How Immigrants Impact Their Homelands

"Despite the breathless attention focused on how immigrants affect countries of destination, their influence on countries of origin is often more profound. Susan Eva Eckstein and Adil Najam offer a welcome corrective to this one-sidedness and move beyond the clichéd notions of both left and right. Drawing on work by the world's leading scholars of immigration, they reveal international migration to be neither a panacea nor a curse, but a basic component of globalization that can be turned to good or ill depending on decisions taken in sending and receiving nations and the actions of immigrants themselves. This collection is essential reading for those wishing to move beyond ideology and develop a fuller understanding of the place of international migration in the world today." - Douglas S. Massey, Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University

"In a welcome look at the flip side of immigration, How Immigrants Impact Their Homelands shows how emigration is not as simple as it looks. This book is an important reminder that economic and cultural remittances affect the home country for better or for worse, from needed investments to new models of behavior—mimicked or mocked—to AIDS." - Nancy L. Green, coeditor of Citizenship and Those Who Leave: The Politics of Emigration and Expatriation

“The book will interest demographers, but faculty interested in development, globalization, and transnationalization will find the contributions to be valuable. Bringing together these studies expands the conceptual and practical importance of migration for global society. . . . Highly recommended.” - A. A. Hickey, Choice

“[T]his book will appeal to students interested in populations, labour markets, and the everyday realities of migration…. This is a rich area for investigation.” - Anthony Oruna-Goriaïnoff, LSE Review of Books

"These well-written and highly accessible case studies will be of use to both academics and students, and together grant an enriched understanding of the witting, and unwitting, consequences of migration. The wide-reaching discussions allow for sections of this collection to be utilised in a range of student courses from globalisation, transnational non-state actors and international global economy." - Samantha May, Social Anthropology

"[A] useful collection of case studies that shifts our focus from what happens in receiving nations to what is happening in the sending ones. This includes the effects of money, but also some of the less conspicuous outcomes. Ultimately, the book is convincing that remittances warrant more attention. It also prompts us to imagine a more humane kind of migration." - Alex Trillo, Contemporary Sociology