Sri Lanka’s entanglements with transnational migration: Emerging trends and overlooked facets

Introduction

Sri Lanka continues to battle through the worst economic downturn it has seen in the 75 years since their independence from British occupation in 1948. The external sector was hit hard by multiple crises in early 2022, culminating in sovereign debt default and the onset of deep recession. By June 2022, the economy was officially declared to have “collapsed,” and by year-end, the gross domestic product (GDP) had contracted by 7.8 percent (Verick, 2023). Although some signs of stabilization and normalization were recorded in 2023, the economy continues to face multiple, inter-connected crises and is grappling with (1) continued inflation, (2) shortages of essential goods (such as food, fuel and medicine), (3) job cuts and deepening unemployment, (4) a devalued currency, (5) a “twin deficit problem” consisting of budget and current account deficits, and (6) the persistent specter of political and social instability. The economic collapse has shone a fresh light on the importance of Sri Lanka’s complex relationship with transnational migration—not only revealing the extent of economic dependence on foreign labor markets that began to falter during the COVID-19 pandemic, but also exposing how all manner of emigration pathways and transnational ties have been integral to the coping strategies of those weathering crisis. In many ways, Sri Lanka’s entanglements with transnational migration have emerged stronger—and their intricacies more readily observable—than ever before.

Yet, in acknowledging the unique circumstances of the current impasse, it remains important not to overstate the novelty of the diverse migration trajectories laid bare by the receding tide of an unprecedented economic crisis. To do so risks understating the long-standing complexity of Sri Lanka’s transnational ties, the nuances of which have at times been obscured by dominant tropes that collapse a spectrum of migratory experiences into reductive narratives concerning low-wage migration to the Persian Gulf and forced migration in the wake of ethnic conflict. This Special Issue thus responds to the twin challenge of situating new migratory trends emerging from the crisis, while also contending with facets of more established transnational ties that may have been overlooked or understudied within existing scholarship. To do so, we foreground the perspective that migration has offered Sri Lanka a “promising fix” for the many economic, political and social woes that have stalled developmental progress in the decades extending from independence to the present juncture. Indeed, the so-called “push” factors driving migration from Sri Lanka demand to be understood within the “triple context” of economic liberalization, (post)militarization and the ongoing economic crisis. Understanding Sri Lanka’s entanglements with transnational migration from this perspective reveals the complexity of migration pathways—established and emerging—as well as the ways in which migrants, as well as their families and communities, have navigated various challenges and opportunities over time.

Indeed, while migration has kept a lid on tensions emanating from a strained labor market, as well as accompanying societal and political pressures, it has simultaneously become an urgent concern for governance over the years (Wickramasekara, 2016). Rampant abuses of migrants’ human and labor rights, worsening brain drain, the reorganization of socially reproductive labor and family breakdown and the politicization of diasporic ties are some of the major migration-related challenges that policymakers continue to grapple with—and sometimes exacerbate (Henderson, 2020). Moreover, these patterns have cut across ethno-religious communities in notably different ways. Sri Lankan Tamils have historically comprised the majority of forced migrants seeking asylum in third countries that have responsibilities to refugees, typically of the Global North, while Sinhalese and Muslim communities have been over-represented in temporary labor migration to other Global South countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Yet, the violent end to the civil war and the “greenfield recruitment” of labor migrants from the Northern and Eastern provinces (Lakshman and Amirthalingam, 2020), as well as new episodes of ethno-nationalist violence toward Muslim communities (Munas, 2023) and deepening rural–urban inequality (Withers, 2019), had begun complicating traditional patterns of migration long before the present crisis established a broader impulse for exodus. Against this backdrop, Sri Lanka remains a “valuable laboratory” (Athukorala, 1998: 20) for studying transnational migration.

The remainder of this editorial introduction charts the “triple context” of economic, conflict-displaced and crisis-driven migration in greater detail—before introducing the individual contributions to the Special Issue that respond to emerging trends and overlooked facets within and across these settings.

Economic liberalization

Sri Lanka is a remittance economy where temporary labor migration has become a key component of the external sector following “open economy” liberalization policies that deregulated transnational flows of labor and capital in 1977. The extensive economic liberalization process—which emerged in response to the dismal economic results of the country’s then inward-looking industrial policy—put Sri Lanka on the map as the first country in the South Asian region to enact such a decisive shift toward a market economy (Athukorala, 1998). Facilitated by those liberalization policies, Sri Lanka opportunistically tapped into a critical point of an upsurge in demand from labor-importing countries in West Asia for temporary migrant labor. With the economies of West Asia experiencing unprecedented growth following the 1973 Oil Crisis, demand for low-skilled and semi-skilled workers in domestic and construction work likewise bourgeoned over the decade, shaping a steady exodus of Sri Lankan workers pursuing these new avenues of employment. In more recent years, the inward flow of remittances has consistently matched the earnings of Sri Lanka’s three largest export industries—garments, tea and rubber products—reflective of a deep-seated macroeconomic reliance on migrant workers’ incomes amid persistent trade deficits (Withers, 2024).

In the intervening years, Sri Lanka has effectively transformed itself into a “labor brokerage state” (Rodriguez, 2008: 794), actively promoting and regulating the emigration of low-wage migrant workers who keep a roof over many heads back home (Handapangoda, 2024; Henderson, 2022). Sri Lanka was one of the first countries to respond by exporting female domestic labor, and today, hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankan women are employed as domestic workers in upper- and middle-class family households in West Asia (Fernando and Lodermeier, 2022). Though Sri Lankan women show considerable willingness to leave the country in search of paid work, a combination of persistent gender norms and patriarchal attitudes continues to relegate women to subordinate positions at home (de Alwis, 1995, 2002; Withers and Piper, 2018). They are often restricted to the performance of unpaid work that conflates femininity with being reproducers, nurturers, homemakers and housewives, thereby ingraining women’s dependence on men for financial support and maintenance (de Alwis, 1995, 2002; Handapangoda, 2023). In contrast, Sri Lankan migrant men in West Asia are channeled into jobs that are considered typically masculine (e.g., difficult, dangerous and low-paid, such as construction and transport). The private remittances of these migrant men and women provide a financial lifeline to the struggling national economy that has emerged from decades of poor economic performance, macroeconomic instability, civil war and national unrest and is now imposing austerity measures to comply with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) edicts of fiscal discipline and good governance. Against the backdrop of the latest ongoing economic crisis, migration of low- and semi-skilled labor has surged, recording a 34 percent increase in 2022 (Ministry of Labour and Foreign Employment, 2023) and involving a more diverse class demographic—extending to highly qualified workers hitherto marginally represented in temporary labor migration outflows.

Civil war

While labor migration to West Asia continued to grow, political migrants became a crucial component of Sri Lanka’s diaspora during the 1980s, marking a watershed in the country’s migratory patterns (Jayawardena, 2020: 107). Inevitably, they have reflected the connections between state fragility, conflict, violence, forced migration and displacement in the context of Sri Lanka’s dual militarization in the north and the south (Gunawardana, 2014). The two insurgencies of predominantly Sinhalese youth in 1971 and the late 1980s in southern parts of the island—ascribed to high unemployment, particularly among the young—and the civil war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sinhalese majority government of Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009 caused massive internal and external displacement, especially of Sri Lankan Tamils and Muslims from the north and the east (Chattoraj, 2022). Forced to make the difficult decision to leave their homes due to war and persecution, most displaced Sri Lankans relocated to camps within Sri Lanka and in Southern India, while others, mostly Tamils, fled the country, seeking international protection as refugees and asylum-seekers, especially in the West.

In this way, the phenomena of forced migration and displacement have become defining characteristics of Sri Lanka’s migration landscape. The displacement crises were, and still are, not only logistical but also humanitarian (Adhikari, 2013; Lischer, 2007); they are about feelings of the loss of home and a sense of not belonging, lacking identity, stability and control as much as they are about the physical loss of housing, land and property, and human rights abuses. Refugees and asylum-seekers often struggle to rebuild their lives in new and unfamiliar places. The Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora is thus quintessential when considering transnational identity and theories of diaspora (Burgio, 2016; Jayawardena, 2020), depicting an ethnocultural group in “exile,” living outside an “imagined” homeland. Despite their relocation to a new land, displaced Tamils continue to maintain a strong bond with their roots in Sri Lanka (Wayland, 2004). The diaspora is often associated with nostalgia, a mood largely reflected in the reproduction of cultural, political and social relations (Král, 2020), which nevertheless continues to favor outmigration over return and resettlement.

Exodus from crisis

Permanent outmigration of professional and skilled workers is not something new to Sri Lanka and dates from the immediate aftermath of independence in 1948 and the ensuing changes that occurred in the political, social and cultural landscape that radically shifted power from colonial administration to local authorities. Nevertheless, the ongoing economic crisis in Sri Lanka has created a surge bordering on exodus, showing increasing signs that the country is heading towards its biggest brain drain yet. Official statistics reveal that the number of professionals leaving the country increased by nearly 400 percent over the period 2020 to 2022 (Fazlulhaq, 2023). While even the temporary loss of skilled labor can debilitate an economy’s ability to grow, outmigration on a permanent basis and the transnational separation of families that comes with it can have greater social and developmental implications. Previous studies indicate that migration among adult children disrupts familial norms of co-residence and the expectations of sustained intergenerational ties that are based on geographic proximity (Parreñas, 2005; Yahirun and Arenas, 2018). Decisions around migration carry moral implications concerning what “good” children, “good” families and “good” care should look like (Gamburd, 2020). Sri Lankan cultural norms of familism and filial piety inform particularly close care relationships with one’s parents, and such propinquity in the moral and material expectations of care is reinforced by a general dearth of social care provisioning for the elderly. Thus, the permanent outmigration of Sri Lanka’s professional, skilled workers presents numerous apparent challenges to the social and cultural organization of care, for both migrants and their stay-behind elderly parents.

Contributions to the special issue

The triple context of Sri Lankan migration—economic liberalization, civil war and the current economic collapse—provides a rich confluence of factors driving a spectrum of population movement. Nevertheless, and somewhat surprisingly, existing scholarship on migration does not adequately reflect these diversifying experiences of, and perspectives on, transnational migration in the context of Sri Lanka: The breadth of extant social scientific inquiry is not commensurate with the complexity and diversity of the experience. Therefore, there is a clear need for an integrated and multidisciplinary discussion of Sri Lanka’s entanglements with transnational migration, drawing together different narratives, perspectives and lived experiences. This Special Issue of the Asian and Pacific Migration Journal (APMJ) aims to help fill this gap in the literature. It offers new theoretical and empirical insights from a diverse array of perspectives by bringing together the state of the art in transnational migration research on Sri Lanka. The contributions to this Special Issue range from original research on the return and reintegration of low-skilled and skilled migrant workers in the Gulf, through transnational attachments of different diaspora groups and the transnational care practices of expatriates, to demystifying the role of remittances during the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing economic crisis in Sri Lanka. We believe these contributions—outlined below—reflect the breadth and complexity of Sri Lanka’s entanglements with transnational migration and will, collectively, make an important point of departure for the advancement of Sri Lankan migration studies.

In his contribution, “Are remittances ‘resilient?’ Evidence from migrant income transfers to Sri Lanka between COVID-19 and the crisis,” Matt Withers studies the resilience of remittances in Sri Lanka’s “remittance economy” during the COVID-19 pandemic and the severe economic downturn in 2022. Based on Central Bank statistics and online remittance surveys conducted with migrant workers, his article tests the prognoses of “triple win” migration, which suggests that extensive integration with foreign labor markets and substantial remittance flows should be a source of macroeconomic stability during crises. Sri Lanka’s experience tends to suggest otherwise. The article offers important insight into the potential for remittances to rapidly shift between formal and informal channels in response to exchange rates, especially under the circumstances of a managed exchange rate regime, challenging the prominent assumptions about the drivers of remittance behavior. Drawing on the “shadow remittances” that might affect the presumed resilience of remittance economies in times of crises, the article revisits migration-and-development optimism more broadly. While recognizing remittances as a lifeline for households in need, whether those remittances arrive via formal or informal means, Withers cautions about the latent risk of remittance-dependent economies that may not be as “resilient” as expected.

“The realities of return migration: Reintegrating women migrant domestic workers in Sri Lanka” by Sophie Henderson examines the institutional aspects of return migration, drawing our attention to a relatively underexplored aspect of the role played by the labor-sending state. Adopting an intersectional perspective, the paper draws on empirical fieldwork carried out in Colombo to shed light on how exclusionary state policies and programs fail to protect the rights and welfare of returnee women migrant domestic workers, leading to poor reintegration outcomes. The paper shows how an intersectional and inclusive policy approach would be better tailored to the specific skillsets and diverse circumstances of returnee women domestic workers as a heterogenous group. Such a shift could produce sustainable sources of local livelihoods in place of transnational migration for paid domestic work, which is more susceptible to global shocks—such as the COVID-19 pandemic—and exposes migrant women to the risks of rights violations and abuse. The paper emphasizes the need to promote policy coherence and coordination between different stages of the migration cycle, infused with intersectional components.

“Caring for elderly parents while living away: Sri Lanka’s professional and skilled emigrants,” co-authored by Udeshika Chandrarathne, Asel Hettiarachchi and Oshadhie Silva explores the understudied transnational elderly care arrangements among Sri Lanka’s expatriates in the overlapping contexts of a rapidly growing elderly population and increasing professional and skilled outmigration for better economic opportunities. Based on digital fieldwork, the paper provides a thorough account of the ways in which expatriates negotiate between the need for self-care through migration and the culture-driven filial-care obligations toward stay-behind parents in a transnational context. It shows how the decision to migrate is associated with significant emotional and psychological impacts at both ends of the migration process, and becomes translated into transnational care arrangements that are problematized by related “stressors” and mediated by “systems” that ease the emotional and psychological burden. Importantly, the paper illuminates how transnational migration results in alternative care arrangements that can potentially modify the implications of transnational family separation and hold the transnationally split family together. Finally, the paper stresses the need to address the scarcity of social services in Sri Lanka that can alleviate the burden of migration on both expatriates and their stay-behind elderly parents.

Anoji Ekanayake in her contribution, “Drivers of return of Sri Lankan migrants in the skill spectrum from the Gulf region,” assesses the circumstances surrounding the return of Sri Lankan migrant workers at the upper end of the skill spectrum in the Arabian Gulf that characterizes a temporary migration paradigm. The paper is based on data collected through direct personal interviews and surveys over the telephone with returnee migrant workers. In a migration context where return is an inevitable reality, the paper demonstrates how the timing and the circumstances of the return vary from person to person and are conditional upon various factors that determine returnees’ capacity to reintegrate or drive them into repeated migration. The paper offers important insight into transnational formations. It draws our attention to the persistence of migrants’ home-country connections, which are formed based on household survival strategies collectively pursued by the migrants themselves and their stay-behind families and maintained by migration regimes in the Arabian Gulf that deny pathways for permanent migration in an illiberal transnationalism. The paper highlights the need, at the policy level, to promote sustainable reintegration of returnee migrant workers, a point which echoes that made by Sophie Henderson in her paper on returnee migrant domestic workers in Sri Lanka.

“Return reimagined: Diaspora interactions with protracted internal displacement in post-war Sri Lanka,” co-authored by Mohamed Munas and Gayathri Lokuge, analyzes the interactions of diasporas in Sri Lanka’s post-war development efforts in the context of the complexities of multifaceted return and resettlement experiences. The work is based on two cases in areas directly affected by war. The paper illustrates how displacement produces a sense of permanent, multi-sited temporariness and nostalgia, relating oneself to “here” and “there” at the same time, especially for those who have been forced to flee their home country and how this state of indeterminacy carries consequences for those who are internally displaced at “home.” Nostalgia and collective memories are powerful forces that shape the future of spaces and people at “home,” providing impetus for community rebuilding, through which diasporas create imaginaries of their own return “home.” The paper contributes to the conceptualization of return, which is not a simple, clear-cut phenomenon, by accounting for the complexities arising through diaspora engagement in post-war return and recovery of internally displaced people. On a policy level, it highlights numerous practical challenges for return, whether one returns from far or near, such as land encroachment, re-forestation and access to and control over properties and resources.