Migration, Remittances and Development: Constructing Colombian Migrants as Transnational Financial Subjects Gisela P. Zapata Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University. October 2011 Abstract In recent years, remittances have been hailed as potential drivers of economic development in migrant-sending countries. Over four million Colombians (around 10% of Colombia‘s population) reside abroad and the UK is their second most favoured destination in Europe. Approximately 100,000 Colombians live and work in London and, in turn, the UK is the fourth biggest source of remittances to Colombia. In recent years, the Colombian Government has introduced policies to make their citizens abroad an integral part of a reconstituted definition of the Colombian nation. It has sought to render migrants as agents of economic development by channelling their remittances towards ‗productive investment‘. The main component of this investment is mortgage-financed housing. To this end, the government has promoted ‗Mi casa con remesas‘, a model of housing finance for people who receive remittances periodically from their family members abroad, and sponsored housing/property fairs for Colombian migrants in their main cities of destination in the global north: Madrid, London, New York and Miami. This thesis situates the Colombian government‘s narratives around the use of remittances to finance housing investment within broader discourses of development and neoliberalism and the strategies and experiences of accessing housing articulated by Colombian migrants in London and their households in the Coffee Region of Colombia. Based on empirical data collected at both ends of the migration network, it argues that the conception of migrants as agents of development – and hence as transnational financial subjects – is tightly linked to wider attempts at the institutionalisation of the transnational social field. These attempts are embedded in ideologically-driven discourses of citizenship that privilege financial markets as the medium for individuals‘ and households‘ socioeconomic reproduction. Furthermore, they displace the responsibility for economic development from the state to its citizens (at home and abroad) and bring to the fore investment as the preferred mechanism for the ‗proper‘ use of remittances and through which migrant households‘ connection to broader circuits of capital and finance can be exploited. Although housing is a growing component of remittances expenditure, for the most part, Colombians in London are not embracing their newly-assigned financial subjectivities but are instead using alternative channels for housing acquisition and financing. II To my mother / Para mi mamá, Cielo III Acknowledgements First I would like to thank the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology and the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at Newcastle University for giving me a scholarship to embark on this journey. I would also like to thank all the other institutions that believed in this research and provided funding for its completion: the Society for Latin American Studies, the Dudley Stamp Memorial Fund and the Developing Areas Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society, the New Economic Geographies Research Group and the Santander International Exchange Scheme at Newcastle University. I am very grateful to my supervisors, Nina D. Laurie and Jane S. Pollard, for guiding me through my journey into the wonderful world of Human Geography. Their critical eye and different but wonderfully complimentary perspectives have greatly enriched this thesis. I have tremendous gratitude to all the Colombian migrants in London and their families in Colombia, who so generously gave me their time and shared a part of their lives with me. I admire their courage and resilience and without them, this research would simply have not been possible. I am indebted to the Latin American migrant organisations in London that kindly embraced my research and allowed me to be part of their world. I thank the Human Mobility Group in Colombia for their warm hospitality and friendship and for providing me a space to work during my time in the Coffee Region. I am especially grateful to William Mejía for his brilliant wit, valuable insights and intellectual input. I thank my colleagues and friends in Newcastle for sharing their ideas, tricks, laughs and meals with me during these four years. A big thanks to all my friends scattered throughout the world for understanding my long silences and giving me encouragement from afar. Gracias/Obrigada to my family in Colombia and Brazil for their unconditional love and support from the other side of the Atlantic. I am especially grateful to my father and my brother, Eudes, for their relentless reminders to keep pushing forward and my nieces, for inspiring me to set a good example. Last but not least, I want to thank my husband, Cesar, for believing in me and always being there for me. I could not have done this without you: my love, partner and companion in work and play, amazing cook and editor in-chief. IV Table of Contents 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 1.1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1 1.2. Research Questions .................................................................................................... 4 1.3. Thesis Overview .......................................................................................................... 4 2. Migrants as Agents of Development: Financial Subjectivities, Transnational Processes and the Political Economy of Housing ......................................................... 6 2.1. Construction of subjectivities under neoliberalism ....................................................... 7 2.2. Subjectivities, financialisation and transnational migrant flows .................................. 12 2.3. Migrants as agents of development: a critical genealogy ........................................... 15 2.4. Framing migrants‘ transnational practices ................................................................. 19 2.4.1. Migrant Transnationalism: current scholarship ..................................................... 20 2.4.2. Defining migrant transnationalism ........................................................................ 21 2.4.3. Transnational social field: geographical scale ...................................................... 23 2.4.4. Transnational family: social unit of analysis ......................................................... 25 2.5. Institutionalising the transnational field ...................................................................... 27 2.6. Remittances, housing policy and development .......................................................... 30 2.6.1. Development discourses and the political economy of housing policy in Latin America ......................................................................................................................... 31 2.6.2. Housing: from consumption item to driver of economic growth ............................ 32 2.6.3. Political and economic significance of the housing sector .................................... 33 2.7. Concluding remarks .................................................................................................. 36 3. Migration, Remittances and the State: Situating Colombia in the Latin American and Global Contexts ..................................................................................... 37 3.1. Brief history of migration from Colombia .................................................................... 37 3.1.1. The great wave of migration of the 1990s: socioeconomic and political context ... 39 3.1.2. Migration from Colombia: current trends .............................................................. 42 3.2. Colombian migration to the UK .................................................................................. 44 3.2.1. Colombians in London: socioeconomic profile ..................................................... 48 3.2.2. Colombians in London: transnational practices .................................................... 51 3.3. The remittances market: an overview ........................................................................ 53 3.3.1. Remittances: the global context ........................................................................... 53 3.3.2. Remittances: the Latin American context ............................................................. 54 3.3.3. Remittances: a view from Colombia ..................................................................... 59 3.4. Migration and remittances: framing the state response .............................................. 62 3.5. Concluding remarks .................................................................................................. 65 V 4. Methodology: Tracing Migrants’ Transnational Practices along the Geography of the Migration Network ............................................................................................... 67 4.1. Why I decided to study Colombian migration to the UK ............................................. 67 4.2. Methodological Approach .......................................................................................... 69 4.2.1 Positionality: a critical