Becoming a Migrant Worker in Nepal

What does it take to build a transnational market around low-wage labor? A multi-sensory ethnography of the Nepali migration regime and the multifaceted migrant subjectivities at its core.

High-profile events such as the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar have made one thing abundantly clear: Much of today's economic growth would be unthinkable without the low-wage employment of migrant workers. But which cultural, economic, and political infrastructures in the »source« countries make these types of migration possible in the first place? Based on multi-sensory ethnographic research in Nepal, Hannah Uprety retraces the practices of recruitment and instruction that step by step transform Nepali labor into an internationally marketable commodity. In doing so, she uncovers a migration regime that effectively turns local men and women into »migrant workers« before they even leave the country.

Auteur
Hannah Uprety, born in 1986, obtained her PhD in geography at Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. Her interests include migration studies, globalization and transnational labor, as well as poststructuralist, postcolonial, and feminist perspectives. She currently works in the social sector.