Why do people do stuff? Reconceptualizing remittance behaviour in diaspora-development research and policy

Attempts by policy-makers to encourage diasporas to engage in development in the Global South rely on conceptions of behaviour drawn from economics that emphasize individual choice, stimuli and motivations. This article argues that diasporas are better understood as ‘communities of practice’ in which actions are conceptualized as part of a wider social system based on embodied knowledge acquired through socialization, technology and the habituation of particular lifestyles. Using social theories of practice to analyze remittances draws attention to the symptomatic silences of dominant theorizations of behaviour. Existing theorizations underpin, and thereby uncritically endorse, potentially unsustainable development policies based on remittances. The alternative approach presented here opens up new areas for policy and research based on medium to long-term changes in the socio-technical remittance regime.