by Immanuel Ness

For several decades, wealthy states, international development agencies, and multinational corporations have encouraged labour migration from the Global South to the Global North. The remittances that migrants send home have been touted as the most promising means of national development for poor and undeveloped countries.

But as Ness argues in this sharp corrective, temporary labour migration represents the most recent form of economic imperialism and global domination. Remittances deepen economic exploitation, unravel societal stability, and significantly expand economic inequality between poor and rich societies. Migration as Economic Imperialism exposes the damaging effects of migration on origin countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America; and how border and security mechanisms control and marginalize low-wage migrant workers, especially women and youth.

272 pages

September 2023

Polity