This book critically and succinctly examines recent changes in land ownership, mobility and livelihoods in various Pacific island states, from East Timor to the Solomon Islands, where climate change, environmental change (including hazards of various origins), population growth and urbanization have contributed to new tensions and discords and resulted in complex structures of migration and resettlement. This has brought new and varied experiences of income and livelihood generation, and consequent reinterpretations of ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’. In a series of detailed case studies this book traces various responses to such socio-economic changes both in how they are locally envisaged, as pressures on land have intensified, urban informal settlements and livelihoods have expanded and perceptions of identity and property rights have changed, and in national development policy responses. It offers valuable reflections on the complex balance between continuity and change, the tensions between social and economic development, the will to develop and the management of dissent and difference. This book was published as a special issue of Australian Geographer.

Through the prism of a Nepali remittance village, this book critically examines poverty and livelihood dynamics remade through transnational labour migration and remittances, and their interrelationships with land, rural labour and agriculture. The concept of The Remittance Village emphasises rural people’s transnational mobilities as a key feature of contemporary dynamics in many parts of the Global South, which are reconfiguring rural social, economic and ecological textures. Sunam challenges complacent linear narratives that assume new opportunities such as transnational migration, and remittances provide better pathways for the rural poor to come out of poverty, as well as narratives that understate the importance of land and farming for the rural poor. He demonstrates both that new opportunities are inaccessible for many poor people and that accessing these opportunities often engenders increased precarity and vulnerability. In The Remittance Village, he finds that even those accessing new opportunities are successful only when their household member(s) are simultaneously engaged in in-situ (non-)agricultural activities. This book is a valuable resource for scholars and students from a range of interdisciplinary backgrounds, including human geography, anthropology of development, and sociology. It is also recommended reading for policy makers, international development agencies and I/NGOs working on rural development in the Global South. Chapter 3 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Using case-studies from those who have moved either transnationally or internally within their own country, international contributors offer various definitions of what it means to make a living on the move.

Population growth, urbanization and environmental change have contributed to new tensions and discords and complex structures of land ownership, migration and resettlement in Pacific island states. This book examines how local people have responded and negotiated changes in seeking to achieve and manage effective and sustainable livelihoods. This book was published as a special sisue of Australian Geographer.

This paper reviews the literature on migration within and from rural areas of Southeast Asia to examine the effects of redistribution of labor and remittances on livelihoods and land-use practices, as well as contexts in which migration drives, yet is also driven by, social and environmental change. Gaps in the literature and areas of contention and debate are highlighted, informing an agenda for further research. Many studies approach ways in which labor dynamics and remittances to rural villages affect agricultural productivity among migrant-sending households, or compensate for lost labor by supporting household consumption, but the reality is often found to be a combination of both on the basis of immediate priorities. Perceived returns to investments in both monetary and labor terms are critical to how migration influences household land-use decisions, while initially profitable investments and conducive local conditions are seen to enable successive enhancement and diversification of livelihoods. Overall, the expansive literature relating to migration and development often alludes to, yet stops short of, directly examining migration and remittance effects on land and forest cover change. The literature on land-use change often overlooks or briefly references migration, but migration rarely forms the central point of enquiry. Understanding of the linkages between migration and land-use can be strengthened through spatially situated studies in different geographical settings. Such studies would be better positioned to inform policies relating to land-use, agriculture and forestry in rural regions of Southeast Asia, where multi-local livelihoods are increasingly entwined with globalized processes, including those driving environmental changes that such policies seek to govern.

Argues that policies should aim to support migration and recognize the centrality of migration for the households' livelihoods. Based on a description of the complex composition of migration streams; the effects of migration; and the idea of migration as a social process

This book critically and succinctly examines recent changes in land ownership, mobility and livelihoods in various Pacific island states, from East Timor to the Solomon Islands, where climate change, environmental change (including hazards of various origins), population growth and urbanization have contributed to new tensions and discords and resulted in complex structures of migration and resettlement. This has brought new and varied experiences of income and livelihood generation, and consequent reinterpretations of 'modernity' and 'tradition'. In a series of detailed case studies this book traces various responses to such socio-economic changes both in how they are locally envisaged, as pressures on land have intensified, urban informal settlements and livelihoods have expanded and perceptions of identity and property rights have changed, and in national development policy responses. It offers valuable reflections on the complex balance between continuity and change, the tensions between social and economic development, the will to develop and the management of dissent and difference. This book was published as a special issue of Australian Geographer.

Circular migration has become the enduring mobility pattern of the poor in agriculturally marginal areas of India. This volume deals with millions of unskilled and semiskilled poor who migrate away from the rural region in search of jobs that are mostly in the informal organized sector. It studies migration using different conceptual frameworks intended to provide coherence across the studies in order to draw out policy conclusions. With case studies pulled together from some of the poorest and most deprived parts of India, this volume shows how important migration has become in sustaining and improving rural livelihoods.

How do people survive and thrive in the uncertain and risk-prone Sahel? Land, Investment, and Migration seeks to answer this question through a long-term study of the people of Dlonguébougou in Central Mali. It uses a combination of infographics, satellite images, interviews, and survey data to present the strategies and fortunes of individuals and their families in this region over 35 years. In the early 1980s Camilla Toulmin spent two years in Dlonguébougou. She has since revisited to explore how climate change, population growth, new technologies, and land-grabs have been affecting the livelihoods and prospects of local people since. Land, Investment, and Migration: Thirty-five Years of Village Life in Mali brings together her findings. A trebling in population, unpredictable rainfall, and the arrival of Chinese investment have forced people into new ways of making ends meet and building up wealth - some doing much better than others. This book presents the search for new cash incomes, the shift of people from village to town, and the erosion of collective solidarity at household and village levels. Land, Investment, and Migration presents a mixed picture of a changing society. It shows the vibrancy of the village economy, rapid uptake of mobile phones and solar panels, and increased migration. It also shows the persistence of large family structures which offer some protection from the risks that many villagers face.

This book discusses migration and space-spanning social network relationships as normal realities of life in African societies. It offers an overview of the research landscape and introduces an agency-centered theoretical model that provides a conceptual framework for translocality. The authors Malte Steinbrink and Hannah Niedenführ plead for a translocal approach to social transformation, showing how the translocality of livelihoods is shaping the lives of half a billion people on the continent and impacting local conditions. Using an action-oriented approach, the book analyzes the effects of translocal livelihoods on diverse aspects of economic, environmental and social change in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. The study thus makes an innovative contribution not only to migration research and development studies but also to the discussion around the policy and practice of development cooperation and planning. It is time to rethink development in light of translocal realities. The book appeals to scholars and researchers in geography, sociology, policy-making and planning, development studies, migration research and rural development.