$$$Remittances$$$

Jenny Burman introduced a completely new and unfamiliar area for communication analysis in her article, “ Migrant Remittances and Diasporic Communication”. She described migrant remittances, which are essentially monetary transfers from members of migrant communities in new countries of residence to their ‘intimates back home’, as transactions that are saturated in meaning (Burman 2006). Instead of the exchange of money existing as a simple transmission of monetary value, she explains how migrant remittances in particular, hold great significance.
Before this reading, I was unaware of this topic as a site for communication scholars. As part of the third tier in international communication, I did acknowledge the interest in examining migrant individuals and the types of communication they engage in with their homeland. However, I definitely failed to acknowledge the interest with any analysis involving monetary exchange or transfer. I found this fairly new idea quite interesting, and quickly understood what she meant. Money exchanged between distant parties, like any other object, connotes various types of meaning. Whether it is money sent from person to person, from corporation to corporation, or from an immigrant of a new country to their family back home, there is an enormous amount of meaning associated.
She explained how migrant remittances can communicate a range of meanings depending on when they were sent, how they were sent and by whom they were sent. Often money sent by a newly immigrated member to his/her family left at home, acts an emotional channel, allowing a mother or father for example, to disseminate love, care and comfort to their children left behind. Burman even explained how it can become almost like “a mothering practice” (Burman 2006). In times of need or crisis money can also act to commute safety and security, and provide a sense of non physical support from migrant members. For a lot of migrant groups, remittances hold a substantial place within their current culture. They represent strongly and vividly meanings that most non-migrant individuals do not necessarily understand.
On a personal note, I worked at a resort up North in Muskoka for 3 years that predominately relied on international staff from Barbados. The Bayesian community therefore was quite large and in a sense were a migrant community. Interestingly enough, as a group, they heavily relied and anticipated the third payday of every month. This day, for many of them, was the day they received the cheque that they would designate to send back to their family, be it their children, parents or sometimes even friends. Many of the workers, especially the restaurant staff, individually left their families etc in search of success for the season. During this time of the month, the Bayesian staff was always noted to be happier and more upbeat, mainly due to the ability to transfer money ‘back home’. These ‘remittances’ I understand, probably helped to convey what many of them couldn’t afford to communicate over the phone, the news of success and love. In a sense, these exchanges held great meaning and significance for the Bayesian workers, and this significance as everyone at the resort could see, was not strictly because of the money.
Furthermore, Burman even discussed how remittances not only convey a sense of meaning from the sender to the receiver, but they also often tend to represent and convey a sense of meaning to the receiver’s surroundings. Remittances, which are sometimes spent conspicuously, can represent a certain status, and can even reflect to outsiders that one is receiving remittances (Burman 2006). This was most interesting because I had never thought about money, with regards to migrant exchange, this critically before. These migrant exchanges are essentially as significant a communication network as any other, if not more, acting as a relationship between individuals in opposing regions of the world. Diasporic communication in the form of monetary exchange possesses strong cultural importance for many migrant groups, signifying much more than what many people see as purely financial.
It is really provocative to think about the way that these types of monetary communication channels shape the cultural meanings and migrant relationships on a global scale. This area of study surely seems like a forum that deserves a lot of attention and focus, as there are many more ways to think about and understand these networks. I agree with Burman that remittances are becoming an “increasingly important part of transmigrant communication circuits” (Burman 2006). I also think that a further analysis of the meanings behind migrant remittances could possibly even prove beneficial for economists or other scholars involved in foreign international development. These types of migrant exchanges obviously influence many country’s economies and their financial structure and therefore taking a closer look at the underlying meanings involved in these practices would seem beneficial. Burman even mentioned that economists already frequently discuss the motivations for sending remittances (Burman 2006).
All together, Burman demonstrated a curious topic for this week’s lecture and discussion, and led me to support her belief that remittances are indeed an important aspect to the study of diasporic communication.




Burman, Jenny (2006). ‘Migrant Remittances as Diasporic Communication’. The Journal of International Communication, 12 (2): 7-18.