Beschreibung
In Far West Nepal – an area extremely impoverished also by Nepalese
standards – labour migration to India has been an integral part of the
livelihood strategies of the majority of people for several generations. This
research is based on case studies among male and female migrants in
Delhi coming from four villages of Far West Nepal. The analysis focuses
on selected aspects of the migrants‘ daily lives, such as working and living
conditions, management of loans and savings, and remittance transfer. It
was found, that the whole migration process is mainly facilitated by
transnational kin and friendship networks. To grasp the geographical and
social dimensions of the migrant’s lives an integrative approach in joining
the sustainable livelihoods approach, Bourdieu’s theory of practice, the
concept of social capital and the concept of transnational migration was
developed.
Further results show, that the majority of the migrants are male. The
unskilled migrants occupy a distinct niche, in which men have been
working as watchmen and car cleaners for generations. The job market is
highly organized since jobs are handed over and sold within networks. If
wives of migrants are in Delhi for longer periods, they engage in
housekeeping. For financial needs migrants established their own
informal savings and credit associations.
Although migration is firstly seen as an opportunity by the migrants,
it can as well perpetuate debt and dependency and entail that they remain
migrants for their whole lives.
