Development practitioners worldwide increasingly recognize the importance of informal institutions-such as norms of cooperation, non-discrimination, or the role of community oversight in the management of investment activities-in affecting well-being, poverty, and even economic growth. There has...

"This paper addresses two vital concerns in the debate on adaptation to climate change. First, how can countries prepare to manage the impact of climate-change induced natural disasters? Second, how can countries ensure that they have the governmental institutions required to manage the...

This book re-evaluates the importance of social policies in shaping well-being and combating exclusion, and enhances understanding of how these policies are formed in a globalizing world. It emphasises the context- and path-dependence of patterns and policies of inclusion and exclusion, and...

This introductory essay and collection concern the social processes within which migration for manual work is located and which are influenced by that same migration. Writing from detailed empirical studies of migration in South and South-east Asia and Africa, the contributors provide...

Whereas other contributions in this volume focus on contemporary migration, this article explores the role migration has played over a long period of time, in western Bihar, India. By doing so, it reinforces one of the central themes in this volume, regarding the importance of migration for...

Migration is a common and essential livelihood strategy in the risk-prone environment of Sahelian West Africa. But migration is not a passive reaction to economic and environmental forces. Patterns of movement are determined by context-specific and complex dynamics, mediated by social networks,...