The Geopolitics of Immigrant Remittances: Comparative Prospects from Northern Africa and Northern India

International audienceThe recent literature on immigrant philanthropy and hometown associations has documented the surge on transnational involvement into homeland development. Various categories of diaspora organizations, from informal hometown networks to established immigrant associations, are engaged in development projects in their respective homeland such as the building of schools and health centres or village electrification. And yet, beyond the general observation of a development turn in transnational practices, a closer examination shows that the scope, forms and domain of engagement of immigrant organizations vary a great deal. The literature accounts for this difference on the ground of economic and cultural parameters or of the power relationships between emigrants and villagers. By contrast, little attention has been paid on the bearings of the geopolitical inscription of beneficiary areas in their broader national and international context. And yet, many of these areas are or have undergone tense, and at times, violent, relationships with the central government. Drawing on a comparative study between three groups (the Algerian Kabyles and the Moroccan Chleuhs settled in France and the Indian Sikhs living in Britain), it shows how recent decentralisation policies have converted long standing autonomist policies into a local development dynamics with strong political underpinnings