Remittances as Social Practices and Agents of Change

This open access book explores the transformative effects of remittances. Remittances are conceptualized as flows of money, objects, ideas, traditions, and symbolic capital, mapping out a cross-border space in which people live, work, and communicate with multiple belongings. By doing so, they effect social change both in places of origin and destination. However, their power to improve individual living conditions and community infrastructure mainly results from global inequality. Hence, we challenge the remittance mantra and go beyond the migration-development-nexus by revealing dependencies and frictions in remittance relations. Remittances are thus scrutinized in their effects on both social cohesion and social rupture. By highlighting the transformative effects of remittance in the context of conflict, climate change, and the postcolonial, we shed light on the future of transnational society.

Presenting empirical case studies from Ghana, Burkina Faso, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Turkey, Lebanon, USA, Japan, and various European countries, as well as historical North America and the Habsburg Empire, we explore remittance relations from a range of disciplines including anthropology, sociology, history, design, architecture, governance, and peace studies.

Chapter 1. Introduction: Remittances as Social Practices and Agents of Change. - Part I: Historical Perspectives: Paving the Platform for Remittance Research. - Chapter 2. Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration between the United States and South China, 1882-1943. - Chapter 3. Remittances as Social Glue in Global Communities: Historical Perspectives and Evidence from Lebanese Diaspora in Kfarsghab/Lebanon, Sydney/Australian, Easton/USA andProvidence/USA. - Chapter 4. Overseas Remittances from Southeast Asia to China around the Sino-Japanese War (1937 1945). - Chapter 5. Money can t buy me love : Remittances, return migration, and family relations in Serbia (1960s-2000s). - Chapter 6. You Can t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too : Remittances in State Policy, Society and Economy in the First and Second Yugoslavia. - Chapter 7. Social Science Research, Remittances and Guest Worker Migration in Austria. - Part II: Migrants as Game Changers: The Collectivity and Agency of Remittances. - Chapter 8. Decay or Transformation? TheConfluence of Migrant Remittances and Transnational Islamic Charity. - Chapter 9. Solidarity, not Charity : Collective Transnational Remittance Practices of Moldovan Migrants. - Chapter 10. The Impact of Collective Remittances on Community Resilience: A Case Study on Rural Health Infrastructure in Burkina Faso. - Chapter 11. Bushfalling: The Act of Remittances by Senegambians in Switzerland. - Chapter 12. More Money, Less Politics: Financial Remittances and Voting Patterns in the Municipalities of the Republic of Serbia. - Chapter 13. A Sociology of Remittances, Transnationalism and the State: A Comparative Exploration of the Role of the Destination State in Remittances. - Part III: Remittances as Practices of Exchange: Rethinking Materiality, Mobility and the Post-Colonial. - Chapter 14. Houses, Remittances and Migrating Spaces in the Context of Turkish Remigration. - Chapter 15. The Afterlife of Immigrant Gifts. - Chapter 16. The Story of a Knife: Reflections on the Materiality of Remittances. - Chapter 17. Using Material Remittances from Labour Schemes for Social and Economic Development, Case Study Vanuatu. - Chapter 18. Peace in Gifts or Peace as a Gift? The Role of Remittances in the Peacebuilding-Process in Colombia. - Chapter 19. Remittances, Refugee and Peacebuilding in Syria. - Chapter 20. Receiving the Gift of the Master s Voice: How White, Western Academic Paradigms Shape Knowledge Exchange. - Chapter 21. Conclusion: Moving Towards the Future of Transnational Society in Three Steps.