Mind the Gap! Revisiting the migration optimism/pessimism debate

In this paper, we return to a well-worn but still very live debate: the issue of the ‘development’ impacts of migration. Drawing on fieldwork in three villages in Northeast Thailand where domestic and some international migration are commonplace, we focus on two often under-examined aspects of migration: the affects of migration, and in particular the affective labour that makes migration possible; and the effects of migration on farming and agriculture. We argue that migration has manifold, under-appreciated impacts on those who remain in the village, whose futures may be curtailed and aspirations thwarted. Non-migrants are not just ‘left behind’ in the passive sense, they may experience migration as actively constraining and limiting. There are also hidden effects of migration on farming that run counter to agrarian transition pathways promoted by many governments and multilateral agencies. We conclude by identifying three gaps in migration research that sit behind our discussion of the affects and effects of migration: the gap between production/work and reproduction/care; between migrants/the mobile and non-migrants/the immobile; and between migrant and non-migrant spaces.