Theoretical Framework

Abstract

Locating the study of migration within the North-South debate implicates us in discussions about the meaning and normative assumptions of the concepts central to this endeavour. It is thus necessary to sketch the contending perspectives from which my argument proceeds. To do so, this chapter takes a first step by making explicit the theoretical framework based on the notion of complex interdependence which will be employed, in Part IV of the book, in order to explain and understand the empirical material. In the subsequent sections I will then bring into focus the definition of power, North-South relations and externalisation. In summarising the scholarly debate on these issues, I intend to locate my research within the broader academic debates at the interstices of international relations, development studies and migration studies. This theoretical excursus sets the necessary terrain for the more empirical discussion of the next chapters.