Diasporas and Development

by Merz, Barbara J.

• ISBN13: 9780674024557
• ISBN10: 0674024559
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-05-30
• Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr

Summary

Just as trade, finance, information, and technologies are moving rapidly across borders, so too have labor markets and transnational migrant communities. Migrants are sending large quantities of money back to their countries of origin in the form of philanthropy, remittances, and commercial investments. They are also sharing knowledge and skills learned or developed abroad. Is greater global equity an inevitable consequence of such diaspora philanthropy, or can this giving actually aggravate inequity? Diasporas and Development examines the positive--and sometimes negative--impacts of diaspora engagement in Africa, Asia, Central America, and the Caribbean. How can the equity impact of this global giving be maximized? Might creative intermediary mechanisms or public policies help channel diaspora philanthropy in positive directions? They also explore motivations for the dark sides of diaspora engagement such as support for extremist organizations, organized crime, ethnic violence, and even civil war. Diasporas and Development aims to deepen the understanding of the promise and pitfalls of diaspora philanthropy and how it might help bridge the distances between societies in an unequal world.

Table of Contents

Preface

Conference Participants

Contributors

Overview: Diasporas and Development

Focusing on the State: Government Responses to Diaspora Giving and Implications for Equity

What Can Remittances and Other Migrant Flows Do for Equitable Development?

The Janus Face of Diasporas

Diaspora Philanthropy to Asia

African Diasporas

Diaspora Engagement in the Caribbean

Central American Diasporas and Hometown Associations

Index

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