Rethinking migrants’ financial lives: the role of risk in the everyday financial practices of migrants
Abstract
The overall aim of this thesis is to provide an holistic assessment of the
financial practices of migrants in advanced Western economies using the
analytical lens of risk. More specifically, this research argues that a geographical
approach to risk, informed by concerns about time, space and place, is key to
understand the full complexities of migrants’ financial decision‐making. In so
doing, this research contributes to an emerging body of work that recognises the
need for a more nuanced understanding of migrants’ engagement with the
formal and informal financial sectors.
The study draws on a mixed‐methods research design, which includes 60
in‐depth interviews and 53 structured questionnaire interviews with Congolese
and Francophone Cameroonian migrants in London. Empirically, the project
explores the formal and informal financial practices of the research participants
in relation to banking, savings, credit, debt management, insurance as well as
remittance sending. In addition, it reviews the different levels and types of risks
encountered by migrants in their everyday lives, and how these shape their
financial decision‐making.
The thesis develops a framework combining current thinking from risk
research with transnational migration and economic geography scholarships in
order to uncover the social and geographical embeddedness of migrants’
financial decision‐making. It shows how the risks of financial hardship managed
through migration actually evolve across space and time so that some migrants
find themselves confronted by the very same risks of economic and social
exclusion they sought to avoid by moving. Most noticeably, this research shows
how such risks are managed by migrants through ‘mixing and matching’ a range
of informal and formal financial practices whereby the costs of being financially
excluded are balanced against, and shaped by, migration histories and
experiences of living in a highly financialised and increasingly migrant‐averse society.
Authors
Aznar, CamilleCollections
- Theses [4201]