Abstract

MARQUEZ COVARRUBIAS, Humberto. Desarrollo y migración: una lectura desde la economía política crítica. Migr. desarro [online]. 2010, vol.8, n.14, pp.59-87. ISSN 1870-7599.

By deconstructing dominant views of migration, this article posits new theoretical elements with which to question the role played by this phenomenon in neoliberal capitalist expansion. Critical development studies serve to outline an analytical model that links unequal development to forced migration and remittances. I argue that neoliberalization entails an unsustainable social regime that excludes wide sectors of the population from production and consumption processes, tramples basic human rights, and destroys social subjects. Reproductive life cycles in societies of origin are fractured and forced migration becomes an expression of the permanent social crisis. Consequently, most of the migrant labor force-which is cheap, flexible and disorganized-works in conditions of superexploitation. A fraction of earned salaries takes the form of remittances that, far from comprising processes of development, merely ensure the subsistence of financial dependents in places of origin.

Keywords : unequal development; forced migration; remittances; political economy of migration; critical development studies.

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