Table 3 - uploaded by Jonathan Rigg
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Domestic and international migration provide the point of entry for an investigation of social and economic transformations that are altering the function and functioning of the household at two sites in rural Sri Lanka. Based on a survey questionnaire of one hundred households complemented by interviews with a subsample of fifty migrants or their...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... Kumburegama South's 308 households, about 50 had current migrants at the time of the sur- vey in 2007, and a further 100 households had engaged with migration in the past. Most of these migrants were young, unmarried women and men who had left home to work in the garment factories of Galle, the Koggala Free Trade Zone, and Colombo (Table 3 and Figure 1). 4 We were told that the first young person to leave the village and take up garment factory work left Kumbu- regama South in 1997. ...
Context 2
... We were told that the first young person to leave the village and take up garment factory work left Kumbu- regama South in 1997. There were also a small num- ber of international labor migrants-mostly women and usually married-and some men who had joined the po- lice or the army and been posted away (Table 3). There is, therefore, a significant migration stream from Kumburegama South to other places. ...
Context 3
... village officer esti- mated that of these 550 households, 100 had a current (as of mid-2007) migrant absent from their household and a further 200 had experienced migration in the past. International migration, the prevalent migration stream in Alut Henegama, is almost exclusively to the Middle East and undertaken by married women over thirty years of age; domestic migration is largely for gar- ment factory work and involves single women younger than thirty (Table 3). In the village, vegetable farming is the main economic activity and the principal cash crop is beetroot. ...
Citations
... Field Amnesty International's (2014) findings among domestic workers in Qatar revealed that domestic workers are a vulnerable group who heavily depends on their employer, experiencing exploitation by their employers through long working hours, low wages, lack of rest, and dehumanising treatments. Studies concerning Sri Lankan migrants have examined workrelated exploitations that migrant workers experience in Middle East countries, such as non-payment of wages, overwork, sexual harassment, and inhuman treatment (Arachchi, 2013;Hewage et al., 2011;Shaw, 2010). Most Middle East countries, for example, have a dual economy with well-paid nationals and poorly-paid foreigners (Gamburd, 2010;Leonard, 2002). ...
... Migration motivations are rooted in desires to earn money for family necessities and future investments, such as building a new house, starting new business ventures, and educating children (Hewage et al., 2011). Gamlath (2019) realised that migrants in Sri Lanka who experienced uncertain economic conditions sought employment opportunities as a survival strategy overseas. ...
This case study is a detailed description of the experience of Sri Lankan migrant workers in Bahrain, exploring the labour market exploitation after arriving in Bahrain and coping strategies. These migrants’ labour market experiences show contrasting and negative experiences after arriving at their destinations. The qualitative research method was utilised, drawing descriptive analysis (thematic analysis technique) of compiling data through semi-structured interviews. Thirty in-depth interviews with Sri Lankan migrant workers, who stayed with their families in Bahrain for more than six months, were conducted using a purposive sampling technique. The study has identified negative experiences of relationships with employers and co-workers in which migrants went through a range of exploitations. The study revealed that the power exercised by employers and co-workers was the prominent cause behind this exploitation. The findings have confirmed that the foremost goal of migration, earning through productive employment, has collapsed due to wage exploitation. Finally, the study highlights acceptance of exploitation as a coping strategy that the migrants had adopted to endure their exploitative labour market. The information explored on the exploitation of migrant workers in Bahrain enriches the literature with a new sociological and empirical study which provides new evidence about the serious challenges that they had faced.
... South Asian societies are undergoing complex socio-cultural transformations (Hewage, Kumara, and Riggs 2011;Vikas, Varman, and Belk 2015) involving unprecedented levels of legal, economic, political, and social change. Research suggests that competing local and global consumption discourses, which we term "postmodern complexity," are vying for the attention and the disposable income of urban South Asian consumers and their families (Eckhardt and Mahi 2012;Lynch 2007). ...
There is a bricolage of competing local and global ideologies, value systems, and practices vying for the attention of urban South Asian consumers. We term this as “postmodern complexity”. Drawing from a three-year ethnographic research expedition on Sinhalese Sri Lankan families, we illustrate the process by which these families mediate postmodern complexity during new family formation. Our findings support an emergent framework to understand the processes in which families negotiate the influence of competing discourses and illustrate that the process is a perpetual experimentation spanning across three overlapping stages. We argue that negotiating postmodern complexity in our families is a hybrid and creolised resolution that is tailored to each family’s unique identity needs. Families can draw from a multitude of meanings that are anchored in consumption in order to create a unique family identity that is most appropriate to their identity pursuits.
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... Trust in employment is given to relationships involving socio-historical and traditional livelihoods. The social assets connect people and the place of migrant workers' links to household employment (Hewage, Kumara, & Rigg, 2011). This feature has been strong in establishing social ties motivated by employment activity that generates incomes. ...
This article examines how informal household workers selling labor are domain of livelihood assets required as a means to make a living. It is argued that five types of assets are well established in the livelihood work of workers in the Lao PDR (Laos). Qualitative methods were used to collect data, including in-depth interviews with 20 key informants. Contextual content analyses were performed using the ATLAS.ti program. Our main findings indicate that two groups are differently involved in livelihoods work in Laos. The first group of home-based garment workers (kinship, combines, and self-employed) highly transformed the social assets, human assets, and economic assets to achieve their livelihoods. Even selling one's labor involves a high transformation of progressive assets into livelihood outcomes. The second group of home-based garment workers (neighboring and industrial outworkers) were poor at transforming capital assets to achieve livelihoods. Further obstacles including lack of employment opportunities, welfare, and labor protections lead to fluctuating incomes. Finally, the contributions of actively selling labor are presented in the context of the key elements of empirical evidence.
... For India alone, in 2007-08 internal remittances amounted to US$10 billion, and 30 per cent of all household expenditure was financed by these transfers among remittance-receiving households (estimated at 10 per cent of all rural households in India) (Tumbe, 2011). Systematic research on the direct role of remittances in influencing rural households' food security is scarce however. 1 Second, in migration research there has recently been a tendency to treat migrants as separate entities at destinations (Hewage et al., 2011), which ignores the origin-destination linkages that migration creates. Indeed, in many countries of Asia and Africa, which account for much of the global burden of food and nutritional insecurity (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2015), migration is not always a one-time, permanent move-far from it. ...
This paper argues for the need to integrate migration in future food policy research and practice and, in doing so, examines the role of internal migration as a livelihood strategy in influencing food security among rural households. Migration has become a key component of livelihood strategies for an increasing number of rural households across the developing world. Importantly, there is emerging consensus among academics and policy makers on migration's potentially positive effects in reducing poverty and promoting sustainable human development. Concurrently, the significance of the catch-cry ‘food security for all’ as an important development objective has been growing, particularly since the 2007–08 global food crisis. However, academic and policy discussions on these two issues have tended to proceed largely in silos, with little attention devoted to the relationship they bear with each other. Using primary survey data collected from 392 rural households from a district in western Bihar in India, this paper seeks to fill this gap in relational dynamics. It first reviews plausible reasons for this disconnect between migration and food security in the wider developing countries' context, and then draws on a primary survey of rural Indian households to provide empirical household-level insights on the linkages between people's movements and households' capacity to secure food. In particular, the paper focuses on the often-overlooked role of migrants' remittances for food security of rural households at points of origin. The findings show that, by equipping households with improved purchasing power and enabling investment in agriculture, remittances contribute positively to household food security.
... For example, after the 1990s, many women who lived in marginalized societies in the dry zone of the country became involved in income generating occupations: many of them migrated to Middle East countries as house cleaners. As a development strategy, a large number of garment factories were established by the government in urban areas of the country and many women found employment opportunities in them (Rigg, Hewage & Kumara, 2011). However, the changes that occurred in traditional lifestyles and patriarchal hegemonic power relations in those households owing to women being monetarily empowered have resulted in the collapse of traditional social relationships and instigated other socio-cultural issues. ...
... One of the main issues is loss of traditional social status of the men in those families, relative to the rest of the villagers. It has shaken the husband and wife relationship and many men have become alcoholics whereas some of them started extra marital relationships with neighbouring women, prostitutes or they abused their own children (Rigg et al., 2011). Empowerment of women in a traditional social system with ingrained cultural norms and gender gaps must be facilitated after a careful examination of potential subsequent social effects. ...
Traditional socio-cultural practices of developing countries and changes that occur in them can act against bottom up development activities. Community based ecotourism (CBET) is a well-established concept and its implementation is an important component in many regional development strategies. This research examines gender issues as main socio-cultural challenges to CBET initiatives in the Sinharaja world heritage site, Sri Lanka. A qualitative-inductive research methodology has principally guided this research to examine the socio-cultural and socioeconomic context of gender issues. A total of 293 participants have informed this research including 193 interviews (115 individuals, and 15 different focus-groups totalling 78 people) and 100 questionnaire respondents. A critical discourse analysis (CDA) method is used to examine both primary qualitative data collected through participant and direct observation, interviews and secondary data. One of the main findings is that capitalism has been superimposed upon the research site through the implementation of CBET as a sustainable and bottom up development approach and this process has consequently changed the socioeconomic structure of the research field. However, this situataion has brought some positive changes in the economic structure of the villages but has failed to make positive changes in the socio-cultural settings of the community. Among socio-cultural issues, gender issues could be identified as main socio-cultural barriers to implement alternative micro level development projects in this site. Since this site maintains a traditionally well-established patriarchy as in other rural areas of Sri Lanka, women have been marginalized within an already marginalized social group. Project planners have failed to achieve realistic CBET goals in a sustainable manner since they have not addressed gender issues. Main research conclusion is, CBET programmes should not just be limited to providing economic opportunities to women, but actually should support women's upward social mobility and self-confidence building by addressing negative issues in local socio-political and superimposed capitalist systems.
... While the large majority of our respondents reported successful overseas migration forays, at least in economic terms (we did not focus on the emotional and social tensions that arise during absence and on return), there was one failed migration experience to Qatar (Interview code #6-4). The household concerned may have managed to weather this failure, but there are ample examples from studies in Nepal and other countries reporting on the sometimes disastrous long-term livelihood effects of failed overseas migration forays (see Hewage et al., 2010;Sunam and McCarthy, 2016). ...
Drawing on a local study on Nepal’s Terai, this paper explores the nature of livelihood exposure to shocks and stresses among rural households in two Village Development Committees in Sunsari District. The primary data are derived from a 117 household survey supplemented by 19 purposefully sampled follow-up interviews. The paper opens with a discussion of the changing nature of exposure in the global South, distinguishing between inherited vulnerability and produced precarity. We then provide background to the research site and the research methods. In the core empirical part of the paper we unravel and distinguish between the livelihood threats and opportunities faced by households in the area and use these to reflect on the nature of ’exposure’, its historical origins and contemporary (re)production. The final part of the paper uses the Nepal case to build a more general argument, proposing that if we are to understand the puzzle of continued livelihood exposure and uncertainty in the context of aggregate economic expansion we need to identify and interrogate the processes that may, at the same time, produce wealth and reduce vulnerability, while also generating precarity.
... With the resolution of work and care tensions left largely to the private domain of the household, the dual burden of women's productive and reproductive labour tends to precondition dysfunctional familial relationships. Research reveals that the decisions of young women to pursue work in the garment industry are not so much the result of considerations of household income, but rather a claim for autonomy, a breaking free from the gendered constraints of familial and village life in order to earn independently (Hewage, kumara and Rigg 2011). Particularly for poor women, whose families are unable to amass a significant dowry, private savings were seen as a catalyst for individual upward mobility. ...
Sri Lankan women have traditionally been marginalised from waged work in non-agricultural sectors, but many have experienced a pronounced reconfiguration of their working lives in the period since the dramatic economic liberalisation of 1977. A concentration of economic activity in urban areas prompted the internal migration of young Sinhala women into a nascent garment industry situated within newly created export processing zones, while others made incomes as migrant domestic workers following a concurrent lifting of restrictions on foreign employment. Alongside traditional labouring in the plantation sector, these avenues of employment have since underpinned the bulk of Sri Lanka's foreign exchange earnings and steadily supplanted notions of the male breadwinner. Yet cultural expectations of women's care roles have not undergone a corresponding transformation, engendering a number of tensions at the intersection of women's productive and reproductive labour. Background and demographics
... In order to capture the complex relationship between frontier development and migration it is important to understand migration networks and how linkages between people and places develop, as well as how connections between sending and receiving communities are being constitutive of those places (Gardner 2009;Hewage et al. 2011;Zoomers and van Westen 2011) should be considered. Hence, migration is a process that demonstrates shifting rationalities and opportunities. ...
Since the first commercial planting of cocoa in Ghana more than a century ago, the production of cocoa has been a key factor in the redistribution of migrants and has played a pivotal role in the development of both sending and receiving communities. This process has been acknowledged in the literature for decades. However, how migration flows have changed in response to changing livelihoods dynamics of the frontier and how this has impacted on the development of the frontier has only attracted limited attention. Based on a study of immigration to Ghana's current cocoa frontier in the Western Region, this article aims to examine how immigration and frontier dynamics in the Western region are contributing to livelihood transitions and small town development, and how this process is gradually becoming delinked from the production of cocoa. The article focuses on how migration dynamics interlink with livelihood opportunities and strategies. It is argued that migrants to the current frontier can be divided into at least four different types based on their migration, settlement and livelihood practices. Accordingly, to understand how the cocoa frontier changes as well as its continuation beyond the frontier crop, there is a need for a broader understanding of the frontier concept, and how frontier transformation interacts with migration and livelihood dynamics.
... Children may be upset with fathers who resist carework and gradually become withdrawn due to the lack of emotional support. In addition, left-behind fathers appear to be experiencing greater stress in this reversed situation, with more of them picking up drinking and drug-taking habits as a form of escape (Hewage, Kumara, and Rigg 2011). This may eventually increase risks among children, or have an adverse effect on their behaviour, emotions and performance in school (Gamburd 2005;Hewage, Kumara, and Rigg 2011;Hugo and Ukwatta 2010;Senaratna 2012;Ukwatta 2010). ...
... In addition, left-behind fathers appear to be experiencing greater stress in this reversed situation, with more of them picking up drinking and drug-taking habits as a form of escape (Hewage, Kumara, and Rigg 2011). This may eventually increase risks among children, or have an adverse effect on their behaviour, emotions and performance in school (Gamburd 2005;Hewage, Kumara, and Rigg 2011;Hugo and Ukwatta 2010;Senaratna 2012;Ukwatta 2010). ...
Recent increases in the volume of labour migration from South-east Asia – and in particular the feminisation of these movements – suggest that millions of children are growing up in transnational families, separated from their migrant parents. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data collected in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, the study seeks to elucidate care arrangements for left-behind children and to understand the ways in which children respond to shifts in intimate family relations brought about by (re)configurations of their care. Our findings emphasise that children, through strategies of resistance, resilience and reworking, are conscious social actors and agents of their own development, albeit within constrained situations resulting from their parents’ migration.
