The coordinators warmly thank the participants of the panel “Discourses, practices and tools of the migration/development relationship: circulations, innovations, and resistances in the Global South” at the APAD conference in Lomé on November 29, 2021, for their contributions and for the debates which were the source of this REMI topical collection.
1The relationship between migration and development has transitioned from being a peripheral concern among activists, to becoming a central theme of public action across various institutional levels. For a long time, the nexus between migration and development remained a secondary political and institutional issue, shaped by the struggles for recognition of migrants’ and civil society associations, the mobilisation of researchers, and the initiatives undertaken by expert organisations. Since the early 2000s, however, the matter has gained momentum independently. At all levels of public action, political, and institutional actors have seized the matter and put it on the agenda (Geiger and Pecoud, 2012; Breda, 2019).
2In the realm of national public policy, an increasing number of countries across all continents are formulating initiatives that interconnect migration with developmental concerns.
3So-called “receiving” countries are developing programmes that combine domestic and foreign policy issues (Lacroix, 2010; Østergaard-Nielsen and Ciornei, 2017; Vincent-Mory, 2018 and 2021), while so-called “sending” countries are increasingly developing policies to support their nationals abroad, combining political recognition with incentives for economic investment (Iskander, 2010; Dufoix et al., 2010; Jaulin and Smith, 2015). At the regional and international levels, consideration of the interplay between migration and development has become standard. The current interest in the migration-development nexus can also be seen in the existence of dedicated actors and arenas, as well as in the abundant production of reports and policy notes by more traditional development actors (development agencies, World Bank, OECD, UNDP, IOM). Present (almost) everywhere, the issue is now diluted in the global development agenda. Connected to the dominant paradigms and supported by a consensual discourse, it has been piecemeal inserted into the more traditional development themes of health, employment, economy, and justice since the 2009 Human Development Report (Caplan, 2020), while the 2030 Agenda now integrates it into the global paradigmatic framework of inclusion and the “whole of society approach”.
4In the scientific field, since the end of the twentieth century, researchers have been exploring the interplay between migration and development processes, also known as the “migration and development nexus” (Nyberg-Sorensen et al., 2002), in order to highlight the numerous and complex interdependencies between these two phenomena. The connections are transnational, between territories, actors and multiple institutional levels. They link multiple individuals and institutions with different status and unequal power (Carling, 2017; Çaglar and Glick Schiller, 2018; Bastia and Skeldon, 2020). Studies have focused on local political arenas, on the political stakes involved in money transfers, and on actors’ resistance and strategies (Soukouna, 2019; Leclerc-Olive, 2006; Lacroix et al., 2016; Schmoll, 2020). While the concept of co-development appears to have waned in prominence within academic and activist circles, certain contexts, notably Italy (Ambrosini and Berti, 2009; Stocchiero and Padoan, 2018; Mezzetti and Ceschi, 2019), are currently witnessing a resurgence of interest in this area. As Glick Schiller (2020) points out, the work of “nexologists” generally tends to focus on the study of inequalities and the conditions for improving living conditions, with an emphasis on development and humanitarian policies and actors.
5However, despite the significant scholarly production accompanying the institutionalisation of the migration-development nexus, the topic is currently disproportionately influenced by economists in terms of their inquiries, conceptualisations, and methodologies. Consequently, not all the social phenomena linking migration and development receive equal attention. Transfer practices, whether economic, social, cultural, or skills-related, hold a central position (Levitt, 1998; Levitt and Lamba-Nieves, 2011; Gubert et al., 2010). Research on this topic sometimes runs the risk of supporting the statistical representation of remittances from diasporas to their countries of origin (Bréant, 2013), which is one of the mantras of development (Kapur, 2004).
6The migration and development object has been banalized and predominantly approached from an economic standpoint, characterised by depoliticisation and instrumental institutional handling (Pécoud, 2015). The articles in this topical collection strongly illustrate on the one hand institutional discourses aiming to sidestep conflicts, struggles, and on the other challenging local and national debates on the circumstances of human movement or reception. They reflect the standardisation of practices and the predominance of technical expertise. While these trends are undoubtedly influenced by the nature and mandates of the intergovernmental organisations leading the international institutionalisation of the topic, they are not immune to strategies, including political power struggles for control over the discourse, agenda, and resources within the migration and development sphere.
7The depoliticisation of the migration and development nexus is not isolated: it is part of a wider movement to depoliticise development issues (Mosse, 2011). Second, most approaches to the migration and development nexus are accompanied by an instrumental treatment by development institutions, which has been well documented by research (Bakewell, 2008; Bayart, 2007; Daum, 2007; Pastore, 2007; Geiger and Pécoud, 2012, Breda, 2019). Migration dynamics, from both an optimistic and a pessimistic perspective (de Haas, 2010), are of interest because of their potential for the parties involved in mobility: the so-called “sending” countries, “receiving” countries, and migrants themselves. In this context, the scientific priorities would be to identify the conditions for maximising the beneficial effects between mobility processes and economic development by optimising the “triple win”.
8Taken together, these approaches to the migration-development nexus shift the focus away from power relations and tend to make the political issues at stake invisible (Pecoud, 2015; Breda, 2019). However, the asymmetries and power struggles among actors engaged in the intertwined dynamics of mobility and development cooperation remain as relevant as ever (Vincent-Mory, 2018). On all continents, in a context marked by increasing human mobility, armed conflicts, border closures, populism and growing inequalities, the arenas of the migration and development nexus have never ceased to be affected by the question of power struggles, which remains inextricably linked to the evolving forms of global capitalism.
9Against this backdrop of institutional depoliticisation and the silencing of power relations, this topical collection aims to bring research on the political dynamics at work in the field of migration and development in the foreground of scientific debate. In order to contribute to a critical study approach (Burawoy, 2005; De Munck, 2011) of the migration and development nexus, the following articles analyse the political issues at stake in the contemporary discourses, practices and representations of multiple actors in the field of migration and development in heterogeneous settings in Europe, North America, Africa and the Middle East. Specifically, they examine conflicts, political manoeuvring, and ideological underpinnings, as well as the processes through which these elements are constructed, circumvented, or reappropriated.
10This topical collection brings together authors from a variety of disciplines: socio-political geography, sociology of law, social anthropology, sociology, and political science. As a result, it offers a wide range of perspectives, methodological approaches and questions. While not claiming to represent a homogeneous, structured field of research, the contributions in this topical collection share a common trait: they avoid focusing on the reciprocal causes and effects of human mobility and improved living conditions. Instead, through case studies, empirical work, and field research, they deconstruct institutional evidence, discern new processes of categorisation and transformation within political spheres, and draw threads that weave together various forms of political violence. Notably, we observe that the majority of the articles employ analytical frameworks that integrate a structural as well as an actor agency approach (Lacroix, 2014 and 2016). These two approaches, developed in often opposing theoretical fields, become complementary when individual agency is contextualised and linked to structural constraints. Additionally, several articles express an interest in historicising objects, issues and ideological foundations, addressing Glick Schiller’s (2020) critique regarding the lack of historical contextualisation in this research field.
11The work collected in this topical collection highlights in particular the vitality of two research domains on the policy issues at stake, at the intersection of migration and development, which are presented in the following two sections.
12The construction of the discourse on the interplay between migration and development, the implementation of policies and specific programmes, as well as their reception, are influenced by the antagonistic interests of competing actors in the field of international migration management, but also in the field of development cooperation. This competition is aimed, on the one hand, at acquiring normative capital (who ultimately controls the expertise and the correct definition of the interplay between migration and development?). The first three articles in this topical collection analyse the antagonisms and power relations between actors in the migration-development nexus arena over the production of legitimate discourses, in particular the expertise claimed by intergovernmental organisations in the field of global migration governance (Pécoud and Thiollet, 2023; Degila and Valle, 2022).
13Based on participant observation within the UNDP Joint Initiative on Migration and Development, Giulia Breda examines the liberal, utilitarian and security-based ideological underpinnings of expertise on migration and development. The sociologist provides a detailed analysis of the influence of power relations in the co-construction of expertise, highlighting the invisibility and marginalisation of issues affecting the most precarious and marginalised social groups living on the periphery of the globalised world. The role of ’mediator’ in this co-construction enables UNDP to establish its normative power in the field, in particular its ability to define legitimate interpretations of migration and development nexus, which it then disseminates at local and national levels.
14Leila Kawar continues the analysis of the transfer of expertise by intergovernmental organisations, drawing from an ethnographic study of three capacity-building courses held in various countries by different international organisations, targeting different audiences “to make them global”. A detailed understanding of the selection procedures and the content of the training courses, which were aimed at a wide range of actors in the field (development professionals, researchers, associations, members of the diaspora, etc.), highlights the diversity of ways in which dominant norms are appropriated, as well as the forms of resistance as well as the more or less open expression of critical distance or even scepticism of actors and organisations constrained by career logics and competition in the migration and development arenas.
15The third contribution to the topical collection, by Stéphanie Lima, provides an essential historicisation of the dynamics of politicisation and depoliticisation since the 1960s in the Senegal River Valley, which has been one of the main case studies of the relationship between migration and development for several decades. Starting from the local level, his diachronic analysis clearly shows how the relationship between migration processes and development issues has always been caught up in evolving power games, “far from a depoliticisation that seems to be imposed from above” (Lima, this topical collection). Looking back at the practices of migrant-founded development associations, the geographer shows how the initial claim to be “apolitical” has historically given way to the formation of genuine local counter-powers. In doing so, she considers the overlapping and evolving quest for legitimacy of the various actors on the ground (village associations, migrant actors, local authorities, and the Malian state).
16The contributions in this topical collection show that the critical study of the interrelationship between migration and development is now taking into consideration the new categorisations and new scenes produced by the institutional and administrative construction of a “positive” and “beneficial” articulation of mobility at the service of development. The subsequent three articles illustrate this expanded perspective, going beyond the conventional categories of migrant workers, migrant organisations and mobile individuals with high levels of social, economic and symbolic capital. They take a closer look at subaltern groups on the move, be they “refugees”, “returnees” or “displaced people”. New distinctions emerge to distinguish the desirable from the undesirable, the legitimate from the illegitimate. From this standpoint, one of the interests of this topical collection is to contribute to the deconstruction of the dichotomous categorisation of “mobiles in development”, which is one of the characteristics of the instrumental approach to the migration and development nexus. Secondly, the three papers in this second part of the topical collection show that the political issues raised by the migration-development nexus are also played out in other spaces and arenas: refugee camps and conflict zones. The stages are now being set in both the global South and the global North, in so-called “declining” cities seeking economic, political and social revitalisation. New forms of intersection with the humanitarian industry are explored, such as repatriation and reintegration programmes in countries of origin, or refugee resettlement programmes in “declining” peripheries. In addition, the questions raised in these three articles help to update the approach to political struggles and issues in the contemporary world, particularly by considering the intersections between minority affiliations and, in particular, ethno-racial and class categorisations.
17Marie Deridder and Almamy Sylla study “the socio-political work [...] of race and racial formations [...] in the governance of migration in postcolonial Mali”. On the basis of fieldwork and interviews with local actors, the anthropologists examine the racial discourses and imaginaries mobilised by black returnees from Libya in Mali. Their analysis questions the contemporary link between the securitisation of development programmes and the global governance of migration, while historicising the processes they observe (racial capitalism, colonial imperialism, slavery). The article finally describes the processes of discrimination and competition between these mobile populations.
18The contribution by Zaid Awamleh and Alexandrine Dupras focuses on the negotiations between Jordan and the international community, in particular the UNHCR and UNDP, to manage the influx of millions of Syrian refugees. Based on a survey carried out as part of a European project and drawing on a variety of sources, the article examines the implications of shifting humanitarian aid towards a development aid format, which is typical of crisis management trajectories in international cooperation. It sheds light on the divergent interests and strategies and the different ways in which actors, especially the state, are mobilised in the field of international refugee management, which now seeks to reconcile issues of mobility and development.
19Finally, Norma Schemschat’s research note illustrates how arenas of the interplay between migration and development also exist in the Global North. Refugees are seen as development actors, engaged in strategies for developing economically and demographically declining peripheries. Through a comparison of three areas sharing similar trajectories of urban decline in Europe and North America, with a particular focus on the experience of refugees, the author offers a critical deconstruction of the discourses, practices and policies aimed at strengthening the interplay between migration and development, notably their failure to take structural contexts into account. Her research highlights and updates the relevance of an urban studies approach to the migration and development nexus (Arfaoui, 2020; Gardesse, 2020; Lejeune et al., 2021).
20Consequently, the field of migration and development studies is now taking on a partially new look. As a consequence, it is important to encourage research on contemporary conflicts and mobilisations within the migration and development arenas. Although the institutionalisation and standardisation of the issue may suggest a decline in activism, the articles in this edition point to areas of intersection and continuity between anti-racist struggles and struggles for access to rights and citizenship. Collectively, they urge us to engage with critical perspectives on the political issues of the migration and development nexus.
