The potential of migrants to promote poverty reduction and development in their regions of origin – which is generally referred to as the ‘migration and development nexus’ – is a hot topic on the development agenda. Several seminars on this issue have recently been held, such as the 2006...

This article aims to show that the benefits of international migration (often presented as a ‘global flow’) very much depend on the <em>positionality</em> of the areas involved, as well as the regional particularities. It is argued that countries producing south-north migration or diasporic states...