A Conceptual Model of Motivation in Transnational activities of Bosnian Refugees in Sweden

A Conceptual Model of Motivation in Transnational activities of Bosnian Refugees in Sweden

There has been a wide debate in many strands of the academic literature on the motivations of diaspora members to engage in the socio-economic development of their countries of origin. Motives that are often distinguished are altruistic, exchange, strategic, insurance and investment motives (Rapoport and Docquier, 2006). Nowadays, many developing and transition countries find it challenging to compete in the global race for economic and other types of investments. In this case, many of the countries are relying on diaspora and their organizations as the potential investors. These type of investments, such as economic investments, collective remittances and donations have generated some of the largest inflow of FDI in post-conflict Afghanistan, China and India (Nielesen and Riddle, 2007). One of the countries, which relies on its diaspora, is Bosnia and Herzegovina, where third of the nationals live outside the country borders. In this short paper, I would like to use already conducted interviews of members of Bosnians diaspora in Sweden in order to investigate the motivations of Bosnian diaspora members to engage in the transnational activities, even though it has been more than 20 years since the Bosnian war is over.

Taken from the interviews, the majority of the transnational projects implemented by migrant organizations are humanitarian-oriented and are related to social causes. This is the case, when it comes to transnational projects that are conducted in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia, both by individuals and Swedish immigrant organizations. Almost all of the interviewees have mentioned that emotional bounds are major factor that influence their transnational decision-making process. In this case, the role of emotions in conducting transnational activities seems very significant. According to the interviews, the important factor when it comes to the all activities it is collective memory. Most of the participants see the recent history of Bosnian people as the result of “world’s injustice� that has been done to this country in the last 30 years. The main events that can be found in most of the interviews were the conflict in former Yugoslavia, NATO bombing in 1999 and the big floods in 2014. It can be argued that the last event, the big flood in 2014, gathered the people from different transactional organizations into joint activities, It can be considered that this type of narratives invoke a feeling of participation and that of a moral commitment. According to the interviews, it seems that supporting friends and family and are an example of the diaspora members feeling of moral responsibility to benefit the development of their home country created by their emotional ties and connections and moral obligations. Nevertheless, in the present narratives of the interviewees past is very much alive, not only by shaping the way the present is experienced, but also by posing moral and emotional obligations to the diaspora members. When it comes to the emotional and psychological motivation of diaspora engagement. The literature is still lacking. Although, the emotional feeling of altruism may play important role, when diaspora members contemplate their transnational activities. This (often emotional)

tie means that diaspora communities often adopt transnational characteristics which are a mix of learned cultural, social and economic behaviors from their country of origin and host country (Kshetri, 2013). As one of the interviewee mentioned: “When the flood happened, we saw that the scenarios is repeating all over again…we realized that we have to help our people who suffered already too much in the past” (Organization representative).

In the literature, this kind of behavior could be define as altruism that is intended to benefit another person.

Simon (1993), has argued that ‘‘ethnicity thrives on altruism’’ and that it ‘‘calls for decisions that are ‘good for the group.’’ contend that diaspora members may be motivated to invest by the expectation of some type of emotional return. In this respect, diaspora members expect a certain level of emotional satisfaction.

Moreover, the emotional satisfaction return underlying altruism has also been identified as a key motivator for volunteerism (Mowen and Sujan, 2005). Additionally, taken from the interviews, transnational projects are define as a result of voluntarism, since mostly people involve in the projects do not get paid for the work they do. All of the interviewees reported that they do not have any financial gain from the project and that their engagement is the result of their will to help others in need. However, some authors suggested that pure altruism does not exist because every decision creates some kind of returns for decision makers (Sesardic, 1999). Thus, it can be concluded, that emotional return as the result of voluntary work, that comes from collective memory plays the most important role in diaspora transnational engagement.

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