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Abstract
A transnational perspective is used in the analysis of the lives of Ghanaian migrants based in the Netherlands to answer two questions: how do migrants contribute to their home country, and do they also participate in the economy where they reside? An analysis of spending patterns of migrants both in the Netherlands and in Ghana shows that migrants are doubly engaged. In Ghana they invest in housing, business and education, contributing to the daily expenses of people back home and investing in their and their extended family's reputation by donating generously at funerals. At the same time they participate in the Dutch economy at the neighbourhood, city and national level. They devise various strategies for juggling their objectives between these two countries. However, Ghanaian migrants’ contribution to both countries is hampered by the high costs of identity documents both in the formal and informal economy. The paper thus links Dutch migration policies with the consequences for the lives of people back in Ghana. As such, it demonstrates the relationship between two areas that are usually kept separate in both academic and policy discourses: development in the Third World and the integration of migrants in industrialised countries.
Acknowledgements
This paper reports on collaborative research between the University of Amsterdam (AMIDSt), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (AOE), Amsterdam Institute for International Development (AIID), and the African Studies Centre Leiden, all in the Netherlands, and the Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research (ISSER) in Ghana. The research project is entitled ‘Transnational networks and the creation of local economies: economic principles and institutions of Ghanaian migrants at home and abroad’ (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek grant number 410–13–010P, see www2.fmg.uva.nl/ghanatransnet). The author would like to thank Luca Bertolini, Ton Dietz, Ralph Grillo, an anonymous referee, and the members of the ‘Transnational links and livelihoods’ group for valuable comments leading to this paper.
Notes
1. Some authors (Portes et al. Citation1999; Pries Citation2002) give examples of transnational phenomena that pre-date the revolution in information and communication technology: seventeenth- and eighteenth-century artists, scientists and aristocrats in Europe whose existence entailed travelling constantly throughout Europe; transnational networks of Muslim scientists in the eighteenth century; Venetian, Genoese and Hanseatic merchants throughout medieval Europe; and enclaves of commercial representatives engaged in international trade for the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English in successive stages of the European colonisation of Africa and the Americas. However, a critical and historical assessment of different waves of migration in New York (Foner Citation1997) argues that, although the phenomenon may not be a recent one, new processes and dynamics are in place.
2. For overview articles see the special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22(2), 1999; also Vertovec (Citation2001).
3. Interestingly, many studies before the 1970s had a more transnational perspective. The Manchester studies of the 1940s, for example, document the back and forth migration that characterised the rural areas and the urban and industrial centres of southern Africa (Gluckman Citation1942; Wilson Citation1941, Citation1942).
4. See www2.fmg.uva.nl/ghanatransnet.
5. Economic institutions are those commonly held categories such as rules, laws, or norms of conduct that guide economic action and define the structure of economies.
6. In 2006 these new groups amounted to 570,905 ‘legal’ first-generation migrants in the Netherlands coming from the Third World and Eastern Europe, as compared to 364,333 from Turkey, 323,239 from Morocco, 331,890 from Surinam, and 129,683 from the Antilles (http://statline.cbs.nl).
7. A reliable lower-bound estimate of Ghanaians in the Netherlands in 2000 is 40,000, based on those who registered with the Ghanaian embassy in the Netherlands to vote for the presidential elections in Ghana in 2000.
8. One of the major ethnic groups in Ghana that comprises the most numerous group amongst Ghanaian migrants in the Netherlands (Nimako Citation2000).
9. Personal communication, Head of Visa Office, Dutch Consulate, Accra, 26 March 2004.