Transnational Economic Spaces, Moral Economy, and Remittances.

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When studying remittances, one needs to integrae the micro dynamics of remittances while equally shining a spotlight on the entire macro flow. Both levels can be combined in a spatial perspecitive on economic spaces that emerge out of the flow of remittances. Processes of deterritorialization as well as of reterritorialization thus nourish, complement, and even conflict with each other in the provision of remittances. Two aspects of this observation are crucial for our project, in order to reach emerging transnational economic spatial formats: firstly, on a micro level, moral economies between migrants and their families at home evolve, which combine translocal and transnational scales of social action. These moral economies, as will be discussed in more detail in this paper, are complex fields of negotiation and a particular socioeconomic ensemble. They are dominated by reciprocal patterns of communication, moral obligations, the struggle for social recognition, as well as feelings of guild and shame. These moral economies are a building block of an emerging transnational economic space, since they evolve out of their underlying contradiction between a tendency towards transnationalization and the maintenance of localized influence. Secondly, and on a macro level, these moral economies form part of an arising transnational economic space, which transgresses traditional modes of institutionalization, control, and governance. This transnational economic space extends from peripheral economies of today’s Global South well into developed economies in the Global North.

Warnecke-Berger, H. (2017). Transnational Economic Spaces, Moral Economy, and Remittances. Leipziger Universitätsverlag.

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