The financialization of remittances: governing through emotions

Abstract

In the context of the global financial crisis, remittances have become linked to the global financial inclusion agenda in a phenomenon called the ‘financialization of remittances’ (FOR). This article conceptualizes the FOR as a dispositif to analyze how heterogeneous ways of linking remittances to finance form an ensemble that governs things and people and legitimizes particular policy interventions. We combine the concept of the dispositif with insights from the literature on emotions to analyze how the FOR governs through an emotional regime to constitute particular objects and subjects—such as the ‘remittance market’ and the ‘remittance family’. Through this emotional regime, the FOR establishes particular narratives regarding migration, remittances, and transnational families to embed remittances in the global financial architecture; and normalizes practices of turning transnational families into financial customers and entrepreneurs, and entrenching financial logics into their lives. Yet, emotions are also mobilized to subvert and resist the FOR and its emotional regime. More broadly, our analysis suggests that analyzing emotional governance is crucial to better understand financialization processes and expose their (fragile) nature and limits.