Gaurav KC  

Migration discourses focus mostly on the after-effect of mobility. They are indifferent to and ignorant about things that happen within families before migration actually takes place. It is a fact that in a country like ours family has a very prominent role towards setting personal values and personal decisions are, in one way or other, prescribed by family. Despite having a leading role, negotiations and renegotiations, regarding migration, that take place within a family is least considered. Unraveling what happens within household before migration takes place contains sociological significance.

When social, economic, political, and cultural conformity dries up and when the level of humdrum rises, the temptation to mobility arises.  No matter what, before leaving, a sallah— dialogue takes place between family members. Announcing the migration idea in front of family members is also voicing expectations from family members. The person wishing to migrate puts forth all logic in his or her capacity towards persuading the family members. This is particularly difficult in cases of recent marriage, when one has to convince his or her spouse. And this is of most difficult when the person wishing to migrate is a woman. 

The logic put forwarded is, in general, easily accepted when mobility can potentially fulfill cultural and materialistic value. But, if that’s not the case, several counter arguments arise. Sometimes these arguments are influenced by a sense of patriotism. And example can be found Tika, a short drama by playwright Bhimnidhi Tiwari: “Aafnai des ko matoma pasina baganuparchaa,” reads one line. A glimpse of negotiation and renegotiation within a family can also be found in “Muna Madan,” a famous work by writer and poet Laxmi Prasad Devkota. Sometimes dismal stories are also used by the family members to counter the aspiring migrant’s logic. Those maladies and tragedies associated with mobility, propagated through the media, provide a strong backing for family members’ in defying the former’s logic. 

There are many youths in Nepal desperate to migrate, but unable to do so because of the family’s rigid stance against it. 

When an individual member’s eagerness to migrate is accepted by the family, and then comes the fulfillment of roles and expectations. The approval only lays a ground for further preparation, wherein combined efforts and varied roles of family members are required to actually make it happen. This is the time when all social networks are channelised in search of opportunities, parents are expected to arrange funds required for migration, and spouses and siblings are expected to be active in strengthening the aspiring migrant’s mental state of being. Family members often go beyond support, and feel as though the migration deeply affects them as well. In the words of Leela Gulati on migration away from Kerala, “The impact of migration to the Middle East begins to be felt long before the migrant actually leaves home. It starts the moment a husband or son decides and try to migrate to the Middle East and starts seriously preparing for it. 

He has to mobilise various social networks both at home and abroad and this he does with the support and involvement of the adult members, men and women, of his immediate family, including not only his wife and parents but also siblings, as well as other relatives; friends and neighbors to get involved”.  

In line with this argument, the process of negotiation and renegotiation which takes place within a family before migration has a connection with happenings in several pre-phases of migration. And unique about this process is that it is embedded with several social issues and problems like gender, poverty, unemployment and underemployment, inequality, dull rustic life, and deviances. Concerned stakeholder should thus remember to never leave this familial aspect of migration out of discourse and policy debate.

Published on: 29 January 2012 | The Kathmandu Post