Beyond Financializing Migrant Remittance: Transnational Family, Remittance and Belonging

The United Nations celebrates 16 June as the International Day of Family Remittances to commemorate the tremendous financial contribution that migrants make to their families in their origin countries. Conceptualizing remittance as a potential alternative source of development funding for origin countries in the Global South, migration and development scholars, the UN, and other global financial organizations highlight how to reduce remittance transfer costs to enhance its potential development impacts. What remains understudied is how remittance affects migrants’ family dynamics both in the origin and destination countries. This paper explores the relational aspects of migrants’ remittance as a transnational act. It begins by conceptualizing the migrant traveling abroad as an essential family member who maintains their belonging to the family through sending remittance. Then, it looks at the life trajectory of the migrant and their family to observe generational transformations leading to the dissolution of the parental family into joining families of siblings and the separating nuclear family. It recognizes how migrants’ remittance shapes and is shaped by these transformations within the family. Finally, it offers some policy recommendations for the developmental impacts of migrant remittance as it is embedded in the context of transnational family dynamics.