Finance, technology & displacement: towards a research agenda

Martin, L; Harker, C; (2020)

This paper asks how people finance life when displaced, as a precursor to building pathways to more inclusive and sustainable prosperity on the move. The approach taken seeks to examine both lived experiences of displacement and the actors, institutions and technologies shaping those lives. The paper selectively reviews existing literatures to explore two key foci: (1) the role that various technologies play in financing movement and (2) the obligatory relationships through which people make life on the move. The argument is structured around a series of problemsolution dyads through which finance and technology are presumed to solve displacement’s problems: Governing displacement through outsourcing and offshoring; Governing the movement of money through legislation and data mining; Managing displaced people through financialization and techno-humanitarianism; Capitalizing (on) mobility networks through remittances and mobile money. The paper then examines potential methods for exploring these topics, before concluding with a set of key questions for future research.

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