The Migration and Development Prism: A Lens on Vulnerabilities and Capabilities

The inexorable link between migration and development is paradoxically both taken for granted and a challenging puzzle. Describing interdependent dynamic processes, the study of both offers opportunities to theorize and observe social change. The body of knowledge that has come to include studies of both migration and development has enriched the individual fields of migration and development. In the development field, concerned with the processes that underlie economic growth or contribute to improved livelihoods, adding a migration focus has broadened observations about development to include those about vulnerability and security, for example. A migration lens on the development process also reveals the presence of social networks and the selectivity of behaviors and events. In both cases, such observations have enriched our understanding of development processes. The same epistemological process is at work when migration scholars consider development in relation to migration. A development lens means attention to the institutions that regulate the production of goods and services and the related distributional processes. The migration of populations and experiences of migrants elucidate both the potentialities and vulnerabilities that accompany development and globalization, while simultaneously introducing a new conceptualization of class.