In the rest of the world, remittances are rising, up as much as 10 percent a year, according to Donald Terry of the Inter-American Development Bank. Last year, migrant workers worldwide sent more than $300 billion to developing countries — almost twice the amount of foreign direct investment. (IHT)

Two interesting developments as a result of this new environment for migrant workers are noted briefly: migrants in the US are saving more money for emergencies, and their families at home are engaging in more microenterprise, especially related to agriculture, as the flow of money from the North dries up.

International Herald Tribune article

One of the most striking points she makes, at least from my born-in-1978 viewpoint, is the following:

…[W]e could allocate green cards to countries based on the relative size of their population and emigration demand; their ties to American citizens and institutions; and their supply of low- and high-skilled labor that we need. In other words, if we acknowledge that immigration is driven by supply and demand and take into account the needs of the United States and other countries, we might have a system that is more realistic and fair.

…[B]efore 1965 there were no numerical restrictions on immigration from countries of the Western Hemisphere, in keeping with the tradition of Pan-Americanism. When we imposed quotas on Mexico and the rest of the Americas after 1965, we got illegal immigration. (8)

I agree with her point that the quotas are in need of review. However, on the issue of supply and demand, I don’t think that the US market’s insatiable appetite for cheap labor needs to be encouraged. NAFTA and globalization have only increased the flood of undocumented workers into the US, and the trends don’t seem to be improving. Meanwhile, families are separated, villages are dying out, and cultures are undergoing violent and rapid change–for what? To meet the “needs of the United States.”

The issues are complicated. How do you reimburse an indigenous people for their cultural knowledge? Is it even possible? If you, for example, are able to locate an herbal remedy for a disease through the guidance of a remote group, how to you go about remunerating them? What are the implications for their culture? Will the intrusion of a outside economic system have negative effects on their social structures and beliefs?

Other arguments have been made about Native American crafts and other products such as blue corn. Should their culture be protected so that only they derive economic benefits from it?

At first glance, this is problematic for logistical reason, if nothing else. But in the greater context of a world that brings cultures into constant contact and collision, cultural knowledge seems to be increasingly entering the public domain. From Westerners who exoticize the (mythological) East and claim allegiance to Buddhism to Middle Easterners who watch Western television via satellite to Easterners who fawn over Brittany Spears and look to Gap for their clothing needs, our modern world is one that is marked by cultural exchange. Economically, not all of this can be tracked and billed.

The danger that has been discussed increasingly since the 1960s is that of western cultural hegemony; in this view, Western culture spreads and takes over the world. While this is indeed a real danger, what is overlooked is the potential for cultures to seize and transform extra-cultural ideas and recreate them in ways that reaffirm their own values. This would be the most positive reading, of course, but nonetheless, readings of the state of the world must not overlook the possibility for agency among non-Western societies.

Without letting Westerners off the hook for their cultural colonialism, I still believe that the day in which cultural knowledge can be assigned a monetary value is passing, if indeed it ever existed. Information and practices move between increasingly porous boundaries, both international, intercultural, and intersocial. To seek to assign monetary values to cultural knowledge is to completely buy into the values of capitalism and market economy–the very values that are undermining native cultures.

I think this qualifies as a rock/hard place quandary.