This article provides a critique of authoritative development discourses on the migration of men from Nepal to India. Drawing on my ethnographic fieldwork at multiple sites, I illustrate how migration is not perceived as a problem by migrants themselves but as an integral practice in people's livelihoods. Many see migration to work in India as an escape from a difficult socio-economic, cultural and familial situation and an opportunity for young men to experience a distant place, experiment with the pleasures and possibilities of consumption and earn and remit money home to fulfil their obligations as responsible men with the hope for upward socio-economic mobility of their families. The authoritative discourse is criticized for failing to comprehend the socio-cultural meanings associated with this form of human movement and for viewing ‘migration’ and ‘migrants’ as aberrant. The presence of a disjuncture between the authoritative discourses and the complex ethnographic reality raises important questions about the politics of migration in international development.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Aase, Tor Halfdan . (2007) Local Responses to Large Scale Global Changes in the Himalayas, Annual Conference of British Association of South Asian Studies. BASAS, Cambridge .
2.
Adhikari, Jagannath . (2001) ‘ Mobility and Agrarian Change in Central Nepal ,’ Contributions to Nepalese Studies28 (2): 247–67 .
3.
Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhailovich . (1981) ‘The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays,’ in Holquist, M. (ed.), Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist , University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas .
4.
Bebbington, Anthony . (1999) ‘ Capitals and Capabilities: A Framework for Analyzing Peasant Viability, Rural Livelihoods and Poverty ,’ World Development27 (12): 2021–44 .
5.
Blaikie, Piers , Cameron, John and Seddon, David . (1980) Nepal in Crisis: Growth and Stagnation at the Periphery, Oxford University Press, New Delhi .
6.
Blaikie, Piers , Cameron, John and Seddon, David . (2002) ‘ Understanding 20 Years of Change in West-central Nepal: Continuity and Change in Lives and Ideas ,’ World Development30 (7): 1255–70 .
7.
Breman, Jan . (1985) Of Peasants, Migrants and Paupers: Rural Labour Circulation and Capitalist Production in West India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi .
8.
Breman, Jan . (1996) Footloose Labour: Working in India's Informal Economy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge .
9.
Cameron, John . (1998) ‘ Agricultural Perspective Plan: The Need for Debate ,’ Himalayan Research Bulletin8: 11–15 .
10.
Caplan, Lionel . (1990) Land and Social Change in East Nepal: A Study of Hindu-Tribal Relations, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London .
11.
Connell, Robert William . (1987) Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics, University of California Press, California .
12.
Connell, Robert William . (1995) Masculinities, Polity Press, Cambridge .
13.
De Haan, Arjan . (1999) ‘ Livelihoods and Poverty: The Role of Migration. A Critical Review of Literature ,’ Journal of Development Studies36 (2): 1–47 .
14.
De Haan, Arjan and Rogaly, Ben . (2002) ‘ Introduction: Migrant Workers and Their Role in Social Change ,’ Journal of Development Studies38 (5): 1–14 .
15.
Durkheim, Emile . (1964) The Rules of Sociological Method, The Free Press of Glenco, New York .
16.
Ferguson, James . (1994) The Anti-Politics Machine: ‘Development’, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho, University of Minnesota Press, London .
17.
Foucault, Michel . (1991) ‘Governmentality,’ in Burchell, G. , Gordon, C. and Miller, P. (eds), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, University of Chicago Press, Chicago , pp. 87–104.
18.
Gurung, Harkha . (2004) Mountain Reflections, Mandala Book Point, Kathmandu .
19.
Harriss, John . (2002) Depoliticizing Development: The World Bank and Social Capital, Anthem Press, London .
20.
Hitchcock, John, T. (1961) ‘ A Nepalese Hill Village and Indian Employment ,’ Asian Survey1 (9): 15–20 .
21.
Hutt, Michael . (1997) ‘Being Nepali without Nepal: Reflections on a South Asian Diaspora,’ in Geller, D.N. , Pfaff-Czarnecka, J. and Whelpton, J. (eds), Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics of Culture in Contemporary Nepal, Harwood Academic Publishers, Amsterdam .
22.
Inda, Jonathan Xavier . (2002) ‘ Foreign Bodies: Migrants, Parasites and the Pathological Nation ,’ Discourse22 (3): 46–62 .
23.
Inda, Jonathan Xavier . (2005) ‘Analytics of the Modern,’ in Inda, J.X. (ed.), Anthropologies of Modernity, Blackwell, Oxford .
24.
Inda, Jonathan Xavier . (2006) Targeting Immigrants: Government, Technology and Ethnics, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford .
25.
Mills, Mary Beth . (1999) ‘Thai Women in the Global Labour Force: Consuming Desires, Contested Selves,’ London and New Jersey, Rutgers University Press .
26.
Osella, Filippo and Caroline Osella . (2000) ‘ Migration, Money and Masculinity in Kerala ,’ Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute (N. S.), 6 (1): 117–33 .
27.
Osella, Filippo and Caroline Osella . (2006) Men and Masculinities in South India, Anthem Press, London .
28.
Pfaff-Czarnecka, Joana . (1995) ‘Migration Under Marginality Conditions: The Case of Bajhang,’ in Ida, I.A. (ed.), Rural-Urban Interlinkages: A Challenge for Swiss Development CooperationINFRAS, Zurich/Kathmandu , pp. 97–108.
29.
Pigg, Stacy Leigh . (1992) ‘ Inventing Social Categories through Place: Social Representations and Development in Nepal ,’ Comparative Studies in Society and History34(3): 491–513 .
30.
Rankin, Katharine N. (2004) The Cultural Politics of Markets: Economic Liberalisation and Social Change in Nepal, Pluto Press, London .
31.
Regmi, Mahesh Chandra . (1978) Thatched Huts and Stucco Palaces: Peasants and Land-lords in the 19th century Nepal, Vikas, New Delhi .
32.
Russell, Andrew . (2000) ‘ The Missing and the Met: Routing Clifford amongst the Yakha in Nepal and NE India ,’ Journeys1 (1): 86–113 .
33.
Seddon, David , Adhikari, Jagannath and Gurung, Ganesh . (2002) ‘ Foreign Labour Migration and the Remittance Economy of Nepal ,’ Critical Asian Studies34 (1): 19–40 .
34.
Shah, Alpa . (2006) ‘ The Labour of Love: Seasonal Migration from Jharkhand to the Brick Kilns of Other States in India ,’ Contributions to Indian Sociology40 (1): 91–118 .
35.
Shrestha, Nanda Raj . (1990) Landless and Migration in Nepal, Westview, Boulder .
36.
Singh, Pranab M. (2006) ‘ Remittance Economy Nepal's Evolution Towards Accepting and Incorporating the Labour of Its Overseas Workers ,’ Himal South Asia18 (5): 73–77 .
37.
Skerry, Christa A. , Moran, Kerry and Calavan, M. Kay . (1991) Four Decades of Development: The History of US Assistance to Nepal 1951–1991, USAID, Kathmandu .
38.
Spencer, Jonathan . (2004) ‘A Nation ‘Living in Different Places’. Notes on the Impossible Work of Purification in Postcolonial Sri Lanka,’ in Osella, F. and Gardner, K. (eds) Migration, Modernity and Social Transformation in South Asia, Sage Publications, New Delhi , pp. 1–23.
39.
Thieme, Susan . (2006) Social Networks and Migration: Far West Nepalese Labour Migrants in Delhi, LIT publishing house, Munster .
40.
Thieme, Susan and Ulrike Müller-Böker . (2004) ‘ Financial Self-help Associations among Far-west Nepalese Labor Migrants in Delhi, India ,’ Asian and Pacific Migration Journal13(3): 339–61 .
41.
Walter, Nicholas , Bourgois, Philippe and Loinaz, Margarita, H. (2004) ‘ Masculinity and Undocumented Migration: Injured Latino Day Labourers in San Francisco ,’ Social Science and Medicine59(6): 1159–68 .
42.
World Bank. (1989) Nepal-Poverty Alleviation Policies. World Bank, New York .
43.
World Bank. (1998) Nepal: Poverty at the Turn of the Twenty First Century, World Bank, Washington DC .
44.
Whitehead, Ann . (2002) ‘ Tracking Livelihood Change: Theoretical, Methodological and Empirical Perspectives from North-Ghana ,’ Journal of South African Studies28(3): 575–98 .
45.
Yamanaka, Keiko . (2000) ‘ Nepalese Labour Migration to Japan: From Global Warriors to Global Workers ,’ Ethnic and Racial Studies23 (1): 62–93 .
