In previous public and academic discourses the perception of migration and development has a varied trajectory; in general, the understanding of the linkage was often unbalanced, because of an overemphasis with regard to the scope, meaning international labor migrant's contribution to development. To address this shortfall, this work proposes a different access to the linkage between ‗migration and development‘: Transnational development and its respective potentialities and limitations. The model‘s major focus is on the agency sphere, in which alternative development approaches and concepts regarding studies on migrant‘s transnationality are linked, to mutually enrich both spheres. To contrast theory with practice, a case study (Caxcania) with appropriate characteristics was chosen, in which qualitative research was carried out, with a particular focus on multi-sited ethnography and cross-border units of analyses. By employing a range of methodological tools, the potentialities and limits of transnational development were revealed.

The main results are that there are institutional, sociocultural, –but above all– structural limitations that currently make transnational development difficult to achieve. In turn, there are also potentials visible in Caxcania, such as strong migration ties, which are multiple and show possibilities for the constitution of a strong transnational subject of development, induced by real participation, social empowerment and by the appropriation of agency for the purpose of achieving participative development, as well as social sustainability, in the process of societal advancement. The existing transnational subjects and their transaction and action strategies show significant elements of transnational development strategies, but these need to evolve in order to reach their potentials.