis is questioning several basic assumptions.
This DIIS migration seminar takes stock on recent practices and policies in the light of the current global crisis, addressing a range of questions: What happens to the migration-development nexus when borders attempt to close, migration streams reverse as a consequence of deportations, remittances dry up, and local authorities have had enough of HTAs and migrants, who due to deportation have lost both social and financial capital over night? How should the migration-development nexus be re-conceptualized? What are the causes, forms and effects from the perspective of sending countries in Latin America? And, finally, what are the gendered effects of these transitions?
Miguel A. Ugalde has been coordinating action-oriented research at the Universidad Rafael Landivar in Guatemala since 2005. He and his research team have carried out field work with transnational families mostly from Mayan ethnic groups that lead to study the relationship between migration and development, especially human development through the analysis of the social remittances, the impact of migration on the culture, the family, and gender relations. The project is funded by UN-INSTRAW (United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women), FIUC (Fédération International des Universités Catoliques), DANIDA, (Danish International Development Agency), among others.
Lars Ove Trans is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen. He has carried out research among Mexican HTAs. His current project deals with transnational civil society among Mexican migrants in the United States.
Programme and registration
The seminar is part of the DIIS Migration Seminar series: Migration in the Time of Crisis. For more information about migration seminars, please see www.diis.dk/migrationseminars .