In this lecture, Dr. Mahmud will discuss the developmental impacts of migrant remittances with a particular emphasis on migrant agency and the role of the state in both the sending and receiving countries. He will begin with an overview of scholarly understanding of migrant transnationalism to show how cross-border movements are embedded in both migrant networks and government policies and practices regarding migrants. He will then analyze his past and recent empirical studies on the remittance practices among Bangladeshi migrants in Japan, Qatar, and the US to demonstrate how migrants' transnationalism is conditioned by diasporic networks and the state. He will conclude by shedding light on how migrants (i.e., agency) and the state (i.e., institutional structures) interact to shape individual's action (e.g., migrant remittance).
Dr. Hasan Mahmud is Assistant Professor in residence at Northwestern University in Qatar. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California Los Angeles, an M.A. in Global Studies from Sophia University in Tokyo, and a B.A. degree in Sociology from the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh. His teaching and research interests include sociology of development, international migration, radicalization and identity politics, and global ethnography. One of his major scholarly undertakings is to develop a sociological approach to studying migrants' remittances. He has published in academic journals, such as Sociological Perspectives, Current Sociology, International Social Science Journal, Migration & Development, and Contemporary Justice Review. He is the co-editor (with Dr. Min Zhou) of Beyond Economic Migration: Historical, Social, and Political Factors in US Immigration (New York University Press, 2023) and is currently working on a book manuscript on migrant remittances.
This public webinar is presented in conjunction with the UCLA winter course "Asian Community: Border-Crossing, Diasporic Formation, and Social Transformation in the Asian World" (Sociology M139 / Asian American Studies M179), with generous funding from the Eurasia Foundation (from Asia).