Pursuing the capabilities approach within the migration–development nexus

The ‘migration–development nexus’ has become an established development mantra with debate surrounding the ability of migration to promote economic growth and reduce poverty. The optimism of this debate is paired with a push to control migration through the promotion of temporary migration programmes and initiatives considered to support the regular movement of migrants. This dominant paradigm has come under criticism, however, for overlooking the multidimensional costs of migration for migrants and their families. As evidence on the costs of migration gathers, debates within policy and scholarly arenas have turned to how to integrate human rights into migration and development initiatives. The discourse surrounding this debate largely draws on the capabilities approach, which sees expanding human capabilities as the central role of development. In this paper, we analyse the resulting discourse and implementation of this approach to demonstrate how this theoretical framework is utilised to conceptualise diverse outcomes for migrant worker rights within global governance priorities for managing migration. We argue that greater attention is needed in the application of the capabilities approach in order to resonate with policy-makers without compromising the integrity of the approach or separating migrants from their intrinsic human rights.