In looking at rural-urban linkages, this thesis addresses the extent to which social research may be generalized within development policy. Studies of Yoruba migrants in south-western Nigeria demonstrate that the ties between migrants and their hometowns can have a positive impact on local community development, an outcome which some researchers would suggest reflects a larger trend throughout the Third World. However, using information on the historical and cultural background of the Yoruba as well as a brief examination of Yoruba immigrants to North America, this study proposes that the utility of these ties in hometown development relates more to the past circumstances of Yoruba migration than the existence of 'structural regularities' in the migrant linkages of developing countries as a whole. These conclusions are then used to argue that one cannot generalize the results of migrant-hometown studies in policy formation without an understanding of the historic evolution of those ties.

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