ABSTRACT
Migration has been a central part of human development and yet traditional accounts of migration and development typically focus on its contemporary history. Instead, this chapter examines three ways in which the relationship between migration and development has been historically interpreted by a range of different actors through three faces: Nation building, neoliberalism, and multilateralism. The first face examines how migration policies have been used to define who belongs to a nation, while also harnessing immigrants as economic resources domestically and emigrants as a resource abroad. The second face considers how the responsibility for development was shifted away from the state through the reframing of migrants as agents of development and the prioritization of economic concerns, such as domestic labor market needs and diaspora engagement policies. The third face examines the appropriation of the migration and development discourse by international organizations to expand the scope of cooperation on migration at the global level. This chapter describes the long history of migration and development within the context of state formation, nation building, neoliberal reforms, and multilateral cooperation.
