Marymount Professor Embraces Free Use of His New Book

Dr. Matt Bakker, a sociologist at Marymount University, loves the idea that his new book can be downloaded by anyone – anywhere – for free.

“This raises a really important and interesting question: whether researchers like myself are in this game to make money or to try and generate knowledge with our findings,” said Bakker. “What I’m doing here is trying to generate knowledge and spark discussions of the important issues.”

His book, “Migrating into Financial Markets: How Remittances Became a Development Tool,” has been published by the University of California Press using its Luminos open access publishing initiative, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction of the work, as long as it’s properly cited.

A traditional bound copy of the book can also be purchased for $39.

“Basically, the industry is changing and the University of California Press is trying to get out in front of that,” said Bakker, who is in his second year as an assistant professor of sociology at Marymount.

In the book, he examines the contention by international organizations like the World Bank that the money migrants send back home actually spurs economic development in those countries. One goal of the organizations has been to make those financial transactions easier.

The book “offers a much-needed interpretation of the institutions that frame migration. In this fascinating account, Bakker shows how, unable to come up with a political solution to large-scale migration, Mexico and the United States recast migrants as private actors of economic and social development,” said Rubén Hernández-León, coauthor of “Skills of the ‘Unskilled’: Work and Mobility among Mexican Migrants.”

To obtain a copy of Bakker’s book, go to: https://www.luminosoa.org/site/books/detail/4/migrating-into-financial-markets/.

Photo caption:

Dr. Matt Bakker