The country of residence and migrant transnationalism: How do opportunity structures in countries of residence affect transnational attitudes and behaviour of migrant organisations from the African Great Lakes region?

Van Houte, Marieke; Perrin, Nathalie and Orrnert, Anna (2012). The country of residence and migrant transnationalism: How do opportunity structures in countries of residence affect transnational attitudes and behaviour of migrant organisations from the African Great Lakes region? In: Halm, Dirk and Zeynep, Sezgin eds. Migration and Organised Civil Society: Rethinking National Policy. The Routledge/ECPR Studies in European Political Science series. London: Routledge, pp. 113–133.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203103821-10

Abstract

The worldwide increase in civil conflicts has led to massive flows of forced migrants. Most of them relocate within the country or within the region, while only a fraction of them reach overseas (Western) countries. Those overseas forced migrants are considered “functional elites” (Zunzer 2004), as they are often highly educated, relatively wealthy and strongly networked. As a result of the increased numbers and the perceived “quality” of overseas forced migrants, academic and public debates now look at forced migrant communities in Western countries as new actors of peace building and development in their country of origin. However, studies point out that they can use their skills, networks and financial assets to influence processes of peace building and development in the country of origin in both positive and negative ways (Koser and Van Hear 2003; Mohamoud 2006).

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