Social Organizational Obstacles to Capital Accumulation Among Returning Migrants: The British West Indies Temporary Alien Labor Program

Abstract

Recent research on return migration has undermined the idea that international labor migration serves as a vehicle for economic development in labor-sending countries. This has led to the ascendance of a view of international labor migration as yet another form of exploitation of poor nations by wealthy nations, as migrants fail to accumulate capital enough to free themselves and their replacement generations from the migrant stream. This paper examines Jamaicans who migrate to the U.S. seasonally and annually to harvest sugar cane in south Florida and apples in the Northeast. It compares their capital holdings and primary economic activities in Jamaica with other Jamaicans who have not had the opportunity to migrate to the U.S. to work. These comparisons reveal few significant differences between the migrant and non-migrant groups and suggest that seasonal migration to the U.S. generally does not result in capital accumulation among the returning migrants. The lack of capital accumulation among the majority of the migrants is then explained by reference to their temporal and structural positions within and between peasant households in Jamaica, and their obligations to those households. Also discussed are those cases of migrants who, as the households to which they are obligated change over time, have been able to accumulate small-scale capital with their U.S. earnings. This paper contributes to the refinement of the use of the household as a unit of analysis in international labor migration studies.