Diaspora-Centred Development: Current Practice, Critical Commentaries, and Research Priorities

Abstract

In the past decade, the relationship between migration and development has captured development thinking and practice in important ways. Once assumed to be a constraint on sending states, emigration is now being viewed as a potential catalyst of development. Accordingly, alongside and in some instances displacing traditional approaches to development, there has arisen a new policy field often termed ‘diaspora strategy’. Diaspora strategies can be thought of as self-conscious orchestrations, normally although not exclusively led by state organizations from sending countries to scale up, fortify, leverage, and harness the positive effects of migration on the development of countries of origin. Many countries in the global south, and importantly also now in the global north, are today participating in a global dialogue on how best to formulate, effect, and evaluate diaspora strategies. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this chapter is to provide a summary overview of thought and practice to date and to introduce and to explore a number of areas of emerging critique. The chapter will conclude with a reflection upon the improved research and scholarly competencies which will be needed if we are to work towards a new generation of more effective, equitable, inclusive, and sustainable diaspora-centred development projects.