Remittances and Financial Inclusion

Vincent Guermond is a Lecturer in the Department of Business and Society at Queen Mary University of London. His research interests are in the areas of the geographies of debt, finance and market making, climate adaptation, migration and development, and social reproduction. Vincent has published in leading academic journals in geography, development studies, and international political economy, including Progress in Human Geography, Antipode, Geoforum, Environment and Planning A, Review in International Political Economy, World Development, and Development and Change.

"Vincent Guermond provides the essential critical guide to the remittances-financial inclusion agenda with this definitive account of how migrant payments have become marketised. Built on rich empirical data, this book delivers a textured and intricate analysis both of the political and behavioural engineering involved in remittance market-building and of the ways ordinary people are contesting the burgeoning digital poverty finance agenda."Dr Phil Mader, University of Sussex, UK"This book investigates the complex relationships between migrant remittances, financial inclusion and economic development. It unearths a universe of rationalities, practices and social networks stretching from the local to the global made invisible by standard accounts of migrant experiences. An exquisite writing combining theoretical freshness, empirical wealth and policy-relevant perspectives."Dr Ndongo Samba Sylla, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Senegal"Remittances and Financial Inclusion offers a brilliant and timely investigation of the integration of remittances into global finance. Drawing on wonderfully rich ethnographic material, Vincent Guermond takes us on a fascinating journey to Ghana and Senegal, demystifying the making of remittance markets, and revealing the everyday experiences and repertoires of contestation of remittance receivers. A must-read if you care about the concrete workings of the global political economy."Dr Rahel Kunz, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland"For advocates and critics, remittances, mobile payments and FinTech either advance financial inclusion and improve global development prospects, or serve to newly incorporate populations in extractive circuits of financial capital. Vincent Guermond’s insightful geographical investigation of contingent and contested processes of remittance marketisation shows how neither position holds."Professor Paul Langley, Durham University, UK

• Introduction PART I: THEORISING REMITTANCES, FINANCIAL INCLUSION, AND MARKETS 1.The emergence of the remittances-financial inclusion nexus 2. Geographies of remittance marketisation: a framework PART II: THE MAKING OF REMITTANCE MARKETS IN SENEGAL AND GHANA 3. Remittance market making in Senegal 4. Remittance market making in Ghana PART III: CONTESTED MARKETISATION 5. Everyday lived experiences of receiving remittances 6. Repertoires of contestation: reluctance, refusal, and dissent Conclusion