Periodic Reporting for period 2 - JUSTREMIT (Global Justice and the Remittances Challenge: Confronting the €1 trillion “gap” in the literature)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2022-10-01 do 2024-03-31
Overall:
Remittances are the single most important source of global relief for the world’s poor, exceeding €1 trillion annually. Liberal global justice (GJ) theories ignore, misrepresent, and denigrate remittances and remitters. Worse, liberal GJ theorists endorse policies which could reduce remittances and increase harm. Consequently, what is called GJ is often experienced by the world’s poorest as manifest injustice. This research project investigates the paradigmatic constraints which make this injustice inevitable and invisible. Then, using both theoretical and ethnographic studies, it constructs an alternative paradigm that rectifies that injustice by putting remittances and the agency of the global poor at its core. In sum, this project sets out the challenge and change the way we think about and do GJ. JUSTREMIT does not simply contribute to GJ theorization; it challenges and reconstructs its foundation while introducing new empirical modes of investigation and opening new policy horizons.
WP2:
• What is the problem/issue being addressed?
How do Senegalese migrants in France send remittances back to their families at home? By what means/media and for what reasons?
• Why is it important for society?
It provides insight into the role of migration and remittances in supporting the lives and livelihoods of ordinary people in Senegal.
• What are the overall objectives?
Understand the various means of sending and why migrants choose them in the function of their social, familial, and political-economic positions in host and sending countries.
WP3:
• What is the problem/issue being addressed?
Remittances and financial regulations in Nigeria, Somalia, and Senegal. The study addresses how international financial regulations are used to regulate remittances. The study asks how do Nigerian and Somali authorities regulate remittances? Who are the key actors/agencies that regulate remittances in Nigeria and Somalia? What regulatory policies do Nigerian and Somali governments use to regulate remittances? As well as what consequences do the compliance with international financial regulations cause to local institutions in Nigeria and Somalia.
• Why is it important to society? Considering the large amount of remittances that these countries receive and the importance of remittances for over 240 million people who live in Nigeria and Somalia, the study sheds light on the regulatory framework for remittances in those countries.
• What are the overall objectives?
To provide understanding of how remittances are regulated in Nigeria and Somalia as well as reasons behind the remittances regulations in those countries.
WP4:
The topic of remittances is one of those that receive a lot of attention and that gets portrayed as utterly important and urgent across different disciplines and in many different contexts. Yet, despite the interest that raises and the ferment that often causes, not much action seems to follow. Brussels struggles to fit pro-remittances policy in its wider migration policy framework despite EU’s narratives suggesting the urgency and importance of the topic. At the same time Senegalese policymakers do not seem to include remittances in their migration policy-strategy despite their evident economic and social importance for the country. Both sides practically treat remittances and migration as two separate issues, even though they are in fact tightly interconnected. This would be a typical policy dilemma, were it not for the fact that it is recognized by all and against all stated and implicit interests, and there are no apparent barriers to inclusion. To unpack and solve this puzzle, this project proposes the following objectives:
- understand and map the complex net of relationships between the many different actors directly and indirectly working with remittances between Dakar and Brussels;
- elucidate how various actors involved with remittances between Senegal and the EU conceptualize core concepts of the governance of migration and remittances;
- observe the routines and practices of policymakers between Dakar and Brussels to identify the factors affecting pro-remittances policy.
Remittances are the single most important source of global relief for the world’s poor, exceeding €1 trillion annually. Liberal global justice (GJ) theories ignore, misrepresent, and denigrate remittances and remitters. Worse, liberal GJ theorists endorse policies which could reduce remittances and increase harm. Consequently, what is called GJ is often experienced by the world’s poorest as manifest injustice. This research project investigates the paradigmatic constraints which make this injustice inevitable and invisible. Then, using both theoretical and ethnographic studies, it constructs an alternative paradigm that rectifies that injustice by putting remittances and the agency of the global poor at its core. In sum, this project sets out the challenge and change the way we think about and do GJ. JUSTREMIT does not simply contribute to GJ theorization; it challenges and reconstructs its foundation while introducing new empirical modes of investigation and opening new policy horizons.
WP2:
• What is the problem/issue being addressed?
How do Senegalese migrants in France send remittances back to their families at home? By what means/media and for what reasons?
• Why is it important for society?
It provides insight into the role of migration and remittances in supporting the lives and livelihoods of ordinary people in Senegal.
• What are the overall objectives?
Understand the various means of sending and why migrants choose them in the function of their social, familial, and political-economic positions in host and sending countries.
WP3:
• What is the problem/issue being addressed?
Remittances and financial regulations in Nigeria, Somalia, and Senegal. The study addresses how international financial regulations are used to regulate remittances. The study asks how do Nigerian and Somali authorities regulate remittances? Who are the key actors/agencies that regulate remittances in Nigeria and Somalia? What regulatory policies do Nigerian and Somali governments use to regulate remittances? As well as what consequences do the compliance with international financial regulations cause to local institutions in Nigeria and Somalia.
• Why is it important to society? Considering the large amount of remittances that these countries receive and the importance of remittances for over 240 million people who live in Nigeria and Somalia, the study sheds light on the regulatory framework for remittances in those countries.
• What are the overall objectives?
To provide understanding of how remittances are regulated in Nigeria and Somalia as well as reasons behind the remittances regulations in those countries.
WP4:
The topic of remittances is one of those that receive a lot of attention and that gets portrayed as utterly important and urgent across different disciplines and in many different contexts. Yet, despite the interest that raises and the ferment that often causes, not much action seems to follow. Brussels struggles to fit pro-remittances policy in its wider migration policy framework despite EU’s narratives suggesting the urgency and importance of the topic. At the same time Senegalese policymakers do not seem to include remittances in their migration policy-strategy despite their evident economic and social importance for the country. Both sides practically treat remittances and migration as two separate issues, even though they are in fact tightly interconnected. This would be a typical policy dilemma, were it not for the fact that it is recognized by all and against all stated and implicit interests, and there are no apparent barriers to inclusion. To unpack and solve this puzzle, this project proposes the following objectives:
- understand and map the complex net of relationships between the many different actors directly and indirectly working with remittances between Dakar and Brussels;
- elucidate how various actors involved with remittances between Senegal and the EU conceptualize core concepts of the governance of migration and remittances;
- observe the routines and practices of policymakers between Dakar and Brussels to identify the factors affecting pro-remittances policy.
JustRemit has organized several major conferences. Those include:
"Economic Moralities: Value claims on the future." Leiden University, Leiden. April 20 & 21, 2023,
"Wenner-Gren Workshop" (with John Mathius & Duff Morton) Building an Anthropological Approach to Motives. Florida State University, Talahassee, Florida. February 2-3, 2024)
“Regulating Remittances: Methods, Case Studies and Theories” ISGA/ASCL, Leiden University. Oct 2023. (Mohamed Muse taking the organizational lead).
“Remittances in Times of Upheaval” ISGA/ASCL, Leiden University. Oct 2022.
“Remittance Studies: Making and Mapping a Field”. Oct 2021.
We have begun two PhD research projects. Our ethnographer has also begun carrying out fieldwork. The PI has published one article.
Sharpening of the focus of the project, development of the research design, draft of the literature review, methodology chapter, and first substantive chapters of the thesis. First rounds of fieldwork which produced preliminary findings concerning the mapping of the actors involved with remittances and the conceptual analysis.
"Economic Moralities: Value claims on the future." Leiden University, Leiden. April 20 & 21, 2023,
"Wenner-Gren Workshop" (with John Mathius & Duff Morton) Building an Anthropological Approach to Motives. Florida State University, Talahassee, Florida. February 2-3, 2024)
“Regulating Remittances: Methods, Case Studies and Theories” ISGA/ASCL, Leiden University. Oct 2023. (Mohamed Muse taking the organizational lead).
“Remittances in Times of Upheaval” ISGA/ASCL, Leiden University. Oct 2022.
“Remittance Studies: Making and Mapping a Field”. Oct 2021.
We have begun two PhD research projects. Our ethnographer has also begun carrying out fieldwork. The PI has published one article.
Sharpening of the focus of the project, development of the research design, draft of the literature review, methodology chapter, and first substantive chapters of the thesis. First rounds of fieldwork which produced preliminary findings concerning the mapping of the actors involved with remittances and the conceptual analysis.
JustRemit aims to greatly increase our understanding of remittances, focusing on the ethical, political, regulatory, and lived experience of remittances. Each subproject serves a different goal, from conceptualization, to understanding the state/diaspora relationship, to diagnosing and understanding the relationship between remittance and migration policy, to understanding the transnational familial context of remittances. Combined, these studies will allow for a significant advance in how with think of remittances and global justice.