New refugees, development-forced displacement, and transnational governance in Eritrea and Exile

This article explores the links between Eritrea's current refugee crisis, militarized state-led development policies, and the sending government's efforts to (re)capture migrants economically and politically through transnational governance and the exploitation of migrants' vulnerabilities. We argue that the state's developmental approach has contributed to the mass exodus of young Eritreans who paradoxically become of greater economic and political value to the transnational government after migration. Our analysis highlights the intersections between the political and developmental dimensions of displacement and exposes how refugee/asylum flows from Eritrea severely confound conventional distinctions between political and economic migration. By adopting a transnational perspective combined with insights from development-forced displacement studies, we are able to address the ways that sending states like Eritrea pursue migrants for specific political and economic ends.