Moral capital in Surinamese transnationalism

Abstract

In many less developed countries economic development is not in conformity with the actual level of consumption. In part this is to be explained by the huge informal sector that is not included in official statistics. However, using Suriname as a case study, it is argued in this article that a significant part of the discrepancies can be explained from private household transfers from The Netherlands. Migration is not a loss in all respects, but sometimes an asset. In contrast the remittances from temporarily migrated workers, the transfers from people constituting a transnational community cannot be taken for granted. This private family aid expresses personal commitments at the primordial level, and is therefore a kind of moral capital. Depending on the size of the migrated community and the moral commitments of their members, these transfers constitute a net surplus from the former metropolis to the periphery.