'Save there, eat here': Migrants, households and community identity among Pakhtuns in northern Pakistan

Abstract

The phrase alta gatee, dalta ookhree (save there, eat here) neatly sums up the way in which Pakhtun migrants understand their own and their families' condition. The aim of this article is to understand some aspects of the culture of labour migration from the Pakhtun village of Kohery to the Gulf states. The analysis presented here draws on fieldwork carried in the village of Kohery in Dir district during 1990-93 and in the United Arab Emirates, based on time spent there in 1988 and 1989. The article examines two interrelated themes: the way in which male migrants saved money, and the ways in which these savings were consumed. The analysis is set against two bodies of ethno graphic literature: the ethnographic work on Pakhtuns in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the anthropology of migration and more particularly the slowly growing ethno graphic materials on migration from Asia to the Gulf states.