Migration speculation: microfinance and migration in the Global South

IF 1.9 2区经济学 Q2 DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

Third World Quarterly Pub Date : 2023-06-19 DOI:10.1080/01436597.2023.2221190

M. Bylander

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract Across the Global South, microfinance providers have begun offering formalised pre-departure loans as part of their broader efforts to promote migrant financial inclusion. This article critically examines the logic behind these migration loans, drawing on data from Bangladesh to denaturalise the discursive shifts justifying these programs. Advocates of formalised migration loans view them as enabling the ‘worthwhile investment’ of migration, while reducing migration costs and risks. Yet these claims ignore the systemic precarity of migrant labour, the potential for abuse and dispossession via microcredit, and the ways that formal debt can heighten vulnerability for migrants. In making these claims, I draw attention to the infrastructures that have enabled contemporary forms of migration lending, highlighting that migration loans are now possible precisely because financial institutions have found ways to reshape the risks of lending to mobile populations. As such, I make the case for seeing migration loans as a form of migration speculation—in which migrant experiences become a site of investment and profit for microfinance institutions.

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移民投机:全球南方的小额信贷和移民

在全球南方，小额信贷提供商已经开始提供正式的离乡前贷款，作为其促进移民金融包容性的更广泛努力的一部分。本文批判性地考察了这些移民贷款背后的逻辑，借鉴了孟加拉国的数据，以使这些项目合理化的话语转变变得不自然。正式移民贷款的支持者认为，这些贷款使移民成为“有价值的投资”，同时降低了移民成本和风险。然而，这些说法忽视了移民劳动力的系统性不稳定性、通过小额信贷被虐待和剥夺的可能性，以及正式债务可能加剧移民脆弱性的方式。在提出这些主张时，我提请注意使当代形式的移民贷款成为可能的基础设施，强调移民贷款现在成为可能，正是因为金融机构已经找到了重塑向流动人口贷款风险的方法。因此，我认为移民贷款是移民投机的一种形式——移民经历成为小额信贷机构投资和盈利的场所。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Third World Quarterly DEVELOPMENT STUDIES-

CiteScore

4.10

自引率

15.00%

发文量

137

期刊介绍： Third World Quarterly ( TWQ ) is the leading journal of scholarship and policy in the field of international studies. For almost four decades it has set the agenda of the global debate on development discourses. As the most influential academic journal covering the emerging worlds, TWQ is at the forefront of analysis and commentary on fundamental issues of global concern. TWQ examines all the issues that affect the many Third Worlds and is not averse to publishing provocative and exploratory articles, especially if they have the merit of opening up emerging areas of research that have not been given sufficient attention. TWQ is a peer-reviewed journal that looks beyond strict "development studies", providing an alternative and over-arching reflective analysis of micro-economic and grassroot efforts of development practitioners and planners. It furnishes expert insight into crucial issues before they impinge upon global media attention. TWQ acts as an almanac linking the academic terrains of the various contemporary area studies - African, Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern - in an interdisciplinary manner with the publication of informative, innovative and investigative articles. Contributions are rigorously assessed by regional experts.