This chapter examines the evolving architecture of digital remittances and diaspora finance in Africa, situating these flows within the broader framework of continental economic integration under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). With remittance inflows to Africa exceeding $96 billion in 2024, the chapter analyses how digital transfer technologies, blockchain-based platforms, and mobile money innovations are reshaping the cost structure, speed, and transparency of cross-border payments. It evaluates the persistent challenge of high transaction costs in Sub-Saharan African corridors and the role of FinTech disruptors in narrowing the gap toward the Sustainable Development Goal target of 3%. The chapter further explores diaspora investment channels, including diaspora bonds and equity platforms, and assesses their potential for productive capital mobilisation aligned with AfCFTA investment priorities. The chapter concludes with recommendations for integrating diaspora finance into continental development strategies.
Abstract Cryptocurrency remittances overcome many regulatory and practical barriers, but there is little empirical research into this increasingly popular remittance medium. In response, this article explores cryptocurrency remittances from Latin America and the Caribbean into Venezuela. Cryptocurrencies as a remittance medium conveys important messages for advocates and critics. To appropriately critique cryptocurrencies, it is important to understand how they are used in the ‘every day’ rather than how their use may be characterised by ideologues. Rather than directly relying on ‘trustless’ and decentralised blockchain technology, ‘really existing’ cryptocurrency remittances are highly intermediated. Access to this medium is often hierarchical, stemming from knowledge barriers but also legal status (and by extension, economic status). The ‘need’ for trusted intermediaries prompts discussions around the relationship between ‘trustless’ blockchain technology and cryptocurrency remittances. This article shows that stablecoins (cryptocurrencies pegged to fiat currencies—usually the US dollar) are the most popular cryptocurrency remittance medium. Stablecoins challenge institutional attempts to geographically restrict currencies, yet also contribute to global processes of dollarisation. This is important to understanding how stablecoins simultaneously undermine spatial barriers to financial access yet may create new ones in the process.
This paper asks why startups in the blockchain industry are exiting to Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), an outstanding phenomena in the wider digital economy which has tended to retain centralized ownership and governance rights of many platforms, products and protocols. Drawing on a narrative analysis of three case studies, I find three possible drivers: (1) exit to DAO is motivated by both financial and stewardship goals which it simultaneously promises to realize via the issuance of tokens; (2) exit to DAO adds an additional layer of ownership and governance rights via tokens, without requiring existing rights to be relinquished, thus making it a lucrative strategy; and (3) markets, laws and social norms underpinning the broader environment in which exits to DAO occur, seem to play an important role in driving the decision. This paper contributes to the academic literature by situating DAOs as a hybrid (and perhaps incomplete) entrepreneurial exit strategy and identifying plausible drivers of the phenomenon which warrant further dedicated research.
E-diasporas are communities of diaspora members utilizing digital technologies and data platforms to establish connections among themselves and with their homelands.In response to the pandemic, governments worldwide have intensified efforts to reinforce e-diasporas.However, these endeavours often rely on social media extractivist Big Tech platforms, which are referred to as 'hyperconnected diasporas' in this article.This trend potentially poses a threat to institutional trust and data privacy.This article introduces HanHemen (ThereHere in Basque language, Euskera), an ongoing action research-driven e-diaspora platform facilitated by the Basque Government.HanHemen aims to ensure data privacy through experimentation with blockchain technologies and co-production with endusers via DAOs.This article reveals findings from an online survey completed by 419 Basque diasporic citizens (N = 1,385), who demonstrated support for digital nomadism (62%) and expressed concerns about data privacy (84%).These findings highlight the need to overcome the mainstream 'hyperconnected diaspora' trend through HanHemen.
E-diasporas are networks driven by human agency, connecting digital citizens to their home countries and diasporic fellows through digital tools. In contrast, Hyperconnected Diasporas (HD) are data-driven networks engaged in extractive activities, often employed for government (para)diplomacy, heavily relying on social media extractivist data-opolies or Big Tech platforms. This article examines the impact of disruptive technologies on e-diasporas in the context of data extractivism, particularly stemming from HD. The article pursues a dual objective: (i) reviewing existing literature and comparing five disruptive technologies—Blockchain, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), Data Cooperatives, Metaverse, and ChatGPT—in sustaining e-diasporas as networks driven by human agency, and (ii) scrutinizing associated opportunities and risks, including challenges to institutional trust and data privacy arising from HD. The study seeks to elucidate how these technologies may either hinder or exacerbate the impacts of HD on e-diasporas, characterized by their human-driven nature. The article begins with an introduction to HD, followed by a literature review on e-diasporas. Methodologically, it presents a comparative analysis of the five disruptive technologies concerning the research question and discusses their implications for e-diasporic communities, concluding with final remarks.
This paper critically examines the implications of ‘self-sovereign identity’ (SSI) for border politics and migration management. SSI refers to user-controlled, decentralised forms of digital identification. Closely linked with the distributed ledger technology blockchain, SSI is presented by advocates as a tool to empower marginalised groups, including refugees. Among other benefits, some claim that SSI removes the need for powerful, centralised institutional structures by giving individuals control and ownership of their identity information. However, through ethnographic research in an international aid organisation, I find that SSI is an embryonic technology with indeterminate properties and benefits. I identify a series of competing logics in the debates around SSI’s emancipatory potential, which relate to four issues: (i) the neutrality of the technology, (ii) the capacities of refugees, (iii) global governance and the nation state, and (iv) new economic models for digital identity. SSI is simultaneously the potential enabler of new modes of empowerment, autonomy and data security for refugees and a means of maintaining and extending bureaucratic and commercial power. I situate SSI in a genealogy of systems of identity control and argue that, in practice, it is likely to feed into the powers of corporations and states over refugee populations.
The more one penetrates the role of the manager abroad, the more it becomes apparent that it depends on the degree of centralization or decentralization to which his company is committed. However, this apparent simplification conceals complexities within it. As we have seen, even the most decentralized firm tends to hold a firm rein on financial management and as we will observe, the most home-office oriented corporations must concede considerable freedom to the manager afield in the matter of marketing. The qualifications do not end there, because while different industries may share the same viewpoint on finance, their emphasis on marketing varies tremendously. It is not unusual for a man who has made his mark in marketing consumer goods abroad to wind up his career as president of the firm at headquarters, but this is most unlikely when the company is in the petroleum business, heavy industry or banking.
International migration is an integral part of the lives of many people in the South, and many households add remittances to their income in order to finance the daily costs of living that cannot be met by their traditional source of income. In the literature, a debate has emerged on the impacts of these remittances on development, focusing in particular on the micro level, namely the impact on households. Many studies also contend that national governments should try to redirect the impacts of remittances. However, the role of actors in local governance structures seems to be overlooked in this discussion. We argue that in the discussion on managing development through remittances, local governments and other stakeholders at the local level — such as NGOs — might also play a role, especially in those countries that have implemented decentralization. However, thus far, interventions aimed at leveraging remittance flows and facilitating migration processes are only in an initial phase. Our study of 12 municipalities in Bolivia shows that a lack of knowledge and capacities among local governments and NGOs is a decisive factor.
This special report on the theme of interculturality brings together a number of contributions by researchers from different specialisations (information and communications sciences, history, sociology, literature, cinema, etc) and different parts of the world (Germany, Spain, United States, France, Greece, Poland). In terms of research and university teaching in Europe and elsewhere in the western world, there has been considerable development in this field since 1980 within the multitude of disciplines of which it is, in part, a result. As Jacques Demorgon states, although interculturality has "always formed part of the human condition, it has only been placed in perspective [] [so] recently" that it offers a large number of definitions and consequently a large body of authors, work and publications, as the object being studied -culture -is still just as wideranging. Thus interculturality may be compared to a vast building site where work is constantly in progress, to which anyone -whether a scientist or not -may contribute. An illustration of this is provided by a recent issue of Communication et Organisation (2002) on this topic, in which a number of authors each broach, in turn, the complexity and diversity of the field. While Dominique Desjeux (2002: 88; 95) notes in it that "culture is both a structure and a dynamic [] which makes its analysis and observation [] difficult, [] and that it may be just as much a key to functioning better with other people as a means of avoiding them", we shall emphasis that culture is an integral part of the human being and of the affiliations to which he/she is linked, whether deliberately or not (family unit and history; educational, professional, militant, associational circles; places for living and geographical, historical, political places, etc). Further proof of what is as stake in this topic is provided by the publication of the quarterly review En Temps Rel (2003), which
The position of local and provincial elites in the Philippines has changed in character. At the beginning of the century the landed elite was relatively autonomous, keeping the state weak and using it to reinforce its position. Since the 1950s a new elite of mercantile entrepreneurs has emerged, dependent on state credit and political protection. Under the martial law regime in the 1970s the state ceased to be an extension of regional elites and acquired the features of a separate level of organization. The transition to the Aquino administration has led to some degree of decentralization. However, provincial politicians are more than ever interested in finding their slot in the central state apparatus.