Bringing the ‘left behind’ back into view in Asia: a framework for understanding the ‘migration–left behind nexus’

Abstract

A middle-aged man moves from the hinterland of China to the east coast to find work as a construction worker; a young woman from rural Indonesia takes up a factory job in Jakarta; a Vietnamese woman joins her fellow villagers in Hanoi to work as a scavenger . . . Migration scholars policy-makers and the public media may see in these phenomena the migrant the journey and the arrival. But for the migrants these activities also signal departure separation and leaving family members loved ones and familiar places behind. Indeed leaving behind often entails emotional and psychological struggles as well as complex rearrangements of the material aspects of daily life of a magnitude as significant as moving to and settling in places of destination. An individuals migration presents a major rupture of the inner workings and everyday life of an entire household. While it is well recognised that rural--urban labour mobility continues to rise in terms of both magnitude and geographical scope across Pacific Asia -- more people are migrating from more places to more destinations -- the left behind (by definition a much larger group than the migrants themselves) are often forgotten. (excerpt)