A project always builds on previous work. One of the intriguing findings that had come up in my research over 2015 (funded by Zayed University) was this: while interviewing Malayali respondents, and chatting with long-time Gulf Malayali friends, I began to discern an unexpected discourse. I kept hearing that ‘The Gulf is good for women’. Finding out more about this, and unpicking what ‘good for women’ might mean, was one
3 periods of Kerala fieldwork over 2 years. 84 respondents. Mixed ages, provenance, community and class, different migration destinations. Special focus on Mavelikkara, Calicut & Mattancherry Respondents split by gender A mix of retired, returned, current migrants Their response to my key question: is Gulf migration only about the money? You’ll be thinking I’ve made this up – such a neat result. Split straight down
I’ve been closing my part of the REALM project over the past month. Now I will be posting highlights from the results. Anyone who works in migration can approach me if they need more details, and you can see the bigger REALM website for details of other projects on this collaborative initiative. My project – ‘The Paradox of the Gulf as a Space of Freedom and Aspiration’, grew out of
I wrote a while ago about the rapid transformations post 1990s in young people’s expectations of what a marriage ought to be, what a household should consist of, and what constitutes a good family life. Kerala’s men these days are under pressure to act not only as breadwinners (which has long been the case in this state where women have low workforce participation and where a non-working wife is a component
