A critical examination of remittances as a neoliberal development strategy: the burden of development on an exploitable migrant workforce

In recent years, the migration and development framework has shifted to a focus on the role of diasporas and migrant remittances in homeland development. Using criticality and particularly political economy as a methodology, this research paper sheds light on how the so-called migration-development nexus is embedded within a context of unequal neoliberal economic globalization. The research paper demonstrates that current approaches are a resurgence of modernization theories of development, which ignore the structural and historic conditions within which international migration from the Global South to the Global North is embedded. The research paper puts forward that the current focus on remittances as a source of development places the burden of a country's development onto an exploitable migrant workforce.