Masculinities, Remittances and Failure, narratives from far-west Nepal

Matt Maycock, PhD

Investigator ScientistSocial and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow

Gendered Dimensions of Migration: Material and Social Outcomes of South-South Migration

30 June – 2 July 2015 Asia Research Institute

National University of Singapore

The ‘Ethnographic turn’ in masculinity studiesIn Masculinities (1995, 2005), Raewyn Connell discusses the ethnographic turn in masculinity studies, which tend to:•Assume masculinities are multiple (both locally and globally) •Unpack the ways in which masculinities are socially and culturally constructed and

performed•Examine how masculinities impact on each other•Examine the ways in which masculinity is constructed in relation to subordinate

women and femininities•Be ‘micro’ level in focus•Undertaken in both urban and rural contexts•Consider ‘positive’ masculinities and subvert the idea of men as a [or the] problem

“…men do masculinity according to the social situation in which they find themselves.” (Messerschmidt, 1993, 84)

Remittances in Nepal

The importance of remittances for the Nepali economy cannot be understated.

According to the World Bank, in 2013, personal remittances constituted 28.8% of Nepal’s GDP (representing a significant increase from 1.5% in 1993). This is the second highest proportion for the countries with data.

Remittances have had a profound affect on Nepal, both positive and negative.

Recently a number of commentators have considered the importance of remittances for post-earthquake reconstruction.

Nepal to India Migration

Migration to India is critically important in the Nepali context, particularly in the southern plains (a geological area called the Terai).

Figures are very unreliable in relation migration between Nepal to India, partly due to the open border but also compounded by poor data collection. In 2001, 760,000 people had officially migrated out of Nepal, 77 per cent of whom had gone to India (CBS et al. 2002). However, Seddon et al (2000) estimate that between 0.5-1.3 million Nepalis temporarily migrate to India.

In this paper I focus on challenging experiences of migration and tensions between expectations to migrate and remit, and reality of failure to remit to expected levels, for men from a village of the Kamaiya ethnic group, located in far-west Nepal

Nepal, Masculinity and Migration

Studies in Nepal and South Asia cumulatively find that migration and remittances are important aspects of masculinity in the region. Many men are expected to move. Within this gendered context of migration remittances are critical.

It is estimated that Nepali men contribute 89% remittances as a consequence of men constituting 96% of the official migrants in 2008 (CBS 2008).

Sharma’s (2007a, 193) research on masculinity and migration in Nepal indicates that many of the studies that ignore gender, cannot account for the fact that around 90 per cent of those who migrate outside of Nepal are men. Within this context he focuses on the importance of Nepal to India migration: “The significance of migration to India lies in the possibility of what it offers to the individual man who moves.” (Sharma 2007b, 3)

The KamaiyaThe Kamaiya are a group of former bonded labourers from the wider Tharu indigenous (or Janajati) group.

The Kamaiya were freed in 2000, resulting in many new opportunities for work and migration have emerged for the Kamaiya (Maycock, 2012, 2015).

Some Kamaiya have been given land, while many are still waiting for land.

Alongside a proliferation in possible performances of Kamaiya masculinity following freedom, there is an associated proliferation in the possible ways that Kamaiya men can fail.

The Kamaiya and Migration

Prior to 2000 there are limited accounts of Kamaiya men (or women) migrating outside of, or to urban areas within Nepal, as a function of their being bonded.

Following 2000, Kamaiya men (and few women) are migrating at increasing levels (Maycock 2012, 2015).

This raises a number of questions, that will be considered subsequently. • How are Kamaiya men responding to the growing expectations of them to be

mobile? • What is their experience of migration with no history of migration and limited

migration networks? • Are they able to meet the expectations on them to remit? • Do increasing levels of migration result in their moving from one situation of

poverty and bondage to another in India or urban areas of Nepal?

Methods

I have been going to this region since 1997, undertook yearlong fieldwork in 2009, and have returned 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015.

Throughout I have used a mixed methods approach within an ethnographic framework:

• Participant observation

• Household surveys

• Various participatory methods

• Life History interviews/ focus groups

Fieldwork location far-west Nepal

Mixed experiences of migration

While migration was not a wholly positive experience for the men who migrate in my study, there were benefits. Migration facilitated Kamaiya men portraying a particular image of masculinity when they were back in Kampur (Maycock, 2015).

I was told by several Kamaiya men that when they were in India, they were neither a Kamaiya nor even a Tharu: they were simply poor Nepalis like the many other Nepali men in India searching for work. This refers to what Jan Breman identifies as part of the motivation for Dalit men from Gujarat to move:

Their motivation for migrating is the anonymity which accompanies them in the outside world… they are not immediately identified and stigmatized [as Dalit]. (Breman 1996, 238).

Kamaiya men often migrate without an established social network relating to migration. The isolation and vulnerability that this led to was often problematic and made these men particularly vulnerable to being cheated and violence.

Success/ FailureI now turn to notions of success in relation to remittances and migration. I consider here the idea of ‘competency’ in masculine practices that can contribute to explanations of certain masculine behaviors (Connell 2009, 58; De Visser, 2009).

It is not enough to simply move; it is also important to be considered ‘successful’ as a consequence of moving, often manifested materially (Osella, 2003). However, many Kamaiya men were often unable to show the material signs of success:• Sending money home• Buying land• Owning a mobile phone• Wear new Indian clothes• Consume bought alcohol, cigarettes and meatThe more money sent back the more successful the migrant was seen to be, resulting in higher standing relative to other men. The more remittances a man was able to sent back also had implications for marriage prospects.

Why do so many men migrate if so many fail?

The reasons for Kamaiya men from Kampur migrating, is broader than the fact that it enables them to provide economically for their family, as men were often not very successful at this.

There is a significant pressure on many men to migrate (particularly oldest sons), I was told by many men who migrated that they would rather stay in Kampur.

Migration in and of itself is becoming an important marker of the transition to adult Kamaiya masculinities. So for some men moving is becoming part of proving one’s masculinity. Migration relates not only to material considerations (which in manyinstances may be negligible anyway) but also to the range of ways of being (a man) that migration facilitates.

Conclusions I

Migration and associated remittances are formative factors shaping Kamaiya masculinities, particularly for younger Kamaiya men.

Migration represents both an opportunity (and not solely economic) and constraint in relation to performances of masculinity, particularly in relation to experiences of exploitation and violence associated with the types and locations of work in India.

Migration closely relates to expectations to remit, which a growing number of Kamaiya men are unable to do. The ways in which men deal with the frequent failure to meet the gendered expectations associated with sending a certain level of remittance is an evolving one.

This provides insights into subaltern performances of gender that relate to a set of (hegemonic) ideals that can never be met (Butler 1990, Connell 2005).

Conclusions II

However, this does not constitute a crisis of masculinity (Chowdhry, 2005; Edwards, 2004; Hearn, 1999; Mac an Ghaill, 1994).

The failure to remit that men in my study are confronting with on a frequent basis, points towards the structural (and not accidental) failure of all gender performances that Butler (1990), (borrowing on Derrida), has illustrated.

This paper has shown that failure to meet masculine ideals generally, and the failure to remit specifically are not accidental or unexpected aspects of the everyday performance of masculinity, but are in fact part of the structural composition of masculinity.

Matthew.maycock@glasgow.ac.uk

Thanks

www.matthewmaycock.com