Migration and creation of non-state actors: empowerment versus mobilisation in the development process

The paper discusses some of the theoretical issues surrounding the relationship between migration and development as it has been theorized in the last decades. It falls into two parts. The first offers a critical examination of the dominant approach to the subject, arguing for the construction of a new ‘narrative’ forged by the most important international organizations (WB, WTO, IOM, IMF). The attempt is to show how this narrative become a construction-in-process of a power domain on the reproduction of the global labour force, by establishing a positive link between ‘economic’ migration and development. As such, it is a new way of reaffirming the paradigm of modernization. The second part offers a different point of view. It intends to demonstrate that migrants’ self-organization is a field of activity capable of generating different visions of social development. The attempt is to outline how the praxis of self-empowerment permits to draw theoretical implications for the notion of grassroots political transformation.