ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the ideas, strategies and political practices of migrant communities and conceptualises them as political – and potentially democratic – remittances. The term ‘political remittances’ encompasses migrants’ political attitudes, political activism abroad as well as engagement after return to the countries of origin and, more largely, diasporic circulation of material and immaterial goods with a distinctive political dimension caused by migration. These remittances can be seen as democratic with regards to their content but the distribution of them can be seen as an act of democratic practice that reaches beyond the nation-state. Developing the deterritorialised perspectives from the previous chapters of Keane and Bayeh, political remittances are seen as another act or expression of dual and simultaneous de- and reterritorialisation. As borders are being transgressed and new transnational political units established, forms of deterritorialisation, these acts are often directed simultaneously to country of origin and destination, thereby reterritorialising the actions of a diaspora or migrant community. This reterritorialisation is taking place at specific locations in which migrations reside and organise diaspora activism which is reaching beyond national boundaries. Using findings gathered during extensive fieldwork focused on transnational, regional and global political participation and activism, this chapter aims to map the manifold forms and interplays of democratic remittances and, in a second step, to discuss how these levels might be interconnected. It chooses an actor-centred perspective to concentrate on how migrants can influence a variety of democratisation processes, moving from the individual to the global level.
