Is Migration a Form of Development Aid Given by Poor to Rich Countries?

ABSTRACT

This paper traces the evolution of Stephen Castles’ writing on the theme of migration and development, using this as a mirror to reflect my own thinking on this subject. I start with his inaugural landmark volume Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Europe, where an explicit Marxist reading of the role of migration is presented, and evaluate the continuing relevance of this framework against the changing nature both of migration and development themselves, and of the conceptual and ideological debate surrounding these two complexly linked phenomena. In Castles’ more recent writings, notably later editions of The Age of Migration, a somewhat different perspective emerges, more nuanced and more wide-ranging, set within broader debates on global social transformation and restructuring. From time to time, I bring in my own research on Albanian migration and development in order to illustrate different theoretical standpoints.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration-development nexus
• class structure
• Marxist analysis
• Albania
• migrant wellbeing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Russell King is Professor of Geography at the University of Sussex, UK, and Visiting Professor of Migration Studies in Malmö University, Sweden. He has been researching and writing about migration for more than forty years. Most of his research has been within Europe and the Mediterranean region, with special reference to Italy, Greece, Turkey and Albania. From 2000 to 2013 he was the editor of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. At Sussex he has been Dean of the School of European Studies (1998–2001), Head of the Department of Geography (2004–2007) and founding Director of the Sussex Centre for Migration Research (1997–2012).

Notes

1. As was the custom at the time, Castles and Kosack did not say much about their fieldwork methods – just one paragraph in their 1973 book (Castles and Kosack 1973: 8). A few more details were provided by Stephen in a retrospective account of his research on migration published much later (Castles 2000: 2–3).

2. Unlike The Age of Migration, where each successive edition has involved a comprehensive revision of the entire book, the second edition of Immigrant Workers and Class Structure was a disappointment in that the 1973 edition was reprinted unchanged, save for the addition of a 20-page Postscript (Castles and Kosack 1985: 487–506).

3. There is no space to list in detail the key initiatives and outputs of these global-scale organisations. For my own work and thinking, I frequently draw on the IOM's periodic ‘World Migration’ reports, and the UNDP's ‘Human Development Reports’: see especially IOM (2008, 2013), UNDP (2009).