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    Migration-as-development repackaged? The globalizing imperative of the Singaporean state’s diaspora strategies


    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

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    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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