Boyle, Mark
(2015)
Migration-as-development repackaged? The
globalizing imperative of the Singaporean
state’s diaspora strategies.
Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 36.
pp. 164-182.
ISSN 0129-7619
Abstract
Diaspora strategizing is becoming an important field of public policy in countries that seek to
advance development through migration. Diaspora strategies present a way of complicating interpretations
of development, as countries that represent different levels of development seek to
mobilize diaspora networks nonetheless. While Singapore’s diaspora strategies prioritize diaspora
knowledge networks, it bears the stamp of the country’s colonial history, postcolonial priorities and
developmental state apparatus.We suggest that these factors result in a distinctive diaspora strategy
characterized by a centralized and technocratic approach more similar to diaspora strategies found
in emerging economies. Earlier research on diaspora strategies has been concerned with assessing
successes or failures, but a more critical scholarship that questions the logics and outcomes
of diaspora strategizing is emerging. We bring the Singaporean case into dialogue with four
such critiques: first, the intellectual foundations of diaspora-centred development; second, the
hyperextension of state infrastructure for emigration and stakeholder alignment; third, the selective
mobilization of the idea of diaspora; and fourth, the evidence base upon which diasporacentred
development is predicated. Our goal is to further critical interrogation into the logics,
efficacy and sustainability of diaspora strategizing. We situate our analyses in the international
literature on diaspora knowledge mobilization.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
diaspora strategies; emigration; migration and development; affinity diaspora;
Singapore; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography |
| Item ID: |
8697 |
| Identification Number: |
https://doi.org/10.1111/sjtg.12103 |
| Depositing User: |
Mark Boyle
|
| Date Deposited: |
28 Aug 2017 12:12 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography |
| Publisher: |
Wiley |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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