Social Remittances: Migration Driven Local-Level Forms of Cultural Diffusion

Abstract

"Many studies highlight the macro-level dissemination of global culture and institutions. This article focuses on social remittances--a local-level, migration-driven form of cultural diffusion. Social remittances are the ideas, behaviors, identities, and social capital that flow from receiving- to sending-country communities. The role that these resources play in promoting immigrant entrepreneurship, community and family formation, and political integration is widely acknowledged. This article specifies how these same ideas and practices are remolded in receiving countries, the mechanisms by which they are sent back to sending communities, and the role they play in transforming sending-country social and political life." The data concern migrants from the Dominican Republic to the Boston area of the United States.

An Analysis of the Incomes and Current Personal Transfers of Hungarians Living Abroad

“…While the bulk of analyses focused on the monetary and financial impacts of inflowing funds, their non-financial and in-kind forms are just as significant. Levitt's (1998) paper shed light on the significance of the cultural and social impacts of migration. The "transfer" of non-financial and in-kind benefits may have a significant impact on social development through numerous areas such as education, healthcare, gender equality or the brain gain.…”

A külföldön élő magyarok jövedelmeinek és folyó átutalásainak elemzése

“…Miközben az elemzések többsége a beérkező pénzösszegek monetáris-pénzügyi hatásait vizsgálja, azok nem-anyagi és természetbeni formáinak is legalább akkora jelentősége van. Levitt (1998) tanulmánya rámutatott a migráció kulturális és szociális hatásainak jelentőségére. A nem-anyagi és természetbeni javak "átutalásának" jelentős hatása lehet a társadalom fejlődésére számos olyan területen keresztül, mint például az oktatás, az egészségügy vagy a nemek közötti egyenlőség, illetve a külföldön megszerzett tudás importálása (brain gain).…”

Multi‐sited accumulation of capital: Cape Verdean returnees and small‐scale business

“…A disadvantage inherent in the concept of social remittances is that its close relationship to economic remittances conjures up an image of a reified one-way flow of 'things' (Boccagni and Decimo 2013). Levitt's early studies of social remittances (Levitt 1998(Levitt , 2001) describe them as transferred only from the countries of destination to the countries of return. Later, however, Levitt and Lamba-Nieves (2011) adopt a more dynamic perspective by maintaining that social remittances do not travel one way but continuously circulate in transnational social fields.…”