Masculinities, Remittances and Failure

Abstract

Migration from Nepal to India, a major issue in contemporary Nepal, has a wide range of consequences, including significant implications for the performance of masculinity. Remittances, and the associated pressures to send or bring money home, form a central part of the gendering of such migration, but many men are unable to remit to the levels expected of them. Consequently, this overshadows the cost/benefit analysis of migration for many families and brings into question the extent to which migration remains a viable income diversification strategy. The article, based on a multi-methods approach within an ethnographic framework, examines the potential range of effects that migration trajectories may have on males that migrate and are then finding themselves under pressure to remit and perform locally specific forms of masculinity.