Diaspora knowledge networks for development

This paper will consider the concept of Diaspora Knowledge Networks, (DKNs) and examine the relationship between DKNs and homeland development. Using a framework of World Systems Theory, it will lay out how skilled labour migration leads to diaspora network formation and that tactical brain circulation on the part of DKNs can provide home countries with the agency in the World System through a form of transnationalism from below. Recognizing that DKNs are socially constructed, and as a result replete with gender and power imbalances, it is posited that DKNs feed into and reproduce the global division of labour and with it all the implications for migration that go with this new global order. Finally this paper lays out the gaps within the literature on DKNs, namely in the areas of gender, race and the role of state securitization, and calls for further research so that policies harnessing DKNs for development may be more effective.