Unravelling the Migration and Development Web: Research and Policy Implications Nina Glick Schiller* INTRODUCTION In this Special Issue, an array of scholars, many of whom have themselves been involved in migration and development policy, move beyond the concerns and perspectives of migrant- receiving states to address the existing critiques and policy dilemmas that underlie migration and development discourses. The papers not only critically scrutinize the reliance on migrant remittances as a development strategy but also query the circumstances that have fostered the migration and development narrative. Each of the authors also speaks to the contradic- tions between the assumptions made in migration and development policies and structural dimensions and power differentials that stand as barriers to development in migrant-sending countries. As Birgitte Mossin Brønden notes in her introduction, the first decade of the twenty-first century was marked by a ‘‘buzz’’ about the contributions of migration to the development of impoverished countries outside of Europe. At the same time, a variety of critical voices raised questions about what has been called ‘‘the migration and development mantra’’ (Castles, 2008; Kapur, 2004). Some of the caveats come from within the very development agencies and financial institutions that, in other contexts, have contributed to the buzz (Skeldon, this issue). Currently, for very different reasons, both policymakers and researchers have to a certain extent pulled back from the glowing portrayal of migrants as a leading force in the national development of impoverished countries. National policymakers in Europe and North America have become critical of most migration, despite the substantive evidence that their countries have been reaping economic, social, cultural and demographic benefits from international migration. Meanwhile, migration researchers have cautioned that without full rights to work and settle in prosperous economies, migrants can hardly be seen as partners in the planning and organization of effective development projects in their homelands. These researchers have noted that migrants, most of whom are overworked, underpaid and work in increasingly diffi- cult conditions, often are primarily concerned with the subsistence and social reproduction of family members ‘‘left behind’’. In short, a number of conditionalities must be met in order for migrants’ economic and social remittances to effect positive transformations in migrant-send- ing countries (Delgado Wise and Ma´rquez Covarrubias, 2009; Ellerman, 2003; Glick Schiller and Faist, 2009; Newland, 2007; Skeldon, 2008). * School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester. I M I G 7 5 7 B Dispatch: 20.3.12 Journal: IMIG CE: Blackwell Journal Name Manuscript No. Author Received: No. of pages: 6 PE: Leons Ó 2012 The Author Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., International Migration Ó 2012 IOM 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK, International Migration and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. ISSN 0020-7985 doi:10.1111/j.1468-2435.2012.00757.x 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50