This paper explores the experiences of several young Nepali women who spent time in the Persian Gulf as transnational domestic workers, and argues that migration served to increase their sense of autonomy and agency. In it, I question the conflation of transnational domestic work with the trafficking of prostitutes into India, which figured in governmental protective measures until 2003, or during the time when these young women worked abroad. This conflation did considerable violence to the autonomy of working women, undervalued their growing importance for the sustainability of households in Nepal, and led to policies that excluded women from participating in Nepal's increasingly important remittance economy. The young women described in this paper crossed borders in active, covert rejection of those rules of exclusion in order to become responsible individuals meeting the needs of their families, not as trafficked women nor as passive victims of social and economic change.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AppaduraiArjun1998Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press.
2.
BourdieuPierre1998Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
3.
BaumanZygmunt2004Wasted Lives: Modernity and Its OutcastsCambridge: Polity Press.
4.
BaumanZygmunt1998Globalization: The Human Consequences. New York: Columbia University Press.
5.
BrownRichard P.C.1998“Do Migrant's Remittances Decline Over Time? Evidence from Tongans and Western Samoans in Australia,”The Contemporary Pacific, 10(1):107–151.
6.
CampbellBen1997“The Heavy Loads of Tamang Identity.” In Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics of Culture in Contemporary Nepal. Edited by GellnerDavidPfaff-CzarneckaJoannaWhelptonJohn. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers.
7.
EvansMike2001Persistence of the Gift: Tongan Tradition in Transnational Context. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press.
8.
GurungGaneshAdhikariJaganath2004“Nepal: The Prospects and Problems of Foreign Labour Migration.” In Migrant Workers and Human Rights: Out-Migration from South Asia. Edited by AhnPong-Sul. New Delhi: International Labour Organization Publications.
9.
FoucaultMichel1991“Governmentality.” In The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Edited by BurchellG.GordonC.MillerP., Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
GranerElviraKarmacharyaKeshav2001“Nepalese Household Economics: Agriculture, Wage Labour and Remittances,”The Economic Journal of Nepal, 24(4):167–183.
14.
HabermasJurgen1990The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
15.
HuttMichael1977“Being Nepali Without Nepal: Reflections on a South Asian Diaspora.” In Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics of Culture in Contemporary Nepal. Edited by GellnerDavidPfaff-CzarneckaJoannaWhelptonJohn. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers.
16.
Kathmandu Post2003“Lured with the Bait of Gulf Jobs, Young Girls Land up in Indian Brothels,” 24 August.
17.
KollmairMichael2006“New Figures for Old Stories: Migration and Remittances in Nepal,”Migration Letters, 3(2):151–160.
18.
KumarDhruba, ed. 2000Domestic Conflict and Crisis of Governability in Nepal. Kathmandu: Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies.
19.
LandholtPatriciaDaWei Wei2005“The Spatially Ruptured Practices of Migrant Families: A Comparison of Immigrants from El Salvador and the People's Republic of China,”Current Sociology, 53(4):625–653.
20.
LaubyS.StarkO.1988“Individual Migration as a Family Strategy: Young Women in the Philippines,”Population Studies, 42(3):473–486.
21.
LeinbachThomas R.WatkinsJohn F.1998“Remittances and Circulation Behaviour in the Livelihood Process: Transmigrant Families in South Sumatra, Indonesia,”Economic Geography, 74(1):45–63.
NoniniDon2002“Introduction: Transnational Migrants, Globalization Processes, and Regimes of Power and Knowledge,”Critical Asian Studies, 34(1):3–17.
24.
O'NeillTom2004“Weaving Wages, Indebtedness and Remittances in the Nepalese Carpet Industry,”Human Organization, 63(2):211–220.
25.
O'NeillTom2001“Selling Girls in Kuwait: Domestic Labour Migration and Trafficking Discourse in Nepal,”Anthropologica, 53(2):153–164.
26.
OntaPratyoush R.1994“Dukha during the World War,”Himal, 7(6):24–29.
27.
ParreñasRhacel Salazar1999Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration and Domestic Work. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
28.
PortesAlejandroGuarnizoLuis E.LandholtPatricia1999“The Study of Transnationalism: Pitfalls and Promise of an Emergent Field,”Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22(2):217–237.
29.
RaiHemlata2003“Why Can't “Manpower” Agencies Find Jobs for Women?”Nepali Times, 10 January, Vol. 127.
30.
SassenSaskia2000“Women's Burden: Counter-geographies of Globalization and the Feminization of Survival,”Journal of International Affairs, 53(2):503–524.
31.
SeddonD.AdhikariJ.GurungG.2002“Foreign Labour Migration and the Remittance Economy of Nepal,”Critical Asian Studies, 34(1):19–40.
32.
SeddonD.AdhikariJ.GurungG.2001The New Lahures: Foreign Employment and Remittance Economy of Nepal. Kathmandu: Nepal Institute of Development Studies.
33.
ShahNasra M.MenonIndu1996“Chain Migration Through the Social Networks: Experience of Labour Migrants in Kuwait,”International Migration, 37(2):361–382.
34.
SkeldonRonald2000“Trafficking: A Perspective from Asia,”International Migration, 38(3):7–29.
35.
StarkOded1995Altruism and Beyond: An Economic Analysis of Transfers and Exchanges Within Families and Groups. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
36.
TamangPashu Ram1992“Tamangs Under the Shadow,”Himal, 5(3):25–27.
37.
World Bank2006Global Economic Prospects: Economic Implication of Remittances and MigrationWashington, DC:The World Bank.
