Developmental Idealism and Migration: Theorizing their Relationship and an Empirical Example from Nepal.

Abstract

This paper brings together both theoretically and empirically two strands of social science research: migration and developmental idealism. The paper is motivated by the fact that there are extensive bodies of research about migration and about developmental idealism, but almost no discussion in the literature about how they might be interconnected. We present theoretical arguments concerning the influence of migration in distributing developmental idealism around the world and in developmental idealism being a force influencing the migration decisions of people. We also provide an empirical investigation of how variation in developmental idealism may have been an influence on migration and choice of migration destinations in Nepal. Thus, we extend the developmental idealism literature to include migration and the migration literature to include developmental idealism.