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CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS PROCEEDINGS CONFERENCE Established 2000 2016 on Nepal and the Himalaya Conference The Annual Kathmandu 9 789937597487 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS 2016 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS 2016 Established 2000 The papers contained in this volume were presented at the Annual Kathmandu Conference on Nepal and the Himalaya, 27 to 29 July, 2016, organised by Social Science Baha, the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies, Britain-Nepal Academic Council, Centre for Himalayan Studies - CNRS, and Nepal Academic Network (Japan). Not all the papers presented at the conference were submitted for publication; some were published in other platforms while others remain unpublished. The conference schedule is provided in the appendix of this volume. The full list of presentations made at the conference can be viewed at www.annualconference.soscbaha.org. This volume was edited by a team at Social Science Baha consisting of Khem Shreesh and Wayne Redpath. Preferred citation Social Science Baha. 2019. Conference Proceedings 2016: The Annual Kathmandu Conference on Nepal and the Himalaya. Kathmandu: Social Science Baha. © Individual authors Published for Social Science Baha by Himal Books ISBN: 978 9937 597 48 7 Social Science Baha 345 Ramchandra Marg, Battisputali, Kathmandu – 9, Nepal Tel: +977-1-4472807, 4480091 • Fax: +977-1-4475215 [email protected] • www.soscbaha.org Himal Books Himal Kitab Pvt. Ltd. 521 Narayan Gopal Sadak, Lazimpat Kathmandu-2, Nepal Tel: +977-1-4422794 [email protected] • www.himalbooks.com Printed in Nepal Price: Rs 700/- Contents 1 Not Women, but Their Remittance is Acknowledged Women’s Labour Migration and Exclusion in Nepal Ramji Prasad Adhikari and Rishikesh Pandey 25 Gender Dimensions of the Gorkhaland Movement Kumar Chhetri 39 The Gurkha Wives of the United Kingdom Challenges to Social Integration Neha Choudhary 64 The Global Fund in Nepal Kapil Dahal, Ian Harper, Rekha Khatri and Sushil Baral 77 Tamang Dashain Celebrations and the Production of Doxa An Indigenous Perspective Tek Bahadur Dong 104 State Recognition and Emerging Trends of Modernisation of Tibetan Medicine in Nepal Gaurav Lamichhane 119 Social Rules and Uses in Public Spaces in Kathmandu Claire Martinus 130 Shifts in the Strategy of Caste Representation Links between Everyday Life Practices and Identity Politics Kanako Nakagawa 145 Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Response A Study of Trans-Himalaya (Upper-Mustang), Nepal Rishikesh Pandey 180 Playback Theatre An Approach to Community Reconciliation in Nepal Nar Bahadur Saud 194 ‘Every Day is about Surviving’ Street Children and the Great Quake Dawa Tshering Sherpa and Soni Khanal 209 Public Migration of Health Workers from Nepal Bandita Sijapati, Neha Choudhary and Jeevan Baniya 228 Urbanisation and the Transient Migrant Labourer Bandita Sijapati, Sambriddhi Kharel and Anish Bhandari 244 Micro-Hydro as Common Property An Analysis of Local Institutions and Development Manoj Suji 260 ‘Aren’t We also Wheels of this Nation-Chariot?’ Orature as an Alternative Her-Story of the Nation Balram Uprety 295 The Contributors 301 Appendix Not Women, but Their Remittance is Acknowledged Women’s Labour Migration and Exclusion in Nepal RAMJI PRASAD ADHIKARI & RISHIKESH PANDEY Study Context According to Marwan (2003), globalisation and integration of regional economics have motivated cross boarder mobility of migrant workers; therefore, appropriate management has become a major policy agenda for native, transit, and destination countries as many of them are women (UNDP 2009). The United Nations (2006) identifies the prospects of better earnings to ensure household incomes and the desire to escape the poverty trap as the key drivers of labour migration from least developed and developing countries. In recent decades, the economic boom in the Gulf countries make the region a major block for receiving migrant workers, so the share of temporary workers in the Gulf countries have been rising since the 1970s and the Asian continent alone supplies over 80 per cent of the foreign workers. Household poverty and the lack of income generating opportunities force Nepali men and women to leave the homeland and go abroad for paid jobs. They have to be separated from their own family and children, and face potential mistreatment, exploitation, and psychological harassment. Housemaids in Saudi Arabia are frequently physically and sexually assaulted, raped, and even sold from one employer to another with a certain amount of commissions.1 Due to the lack of specific government policy for safe, secure and respectful job markets, foreign labourers are being pushed toward various socio-psychological margins, violence, and abuse. They also lose social integrity in both the labour supplying and labour hosting 1 As stated in a press release of the Nepali Embassy in Saudi Arabia on July-12, 2010. 2 Proceedings 2016: Conference on Nepal and the Himalaya societies. Furthermore, the patriarchal society of Nepal does not easily accept women’s labour migration. However, an in-depth investigation on the issue of remittance contributions of migrant women worker (MWW) and the cost of socio-spatial exclusion, abuse, and exploitation has not been conducted. Therefore, this paper aims to shed light on the status of Nepali MWW in Gulf Countries; explores their contribution to household livelihoods; and examine their experiences of abuse, exploitation, and exclusion during the migration process. This paper consists five sections. The introductory section illustrates the context and research problems, the theoretical nexus that leads to construction of causal mechanisms of women’s labour migration follows the introductory section. Section three presents the methods and materials used in this paper to reach to the conclusion, while section four demonstrates the findings of this research. Lastly, the concluding section discusses the findings in relation to the existing literature and provides policy feedback. Theoretical Nexus Over the past decades, several migration researchers have bemoaned the absence of a comprehensive migration theory. Johnston et al (2002) state that migration studies have successfully been integrated with the various theories of economic, societal, spatial and behavioural sciences; however, in fact it has not been theorised. Other researchers see it as a well theorised issue since Ravenstein formulated the laws of migration in 1889. Several attempts have been made to theorise migration, particularly by Lee, Zelinsky, and Todaro. It is very difficult to generalise the causes and consequences of migration; migration related decision making has diverse and complex phenomena, and it is a difficult to separate migration from other socio-economic and political processes. As a consequence, theorising migration is problematic. This may be the reason why scholars think that migration will never have a general theory. This paper also borrows various concepts and theories from the various social science disciplines to form a general theoretical foundation to guide the research. The neo-classical equilibrium perspective explains migration in reference to geographical differences in the supply and demand of the labour force. The differential wages cause workers to move from low- wage labour-surplus regions to high-wage labour scarce regions. Migration in turn, causes labour to become less scarce at the destination while it becomes scarcer at the place of origin. Contrary to the movement of migrant labour, capital is expected to move in the opposite direction in the form of remittance, for which Harris and Todaro (1970) termed ‘factor Adhikari & Pandey: Women’s Labour Migration and Exclusion 3 price equalization’. The economic theory states that human capital in modern societies, is increasingly been recognised as a crucial factor of economic development (Becker 1962). Therefore, human capital, such as skills, education, knowledge, and physical abilities are fundamental determinants of migration. Human capital boosts economic production through migration. Structural theory is rooted in Marxist political economy and the World Systems Approach (Castles and Miller 2003), and has a radically different interpretation of migration. Structuralism postulates unequally distributed economic and political power among developed and developing countries as reinforcing further inequalities in economic gain and underdeveloped countries risk being trapped by the cluster of disadvantages, which compels poor people to move in search of the fulfilment of their basic needs and aspirations. Network migration system theory looks at the influence of early migrants as a driving force. Lee (1966) argues that migration facilitates the flow of information, which facilitates the passage for later migrants. Hence, once a critical number of migrants have settled at the destination, coincidental choices made by pioneer migrants or labour recruiting employers tend to have a great influence on subsequent migration patterns. The feminist perspective on migration is concerned with the spatial scales and scalar relationships, particularly influenced by social and political processes. In feminism, the migration event is examined for the economic or geopolitical forces that led to the context of migration occurrence and its timing (Massey et al 1998). Feminist migration researchers ask additional questions such as ‘whose nation?’ while developing an understanding on migrant supplying and receiving countries and or societies. The national scale of migration is