From the peaks and back: mapping the emotions of trans-Himalayan children education migration journeys in Kathmandu, Nepal

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper explores how children who have migrated to Kathmandu from Trans-Himalayan regions of Nepal experience conditions of emotional disconnect in the process of migration-for-education. Using a child-centred methodology, I review children’s feelings of fear and moments of joy as they prepare to leave home at a young age. This paper depicts the heavily emotional journeys to Kathmandu, often done by foot and limited ground transport. I then explore how children experience educational integration in an urban boarding school. From many years of separation, the paper shows how children are often emotionally disconnected from their mountainous homelands. I show how disconnection creates complicated feelings, and I highlight children’s affective articulations of ‘return’, and their lived experiences of homecoming. In mapping the emotive realities of children, the paper also reminds the reader how the researcher’s own positionality needs to be reflexively critiqued when doing child-centred research on the emotions of migration.