Temporalities of class in Nepalese labour migration to South Korea

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which Nepali migrants perceive, experience and rework their downward class mobilities within the processes of labour migration to South Korea (hereafter Korea). It focuses on the temporal dimension of the migration process in relation to the Korean labour migration regime in terms of three aspects: the temporariness of sojourn, temporal disjunctures and adaptations in workplaces, and temporal resynchronisation in transnational spaces. First, the article argues that the temporariness of their sojourn under the Employment Permit System (EPS) is perceived by migrants as a ‘liminal time’ or a ‘time-out’ from the life course, serving to make the precariousness of life and work bearable. Second, illustrating the subjective experiences of Nepali migrants as underclass workers in unfamiliar workplaces, the article argues that they experience their working-class positions through temporal disjunctures between time in Nepal and Korea, and heteronomous time as discipline under the EPS. Lastly, it is shown that their downward class identities are reworked by dividing working time and social time, with a further temporal resynchronisation between migrants and their homeland. The conceptual and empirical insights offered by this study aim to contribute to the discussions of temporalities of migration and class analysis of people on the move.