PROJECTS
Organizing without organizations: Nepali domestic workers...
Humanitarianism and the moral politics of sex- trafficking and rehabilitation in Nepal
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LOVE, intimacy and sexualities
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HONOUR, gossip- and rumour communication
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ARTMANDU
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The purpose of this project is to explore the tensions in regulations and policies of women’s labour migration in/between sending and receiving country, and how Nepali domestic workers handle and challenge these tensions in their informal (and illegal) organization in connection with labour migration in the United Arab Emirate (UAE). The project focuses on the domestic workers understandings of these tensions and how they interplay with their navigating strategies and interactions in informal organizing practices while handling the problems labour migrants are subject to. As official organizations and organizing are illegal in many of the labour migration intensive Gulf countries it has been taken for granted that organization does not exist. Consequently, the research is sparse when it comes to labour migrant’s organization, and even less so or not to say non- existent
when it comes to domestic workers informal organization in a context such as UAE. It is as abused victims of exploitative labour conditions and human trafficking domestic workers have been visible in dominant academic, policy and general discourses, not as being the driving force of informal organization regarding labour migration related problems.
Key words: labour migration/ Nepali domestc workers/ informal and illegal organization/ UAE
Organizing without organizations:
Nepali domestic workers informal organization in connection with
labour migration in the United Arab Emirate
Navigators of the in- between:
Brokers manouvring il/ legal terrains of gendered labour migration control between Nepal and the Gulf countries
This project takes as its starting point the brokers in the infrastructure of the migration industry and their navigating strategies during the labour recruitment process set against the background of the Nepali state’s regulation of gendered labour migration to the United Arab Emirate (UAE). The Nepali state’s restrictive regulations and ban on women’s foreign employment are legitimated by humanitarian reasons, within this context a paternalistic governance based on a moral political economy connected to a gendered vulnerability and the need to protect women from abuse, exploitation and trafficking. However, the consequence is that women instead are forced to migrate for work through irregular channels. Within this moral political economy, the brokers have come to be demonized as “criminal others”, profit driven facilitators of il/ legal labour migration, kidnappers, smugglers and traffickers. The project problematizes this discourse, also used by humanitarian organizations and the media, and the common understanding in academic research of the brokers as merely facilitators, connecting different actors, institutions and resources in il/ legal labour migration and/ or trafficking. It argues that their navigating strategies must be conceptualized more broadly where gender is considered in order to get an understanding of these strategies within a continuum of facilitation and restriction of women’s labour migration.
Key words: brokerage/ infrastructure of the migration industry/ regulations labour migration/ gender/ Nepal- UAE
BOMBAY GOING:
Nepali migrant sex workers in an anti- trafficking era
© Susanne Åsman
Set against the background of a critical examination of anti-trafficking organisations’ dominant discourses of sex trafficking in the Nepali context, the project provides an ethnographic account of how Tamang women and men in the Sindhupalchowk district, defined by these organisations as severely affected by sex trafficking, understand what they define as “Bombay going” or migration for sex work. The main motivation for this endeavour is that very little, if anything, has been said about sex trafficking and anti-trafficking efforts from the perspective of Tamang women besides the studies based on the rehabilitation and reintegration programmes led by anti-trafficking organisations that concentrate exclusively on the women’s identity as victims. This study focuses on women’s agency and the meaning they ascribe to their roles as sex workers in the migratory process in the present and the past. It investigates how they carve out a space for themselves and create relatedness in the places between which they move—their house in the rural area in Nepal and the brothels in Mumbai that temporarily serve as their homes during their absence. Of central importance is the women’s return to their natal or conjugal house after years of sex work in the red light district and their lived everyday lives as wives, mothers, daughters, etc.
In stark contrast to the dominant discourse among the anti-trafficking organisations, the Tamang women in this study returned of their own accord and were reintegrated into their native villages. It also demonstrates that their migration to Mumbai was driven by the intention of return from the very start. During their years abroad, the women felt a strong sense of belonging to and maintained their membership to their natal houses, through social, religious and financial contributions of “Bombay wealth”, through return visits and strong and well-established networks between the brothels in Mumbai and their homes in Nepal. Moreover, through their contributions from sex work Tamang women have created significant personal and structural social changes in their places of origin regarding gendered roles, family relations, marriage practices, mortuary rituals and religious practices and inheritance rights.
The project is based on multisited ethnographic fieldwork carried out over a fifteen month long period, with several return visits during the 10 years following the first fieldwork period, in both Nepal and India. However, the main part of the fieldwork was conducted in the Sindhupalchowk district, northeast of Kathmandu, mainly inhabited by the Tamang ethnic group. Additionally, fieldwork was carried out at the brothels in the red light districts of Mumbai and Kolkata, and interviews were conducted with INGOs and NGOs in Kathmandu working with anti-trafficking initiatives in Nepal.
Key words: sex trafficking/ anti- trafficking/ migration for sex work/ prostitution/ return migration/ house/ home/ brothel/ belonging/ relatedness/ gender/ agency/ Nepal- India
Love, intimacy and sexualities: Young men and their re/negotiations of masculinities in Nepal
© Susanne Åsman
The project focus on the way young South Asian men experience and perceive themselves as masculine subjects and performing bodies in the dynamic interplay between different moral ideals of masculinities in a globalized context. An increase of migration, the use of social media and an increase in the availability of different kinds of sexual services and sexual entertainments, that during the last few years have increased to such an extent that the capital Kathmandu today popularly is called “little Bombay”, are all aspects that are part of this process. Young men’s agency, how they re/negotiates, and re/articulates love, intimacy and sexualities in this process, is in focus. The research project study how these young men understand and act in this complex process as actors who contest, resist or embrace different moral ideals of masculinities in narratives and in every day practises.
The study is part of a long-term project that has been going on for the last ten years in the South Asian context with a focus on Nepal, related to masculinities, love, intimacy, sexualities and globalization.
Key words: masculine subjectivity/ performing bodies/ moral ideals/ love/ sex/ globalization/ Nepal
Honour, gossip-
and rumour among high school youths in Sweden
The study scrutinizes how high school youths in Gothenburg understand the dynamics between honour related norms, gossip and rumour communication. It examines honour related discrimination and when there is a risqué that this discrimination turns into violence. In focus are the youths different strategies to prevent gossip and rumours to be spread, and the approaches and the counter –measures that are stressed when they are subject to gossip and rumours. Other aspects in focus in the study are the trustworthiness the youths give gossip in different situations and contexts and under what circumstances and to what consequences rumour and gossip are considered to be contagious. The project is part of a larger project, “Rumour communication and honour related violence: A forensic anthropology study”, with Andreas Nordin as the project leader.
Key words: honour related norms/ high school youths/ contagious gossip- and rumour communication/ gender/ Sweden
Humanitari-anism and the moral politics of sex- trafficking and rehabilitation in Nepal.
At the centre of this study is anti-trafficking organizations interventions and the women who have been rescued from the red light districts in India or who have been “intercepted” by the border or elsewhere in Nepal on the suspicion of being in a vulnerable situation in regard to sex trafficking. At their deportation and return back to Nepal they pass through the anti-trafficking organizations rehabilitation programs intended to reintegrate them into Nepali society. The study scrutinizes humanitarian reason in regard to different rehabilitation centers in Kathmandu and the practices of and the meaning the staff members give rescue and rehabilitation in regard to the particular situation and context of sex trafficking. It focuses on the practices of the staffs’ efforts to improve the situation for the women in those programs but also on moral politics and the consequences of the practices in the rehabilitation programs that not always are in the interest of the women concerned. It also examines the women’s subjectivities and own experiences of maneuvering and participating in the programs at the rehabilitation centers and their relations with the rehabilitation center staff. There are interactions between two parties separated by differences in status and power not only because of the former sex workers vulnerable situation but also because of power related to age, gender, caste, ethnicity and class. These issues all require critical investigation. Research and qualitative data from the post-sex trafficking rehabilitation field has received little attention until date. The project gives specific insights into the Nepali context but will also contribute to the general knowledge of human challenges in a post-sex trafficking rehabilitation situation.
Key words: anti- trafficking interventions/ rehabilitation/ humanitarian reason/ moral politics/ Nepal
ARTMANDU
The project, in its initial preparatory stage, is a study that is based on a series of photographs of street art taken in Kathmandu from 2012 and onwards. The aim with the project is that through the photographs discuss the connections, if any, between street art, social activism, politics, cultural heritage and affect. It will also examine the motivations, practices and the meanings that street art as a relatively recent phenomenon in Nepal have for the artist themselves as well as the public, i.e. the different categories of people moving around in the city doing their everyday practices in the public space and open gallery of Kathmandu.
