Migration and Developement. A theoretical Perspective
- Document number
- 1877
- Date
- 2008
- Title
- Migration and Developement. A theoretical Perspective
- Author/publisher
- Hein de Haas
- Availability
- View/save PDF version of this document
- Document type(s)
- Research/Study/Analysis,
- Keywords
- International Migration Institute, Working Paper, Year 2008
- Summary
- This paper aims to put the debate on migration and development in a broader historical perspective of
migration theory in particular and social theory in general. The scholarly debate on migration and
development has tended to swing back and forth like a pendulum, from developmentalist optimism in
the 1950s and 1960s, to structuralist and neo-Marxist pessimism and scepticism over the 1970s and
1980s, to more nuanced views influenced by the new economics of labour migration, “livelihood”
approaches and the transnational turn in migration studies as of the 1990s. Such discursive shifts in
the scholarly debate on migration and development should be primarily seen as part of more general
paradigm shifts in social theory. The shift that occurred over the 1990s was part of a more general
shift away from grand structuralist or functionalist theories towards more pluralist, hybrid and
structuralist approaches attempting to reconcile structure and actor perspectives. However, attempts to combine different theoretical perspectives are more problematic than sometimes suggested due to
incommensurability issues and associated disciplinary divisions. - Related documents