Unsettling the migration and development narrative. A Latin American critical perspective

Abstract

AbstractThe efforts to build an institutional framework for the governance of migration followed a complex and uncertain route. Since 2006, these efforts—which culminated in the adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Secure Migration in 2018—focused on the relationship between migration and development in an attempt to avoid the negative connotations surrounding human mobility, particularly across the North‐South divide. At the heart of the debates is an attempt to reconcile two irreconcilable positions: a human‐rights centred approach and the securitization question which reaffirms the right of states to criminalize migrants under the façade of the right of states to control “illegal” migration. The aim of this paper is to delve into these issues by upsetting the migration and development hegemonic narrative from an alternative perspective rooted in the critical Latin American development school of thought.