Seeking fortune overseas:
success, failure, and change of returned migrants on the
Tamil-Nadu coast
Author Viktor Wildeboer
Mentor Maarten Bavinck
Bachelor Thesis Human Geography University of Amsterdam
- 2 - Index 1. Abstract - 3 - 2. Introduction - 4 - 3. Migration theory - 5 - 1.1 Theoretical trends - 5 -
1.2 Push and Pull factors - 6 -
1.3 Shaping the home country - 7 -
4. Methods - 9 -
5. Context of Samyiar Pettai - 14 -
6. Results - 16 -
1.4 Motivation - 16 -
1.5 Arrangements - 18 -
1.6 Migrants - 19 -
1.7 Destination and occupation - 21 -
1.8 Length of stay, Return and Remigration - 23 -
1.9 Rate of success - 24 -
1.10 Effect on the village - 28 -
7. Conclusion - 33 -
8. Afterword - 37 -
9. Literature - 37 -
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1. Abstract
Many men on the coast of Tamil Nadu migrate to the Gulf countries or Singapore in search for a better pay. Some succeed, some do not, but all eventually change their home village to which they return. This study tries to explore this effect mainly through qualitative interviews, and also with the help of a quantitative survey. Findings indicate, among other things, that educational level and country of destination had a high influence on the rate of personal success, and that the effect on the village can be seen both physically as in lifestyle changes. Overall, for the small village, migration has become a part of everyday life, which both a negatively and positively effects the migrants and the village.
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2. Introduction
Samyiar Pettai, a small fishing village on the coast of Tamil Nadu, seems at a first glance quite inconspicuous. The mornings are busy when the catch is brought ashore, but soon, as the afternoon approaches and the heat rises, the village becomes quiet. One sees a relatively closed and conservative village, which attracts little interest from outsiders. Likewise, insiders seem to have only modest interest in the outside. The village is led by men who have had little education, conservative ideas regarding traditions, and have, like their ancestors, no prospect of being anything else than a fisherman. This image, however, becomes distorted upon closer encounter, when a different village reveals itself. Surprisingly, this village is part of a vast international network, build up by the many men whom have migrated to many places in the world. All of a sudden, this sheds a different light on the village and its inhabitants, and the previous unremarkable village becomes an interesting field of transnational relations.
Almost half of the male population of this village proves to have migrated at least once in their life, and thereby adding to the Indian Diaspora of 16 million people, the largest amount in the world. (UN, 2015). The all-India pattern of development started in the 1950’s, with the high skilled migrants leaving the country. Later also the manual laborers left to the Gulf, from 1975 there were 250.000 Indian migrants in the gulf, in 2001 this has increased to 3.32 million (Khadira, 2008). The motive generally seems to be financial, wages are higher abroad, and opportunities in India itself are scarce in comparison to the demand. The group of unskilled laborers is by now providing the largest share of remittances for India (Khadira, 2008). \From the migrants who go back home, some return rich and successful, others worse off than before. The inflow of foreign money, ideas and customs that migrants bring with when returned can cause new dynamics to establish themselve, while old conventions become disputed. These changes are often not perceived as wholly positive by everyone in the community (Walton-Robberts, 2004). Which leaves me to wonder: what determines the success of migrants, and how do migrants shape their village?
Migrants themselves feel successful if they have earned enough money, and so their salary is a good indication. With this salary, and new ideas brought back they shape the village, both physically and with regard to the lifestyle, but this is further specified in section 4.1 Migration is a beloved field of study, but return migration is an understudied aspect (Rogaly, 1998). Recently however, more and more academic attention it given towards the returnee (Haas, Fokkema & Fassi Fihri, 2015). This thesis contributes to this topic, and sets out to find an answer to the research question making use of a combination of qualitative data and survey data.
After this introduction, we start with discussing the relevant literature concerning migration and in particular return migration, in order to later asses how theory relates to the empiric’s. Thereafter, attention is given to the limits of this research and the methods used in conducting interviews, sampling, the location, a survey and more. Subsequently, a brief chapter on some of the developments in India and how they relate with the case study, to offer some context. Subsequently, the results chapter includes a few sections that describe the migration process, and after that the effect that migration has had on the village. Lastly, in the conclusion the links and gaps between literature and the results are presented, ending with the obligatory, but certainly not superfluous ‘need to identify future research needs’.
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3. Migration theory
1.1 Theoretical trends
As with almost all theories, the first ones are simple and they become more complex as time goes by and new insights are adapted. In the field of migration studies, Cassarino (2004) gives an elaborate overview of the theories regarding returned migrants. Starting in the 1970’s where Neoclassical Economists generally viewed migration as an individual choice, and returning as the sign of failure. According to the authors of this time, migration on the macro level is the result of differences in wages and employment conditions between countries. On the micro scale individuals make a cost-benefit analysis before migration to maximize their income, and decide whether migration will (economically) improve their lives (Massey et al., 1993). When seeing migration in this light, people returning were not able to make an accurate cost-benefit analysis at the start, and thus their expectations did not meet reality, which can be considered a failure. The assumption here is that people rationally choose what is in their best interest and that they have enough information to make this decision. But this leaves the question, why one would ever return home when there are more economic benefits to be reaped abroad? (Batistella, 2014).
An important factor that was missing from this literature is the fact that people can decide, beforehand, to migrate only for a couple of years. This condition is covered in the literature of New Economics of Labor Migration (NELM), wherein they give attention to the strategic goal setting form of migration. Once enough money is earned people move back to their home village, and thus, return migration can be seen as successful in contrast to what the classical enecomics thought (Cassarino, 2004). Moreover, the NELM literature argues that the individual migrant is not the appropriate unit of analysis (Castels & Okzul, 2014). Migration is more often a household decision, wherein the household tries to diversify its income in order to minimize the risks. Consequently, wage differentials between the sending and the receiving country are not the (only) motivation to migrate. Rather, receiving income from multiple sources (from home and from abroad) makes the household less vulnerable, which is a motivation to engage in migration (Massey et al., 1993).
The previous two trends in migration literature focused mainly on the migrant him- or herself and the household to which one belongs, also investigating the (positive) modernizing effects that migration has on home and host societies. The subsequent ‘structuralists’ trend, however, was more concerned with the context in which people decide to migrate and sheds light on the negative consequences of migration aswell(Setrana & Tonah, 2014; Arnold, 2017). Brain drain, uneven development, and contextual factors that determine how and why migrants return become prevalent. These studies highlight that besides achieving a goal or not, things like traditions, customs, culture and power relations all are of influence on the migrant’s return. For example, to what extent does the employer abroad allow the migrant to return ? And what expectations does his/her family have of the migrant; does this imply that one only allowed to return once successful?
The latter approaches are criticized by the Transnationalist way of thinking in which a strict dichotomy is made between core and periphery, home and host, returned and abroad migrants (Cohen, 2006). Moreover, instead of focussing on the macro level, push and pull factors, more attention is given to the effects that migration has on the socio-economic status of the migrant him- or herself and those whom are left behind. Thus, there is a shift towards the migrant as an actor of change (Arnold, 2017; Jeffery & Murison, 2011).
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According to this new school of thinking, migration is not a one-time event, but a circular phenomenon as migrants who have returned often migrate again. Moreover, as migrants build up their own networks and lives abroad, with friends, collegues, work and leisure, the concept of home is not that straightforward anymore. New communities are thus formed abroad, and remain intact even when people return home again, forming a transnational space (Appadurai, 1996), as migrants remain active in their community even when they are not physically present (e.g. by telephone) (Jeffery, 2011).
This has given rise to further discussion on the concept of ‘returned migrant’, as many migrants move back and forth and it is not always clear whether they have returned temporarily or permanently. Therefore Schiller et al., (1992) refers rather to transmigrants, Biao (2014) tot ransnational mobility, and Wickramasekara (2011) to circular migration, thus moving away from the old paradigm of permanent migration. On the other hand, Castels and Okzul (2014) point out that while many people see circular migration as something positive, benefitting both the home and the host society, the emergence of these new concepts are also a way of framing temporary migration in order to overcome public resistance in host countries. Framing it as circular would imply that migrants have only little influence on the host country, and that in fact host countries only import labour, and not the people. Although such a discourse analysis might reach a little far for the subject of this thesis, Castels and Okzul’s (2014) provide an argument to stick with ‘returned migrant’ instead of making the switch to temporal or circular migrants. 1.2 Push and Pull factors
Lee (1966) proposed several hypotheses trying to offer an explanation for, among other things, the destination and volume of migration. He described how geographical disparities, economic prosperity in one area and depression in the other, can result in flows of people over the world. Hereby he stood at the beginning of the well know ‘push and pull factor theory’, which is useful for this paper, as it gives insight into why one would migrate at all. The theory describes how certain places pull people towards them, for instance due to high salaries of a country people decide to migrate there. While places of residence push people away due to unfavourable conditions, e.g. little cultural freedom resulting in people migrating out of the country.
Lee (1966) emphasized economic motivations, and we should take into consideration that this might be insufficient in explaining some migratory movement over the world. Martin and Zürcher (2008) have therefore highlighted the fact that there are also non-economic motivations to relocate, such as a chance to improve your social status (Massey et al., 1993), or to escape certain relationships with people in their home country (Gardner & Osella, 2003). Martin and Zurcher (2008) further explain the important role that a network plays, as this is also very influential in determining the destination of travel. This is because travelling via an network of friends or relatives lowers the costs and risks of migration (Batistella, 2014; Massey, et al., 1993). These fellow migrants provide each other with useful information such as on which country has favorable policies, or which employer is honest (Wickramasekara, 2014).
The classical model of economic push and pull factors thus turns out to have limitations. Yet, Martin and Zurcher, (2008) agree with Lee (1966) that actually making the move, and migrating, is the result of mainly economic push and pull factors, but the destination, work and duration are also influenced by the network available to a particular migrant. IEconomic motivation includes aspects like labor demand (pull) and unemployment (push), with the network provides information on available jobs and wages. Non-economic motivations include aspects
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like ‘the wish to see the world’ (pull), ‘or escaping the village life’ (push), whereby the network can help to inspire new migrants. An interesting finding emerging from research is that push and pull factors are of great importance once a migration flow to a certain destination emerges; later on, when the flow has ‘matured’, we see increasing relevance of the network (Martin & Zürcher, 2008). This could be because, at first the new host country is unexplored and unknown, but after a while, people build a network upon which they can rely on for future migration projects.
1.3 Shaping the home country
Migrants come back changed and, generally with money in their pockets. This shapes the home village in certain ways. Gmelch (1980) lists the impact that a migrant can have on his community of origin. First, returnees might have acquired new skills abroad, which they can put into practice in their home village (e.g. new agricultural techniques). Second, when a migrant returns, other might become inspired to follow in his or her footsteps, thereby causing chain migration. Structural investments in agricultural techniques generally seem to be avoided, while new businesses flourish greatly as returnees tend to have an aversion from manual and wage labor. Last, with their acquired savings returnees invest in housing, businesses, farming techniques or in marriage expenses. However, much money is also spent on consumer goods, stereos televisions and gas stoves, to live comfortably, and to show-off to neighbors (Massey et al., 1993).
This brings us to questions about about development and modernization. These are contested concepts, to which everyone attaches own definitions and values and maintains own assumptions (Garder & Osella, 2003). On the one hand, some authors believe that migration is an essential step towards further development, as remittances and savings can give a boost the the home society (World Bank, 2016). On the other hand, critical scholars argues that migration mostly reinforces unequal development in a neo liberal world (Delgado Wise et al., 2013). For instance, the recent modernization of the Gulf countries is made possible by temporary labor migration -we see the receiving country modernizing as a result of cheap migrant labour. Likewise, some authors predict a similar process of modernization in the sending country, as ‘the overall impact of migration on the origin country is most often, though not always, sizeable, and positive’ (World Bank, 2016, p. 9). This is often not the case, however, as few migrants gain usefull skills – this is a result of the fact that employers do not see the need to educate their employees, as they are only temporary workers (Castels & Okzul, 2014). Additionally, the remittances and savings are often not spent on structural development investments, making modernization only ‘skin deep’ (Garden & Osella, 2003. p. 11). Houses are built to display the wealth of a migrant family, and there is increased spending on consumer goods which for many symbolize ‘the modern’, reinforcing inequality within these societies (Waltion-Robberts, 2004). Cynics argue that the only real economic change taking place is that such sending regions becomes more dependent upon foreign countries (Garden & Osella, 2003).
Central to the issue of development are remittances, which are discussed here in more depth. Remittances is the earned money sent back by migrants abroad towards their home society. Goldring (2004) distinguished several ways in which remittances are spent, and especially his division between individual and collective remittances is interesting. Individual remittances are sent to close relatives. As NELM literature points out, migration is often a household decision and therefore migrants are expected, and obligated to send back remittances. These are used to meet day-to-day needs, and are regarded as income instead of savings or investments. The collective remittances is money from several migratns towards a collective goal set by the local
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institutions. These contributions are intended for the benefit of the broader community, e.g.: political parties, educational provisions or religious groups, and are generally funded by groups of migrants.
The money sent back is thus generally seen to have an influence on the home country, but this is largely depended on the way that it is spent. Haas (2007) states that remittances are more likely to gradually reform a society rather than having a very disruptive influence.
Yet, migrants affect their home society in more ways than just financially, and it is with this understanding this idea Levitt (1998) introduced the concept ‘social remittances’, which are define as ‘the ideas, behaviors, identities, and social capital that flow from receiving to sending-country communities’ (Levitt, 1998, p. 926). This author suggests that three types of exchanges are to be distinguished: normative structures, systems of practice and social capital, which can also be divided into collective and individual social remittances. Further, Levitt & Lamba-Nieves (2011) stress the need for a transnationalist lens to studying the effect that migrants have on their home society With this is meant that one should not only be focussed on how returned migrants live in their home society; in addition, one should also consider how migrants live abroad and how this has changed them.
The first of Levitt’s (1998) exchanges, namely normative structures, are ideas about how society, the household, politics, and family should interact with each other. These visions are based on ideas and beliefs that a migrants has acquired while abroad and that differ from home. For instance, a migrant could return and be unwilling to perform traditional manual labors, as he now has come into contact with other forms of work (Prakash, 1998). The second exchange, , systems of practice, flow from the normative structures, and consist of more practical know-how. For example, which plants grow better during drought, and the best way to harvest them. Lastly, social capital consists of the network, reputation and status that migrants bring with them into the home community. This capital can be called upon when necessary, and functions as a resource where people help eachother. For instance, a higher social status could result in a more advantageous marriage. But the division than Goldring (2004) made between individual and collective remittances is also applicable to social remittances. Thus Levitt and Lamba-Nieves (2011) describe how the overall culture, and not just of individuals, in a society changes as a result of the many migrants that return.
Summarizing, the classical economist saw a migrant either as successful or failed, the NELM literature added that one could plan, in advance, to migrate and return, and shifted focus from the migrant to the household. Structuralists zoomed out further and highlighted the relevance of the context wherein a migrant decides to migrate and return. The discussion on transnational migrants problematized the dichotomy between home and host countries, leading to a discussion on whether the concept of ‘returned migrant’ is suitable altogether. Then, it became clear that push and pull factors should not only take into consideration economic aspects. Lastly, savings, remittances, and social remittances all have a noticable and not undisputed effect on both the physical appereance of the village and on the lifestyle of its inhabitants.
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4. Methods
3.1. Research Question
The discussion in chapter 2 has provided a foundation for investigating the central research question: what determines the successfulness of a migrant, and how do migrants shape their village? From this research question several subquestions are derived, namely:
1.What are the general characteristics of migrants and their migration process? 2. What determines the successfulness of a migrant?
3. How do migrants shape their villages of origin? 3.1. Research Design and Operationalisation
The research design applicable to this topic is the case study. Stake (1995) notes that a case study allows to capture more of the complexity of a situation. Further, as the research is done in a confined area (the village) and a specific community, with the aim of ‘an intensive examination of the setting’, a case study is most applicable (Bryman, 2008, p. 52).
Two concepts mentioned in the research questions - namely ‘rate of success’, and ‘shape their village’ – require further explanation (see table 1). Starting with the rate of succes, we see that there are many authors whotry to classify migrants. Ravenstein (1885), for example, categorizes according to destination and duration, Cerase (1974) mainly focuses on the goal that migrants have, and neoclassical economists are most concerned with a distinction between the succesful and the failed (Cassarino, 2004). An interesting, and workable categorization comes from Carling (2002). He focusses on the financial security that a migrant has achieved as a result
Table 1: operationalization of concepts
Concept Dimension Indicator Derived from
Rate of success
Financial Salary Carling, 2002
Personal experiences - Treatment by boss Stockdale, 2004
-Contact with others -Wish to go back
-Status after migration Levitt & Lamba-Nieves,
2011
Shape Physical -Housing Waltion-Robberts, 2004
-Communal buildings Goldring, 2004
Lifestyle Financial -Consumption goods Massey et al., 1993
-Remittances Goldring, 2004
-Investments in education/
businesses Gmelch, 1980
Practices -Clothing, slang Levitt, 1998
-Alcohol consumption Normative structures -Perceived importance of education Levitt, 1998 Social Capital
-Contact with other
migrants
Levitt, 1998
-Arranged via
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of his time abroad, resulting in three categories: the successful, the moderate and the ‘empty-handed migrant’. In this research, I make use of the latter typology, reformulated as the successful, the intermediate, and the failed. These will be based on their salary earned abroad, categorizing the salaries near the mean income as intermediate and high or low salaries as successful or failed respectively. Additionally, categorization on salary alone is not sufficient to estimate whether a migrant has been successful. Personal experiences, as taken into account by Stockdale (2004), are also important and are therefore take into consideration too.
The second concept - ‘shape their village’ - is also operationalized according to the literature presented in the theoretical framework ( see table 1). This research distinguishes to forms of ‘shaping’: (1) the physical effects that migrants may have (e.g. creation of infrastructure) on the home villages; and (2) changes in lifestyle caused by migration. Levitt (1998), who has devised indicators for social remittances, proved to be the most important author for studying this topic.
3.2. Study Area
The location: following up on the advice and experiences of Maarten Bavinck, expert on coastal villages in Tamil Nadu, we decided to conduct our research in Samyiar Pettai, A village that has proven to take a leading role in the region in banning ecologically harmful fishing techniques, giving an indication for a the existence of a strong, active and interesting community. Besides that, earlier fieldwork (unpublished), has confirmed the presence of a large amount of migrants, making it likely to find plenty suitable respondents, more details and demographics can be found in chapter 5. When conducting the interviews there were three main places of were the villagers could be found. The beach, were in the morning the fish was brought ashore by the men in the fishing boats and auctioned by the women to inhabitants of the village but also selling to merchants of the city, for an elaborate description see van de Kamp (2017). The beach turned out a suitable place for conducting interviews, while the men were taking the fish out of the net, or taking a break from their work, many were willing to participate in an interview. After the work was done, the men would refresh themselves and head to the temple square, which is the second place of interest. Here people spent their time by chatting and sitting in the shade, and several interviews were conducted here. The third place of interest, which in retrospect, got too little attention, was at the home of the migrants. During the hottest hours of the day (11 a.m. – 3 p.m.), the streets were desolate and everyone was at home. These were the times that we would too take a break from our research, because of the heat, but also because we felt uncomfortable in bothering people in their own house. This neglect of the ‘home’ as a research area has resulted in a bias towards only speaking those migrants who can be found outside, which is a shortfall of this study. which no sings would be visible at home.
3.3. Research Target Group and Research Methods
The data for this case study was collected in 4 weeks, resulting in 30 semi-structured interviews, and survey data on 519 inhabitants of the village. Additionally, observations and a survey were conducted. Thus, this thesis combines both qualitative and quantitative methods, with the emphasis on the results of the interviews. This is to increase the ‘completeness’ (Bryman, 2008, p. 612) of the research, that is to say, adding quantative data to the research allows to cover more respondents and to get a better oversight on the situation than only qualitative would allow.
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With regard to the sampling, the respondents were choosen purposively to try and get a diverse group of respondents (e.g. young versus old, and rich versus poor). Yet, not everyone was suitable or willing to do an interview, consequently, not all the views of migrants could be included in this research. The sampling is also influenced by the time of the year. We stayed in Samyiar Pettai in April and May, which was a holiday for many migrants who returned home for a couple of months to see their family. As a result, there were many migrants present at the time of our research, which might benefit the representativeness of our interview sample as we also got to speak with migrant who would usually have been abroad, and not only those whom retired from migration. In the analysis not all respondents are discussed, only those who are either very exceptional, or representative for the group.
After the interviews and revising the data, a survey was conducted to try and fill-in any missing information, to triangulate and enhance some of the qualitative findings (Bryman, 2008). The survey was conducted by three fellow students and myself with help of interpreters, the village was split into four and every couple (student and interpreter) would cover a part of the village. Following Barker (1984, in Bryman, 2008) the survey was conducted after most of the fieldwork, in order to test some of the hypothesis that the interviews had let me to formulate. Further, as it was within our possibilities to pass by every house at least once, there was not made a predetermined sample. The short survey would request information from all the people being part of the household (see the appendix for the survey). Also, although we knocked at every door our goal to get data on each household was not met, in many houses no one seemed to be home at the time of visiting, or people were not willing to provide participate. But overall, we have collected data on 519 villagers.
The data collected during the interviews was analyzed by color-coding the interviews, thereby getting a feeling of the relevant themes. To describe the process of migration all these coding’s were collected and relevant the relevant themes emerged which forms the base fot the chapters within the results (e.g. the motivation to go abroad, and the destination). With regard to the section on ‘rate of success’ data was coded according to the indicators of table 1. Thereby, I was able to get an overview to what extent migrants belong in the category of the successful, the intermediate or the failed. Especially along the edges of the categories it was hard to decide where one would belong, but in the end I choose that salary would be leading, and personal experiences would be decisive in the cases of doubt. However, all in all it is still up to debate to what extent these categories reflect reality, or the perceived reality of the migrants (Carling, 2002). For the concept of shape this was less difficult as no strict categorization was required. Again, by color-coding I was able to get an overview of the relevant topics that I included as indicators, and discussed the lifestyle and the physical changes separately.
Table 2: Data collection
Respondent type N Research method
Households 121
(including data on: 519 inhabitants)
survey
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The present thesis does have some limitations that require attention, after this some ethical considerations are discussed. First, when doing research via an interpreter, the data collected is always distorted. For example, a respondent would say something, my translator would interpret it and translate it for me (and (unintentionally) give his own twist), next I would interpret it and write it down (giving my own twist). Consequently, the usage of quotes is questionable, a quote would have some distance from what the respondent precisely said. Nevertheless, I decided to include them because they would make it easier to illustrate certain situations and feelings, and in spite of its impreciseness, it would allow me to better transmit the message a respondent would want to bring across. This example illustrates the limitations that come with qualitative research, as it is said to be too subjective (Bryman, 2008). Also, as Stockdale (2004) notes, migration research relies on the memory of the respondents, and often also their tendency to tells their stories in a, for them favourable way. This is a serious limitation to my research, as I have to rely on the word of the respondents themselve.
The quantative part of my research struggled with the limitations that are common quantative research. Conducting and analysing surveys give a false sense of precision and accuracy (Bryman, 2008). Answers need to fit in the survey, leaving no room for context, giving a distorted image of reality. Age, for example, was categorized in four groups, each around 20 years apart. Hereby a lot an information was not included (e.g. everyone aged between 19 – 40 would be in the same category), but it did allow me to conduct a chi-square test, which provided convincing evidence supporting a relationship. From the thirty interviews conducted it was also possible to do statistical analysis, with some telling results. The problem here, however, was that the N was quite small, and some tables the requirements of a chi-square test were not met. This requirement was that a maximum 20 percent of cells would have an expected count less than 5, in table 5 this requirement was exceeded with 10 percent, and in table 6 with 5 percent. Yet, I think that it still gives a good and valuable addition to some of the qualitative findings. Also, tables showing no or a very weak link between variables are not included, but, where relevant, they are mentioned as finding no relationship can also be important
With regard to the ethics of social research Bryman (2008) notes four important principles which one should take into account: 1) Whether there is harm to participants. 2) Whether there is a lack of informed consent. 3) Whether there is an invasions of privacy. 4) Whether there is deception involved (Bryman, 2008, p. 118). I have tried to take these four principles into consideration and I will discuss some briefly. All of these I have tried to take into consideration, however, especially number two and three seem relevant to my time there. Always, when starting an interview, my translator clearly introduced me as a student doing research for his bachelors thesis, and asked whether they wanted to answer some questions. Also, although none of the respondents asked for it specifically, I felt it would do no harm to change the names to aliases in order to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the respondents. However, one problem I did found difficult to overcome was that some people did not want respondents to talk to me, as they distrusted my intentions or did not like to share information with outsiders. As a result some respondents might have gotten into conflict with others due to my presence.
This point to a broader ethical considerations with which I struggled. Because, what is my role as a researcher in a village on (for me) the other side of the world? Stepping into a culture I am not familiar with, in a country I knew only from television and books, and after a short month of research, returning and making several claims about the situation there. As Saïd (2008)
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has made me aware, my claims probably do not reflect the reality that the people of Samyiar Pettai experience every day, the results reflect the reality that I experienced given my assumptions. Therefore, this research is not a direct attempt to transfer the world there to here, it is merely how I interpreted things that happened. Nevertheless, my intrusion as a stranger allows me to be surprised about things someone else would have taken for granted. Thereby being able to shed a different light, but certainly not objective, on the situation.
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5. Context of Samyiar Pettai
India is the self-proclaimed, but also quite successful, largest democracy in the world. However, this should not be taken for granted. A country with more than 1.3 billion people, is a country with many differences and disparities, which sometimes disrupt this success story. Focus in this research is the question of migration, which is of significant influence on the economy and the overall culture of India, but there are other factors that need to be discussed to get a general feeling of the country. Guha (2009) proposes several sources of conflicts in India, some of which are also applicable to the small village of Samyiar Pettai.
First, the elusive but all decisive concept of ‘caste’. A social hierarchy wherein you are born, which determines your profession, who you can marry and to whom and whom not you should pay respect. Especially for the lower caste groups this is a suffocating system. For Samyiar Pettai caste does not seem to play a big role in the internal affairs of the village, as everyone originates from the same ‘fisherman’ caste (Bavinck, 2001), and thus little inequalities can be ascribed to this.
However, the second source of conflict that Guha points at is ‘class’. With this is meant your socio economic status, and since several decades this concept is gaining importance. India’s economy is developing very fast, bringing with it an idea that everyone can make it, a sort of ‘Indian Dream’. A new middle class of financially independent people constitutes itself, but we see also greater disparities between the very rich and the very poor. This is a trend which also has its effects on Samyiar Pettai, and is elaborated on later, as especially migration plays a key role in this.
A third challenge within India is religion, as the past few years tensions between religious groups started to rise. The Muslim population consist of 172 million people, making it one of the largest muslin countries in the world (Census, 2012). However, in India signs indicate that this minority is becoming a repressed and more and more violence is erupting from the corner of the Hindu nationalists. The cow, for Hindus a sacred animal, is becoming a symbol of this conflict, as Muslims are prosecuted when eating, slaughtering or even transporting cows. There are numerous cases wherein Muslims are lynched by citizens, and new legislation seems to take the side of the Hindu nationalists. Yet, these conflicts seem to be mostly in the northern states of India, therefore Tamil Nadu and Samyiar Pettai are not very involved in these conflicts. This was however, hard to get a feeling for in the limited time I spent there.
Fourth, Gender. The role of the woman, as servant of the family is becoming less and less self-evident, as many take action to change this. In the small village of Samyiar Pettai it seemed as if this development had happened partly. Many women have had education, several even went to the university. Strikingly, they did not work in any job that was study-related. Where the higher educated men of Samyiar Pettai often went abroad to search for work in which they could utilize their skills.In contrast, women, when finished with their education would remain at home, to take care of the children, the man and the house. So although (some) women were quite high educated, they did not use their skills in a job.
Zooming in on Samyiar Pettai, a fishing village along the Tamil-Nadu coast, we see the following demographics derived from our own fieldwork and a 2010 census. The village is home to around 2000 villagers (CMFRI, 2010), and the survey conducted for this research found that the mean age was 41 years old. The male female ratio was quite balanced in the survey, while the census showed that there were more men in the village. On the topic of education, the majority (71.9%) had followed primary and high school, 19.7% was uneducated, and 8.4% had continued
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their education after high school. Little less than half of the male population above 18 years old had gone abroad at least once in their life. The majority of the men is fisherman, and the women are overly represented in the category housewife, very few women have a job. But many women participate in a government scheme which guarantees 100 days of work for just a small compensation, see table 2.
Table 2: employment of the people in Samyiar Pettai older than 18 years (n=378)
Profession Count Percent
fisherman 137 36.1 housewife 67 17.7 student 21 5.5 100 days 10 2.6 fishvender 9 2.4 electrician 5 1.3 teacher 3 .8 powerplant 1 .3 other 12 3.2 no data 113 29.8 Total 378 100.0
Additionally, with regard to the governance system Samyiar Pettai takes a special role as well as they are a regional ‘head village’, and because of their far-reaching protest against ecologically disastrous fishing techniques. So the village council consists of a president and several panchayat members, a sort of ‘council of peers’ (Mandelbaum, 1970 p. 291, in Bavinck, 2001). On Mondays every man in Samyiar Pettai would meet up and go and sit in front of the panchayat, with whom they would discuss things. This would even be fierce discussions, shouting could be heard from far away, and afterwards people were reluctant to talk about the content of the discussion with me, as an outsider. This reluctance to talk to me also has had its effects on the results, as they were not very enthusiastic to share the dirty laundry with me. The majority of the factors discussed here are not be explicitly topic of this paper, but having discussed them briefly might provide the necessary context.
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6. Results
Through the circa 30 interviews that were conducted on this topic a clear overview can be given regarding the issue of migration in Samyiar Pettai. In this section the relevant aspects of the time before returning are discussed, providing information on the types of migration, and the background of the migrants. For instance, who are the migrants of Samyiar Pettai, what is their age and profession? Further, the motivation for migration has been given explicit attention, so why have these people decided to seek their fortune abroad, and how did they choose where to go?
From there we shift the focus to the time of migration, with emphasis on the successfulness or unsuccessfulness of a migrant. How much did a migrant earn, how long has he been away and did he like his time away from home? In describing the experiences of individual migrants, I have tried to find similarities between migrants with high salaries, short stays or those who did not have a good time. This way it might be possible to find determinants for successful or unsuccessful migration. Besides a review of the qualitative interviews, results of the survey are be discussed alongside these results. Firstly, to asses to what degree the qualitative sample reflects the actual population, for which we can use the survey as gives a better representation of the wider population. Secondly, to do an additional check on some of the relations that are found in the interviews, and to see whether they hold in the survey as well. Thirdly, some information can only be gathered from the survey, and provide additional information on the issue of migration.
1.4 Motivation
Many migrants have unique stories about their time abroad, which are very interesting and are be discussed later. But what all migrants had in common was their motivation to migrate, perhaps unsurprisingly, for all this was to resolve the financial issues of their family. The general explanation was that after the tsunami of 2004, it became harder to earn money by fishing and people got more and more financial issues. Before there was plenty of fish, and the fisherman of the village could easily provide for their family. Since then, however, catches started to decline, which according to many made their life more difficult. From here on the stories diverge, as several explanations were given. These are written as separate causes, but many respondents mentioned at least two to be the cause of their financial struggles.
First, after the tsunami the Indian government and NGO’s took up the plan to provide every family in a fishing village with a fibre-glass fishing boat (Rajkumar, 2008). Subsequently, the number of fishers increased enormously and the traditional catamaran (unmotorized boat), was replaced by motorized boats whom could catch more fish. Logically, more fishing boats and the ability to catch more fish per boat can be seen as an important cause of declining marine resources. Additionally, not mentioned by the fishers but a related and probable development is that population growth along the coast has also lead to an increased fishing fleet.
A second explanation has to do with new fishing equipment and technologies. In the 1970’s mechanized trawler boats started to emerge along the coast, as a result of government policy stimulating a blue revolution (Bavinck, 2008). Since then the fleet has grown, and villagers feel that this has resulted in diminishing catches. Additionally, after the tsunami, a large new fishing technique called ‘ring-seine’ was adapted first in Kerala, a neighboring state of Tamil Nadu, and later also in Tamil Nadu itself. The net enables even the small scale fisherman to catch entire shoals of fish, only a very big net and a few small boats are required. The village counsel of
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Samyiar Pettai has taken a very interesting and leading role in banning this net, because of its disastrous ecological effects. They have, for several years, prohibited the fishers to use this net, while neighboring villages did not limit themselves in this way. This has led to tensions between villages and people were often emotional when discussing this subject. For more elaboration see Bavinck et al. (forthcoming) and Dutour Geerling (2017). So according to many fisherman these big nets deplete the ocean in such a way that fishing alone is not enough to be able financially support their livelihood.
The third reason mentioned was the increasing drought, and this reasoning showed signs of thorough ecological knowledge of the fisherman. The explanation given by a few fishermen was that the drought of the last couple of years resulted in less water in the river, which in its turn caused less sediment to be transported to the sea. Consequently fewer nutrients reached the sea, and therefore there is less input of nutrients. Therefore, the estuaries, which were normally rich places of fish propagation, lost this important role in the ecosystem, and fish stocks were not able to regenerate at their normal pace.
This are the three main reasons for the increased financial struggles of the inhabitants of Samyiar Pettai. However, these three focuses on issues regarding the income side of a household, while there are also signs that indicate that expenses have grown, although they are barely mentioned directly by the respondents. However, these factors are likely to put stress on the financial situation of a family.
One for instance, is an Indian-wide phenomenon of the need to give bigger and bigger dowry’s as discussed in Anderson (2003). This is because, when a marriage is arranged between a man and a woman, the family of the woman if required to give a sizeable amount of money or gold to the family of the man. For, let say, a fisherman with three daughters the perspective the need to arrange three good marriages can therefore but heavy strains on the financial situation of a family. Income from fishing alone might therefore prove to be insufficient. Haribalan, for example, was proud to inform that he was able to arrange a very high class wedding for his sister as a result of his years in Singapore. There he acquired a very high paying job (₹ 200.000 a month versus an average loan of ₹ 20.000 a month) from which he saved the majority in the seven years that he worked there. Unfortunately, the exact costs of the wedding are not know, but he said to have spent three quarters of his saving on the marriage of his sister. Others do not have the luxury of savings, and need to take on loans to fund the weddings of their female relatives, even when they have gone abroad.
A second expense that is increasing in families in Samyiar Pettai is education of the children. The survey shows for instance, that many of the elder people have little to none education, while the younger generation is becoming higher and higher educated. This education costs a lot of money, not only because (higher) education itself is costly, but also because when in school you cannot financially support your family. Thus, an increasing number of students puts stress on the financial situation of a family. These costs come often down on individual families, but for collective investments the whole community is called upon. A nice example of this was told by Jahan, a returned migrant and former panchayat president. He told that in his time as president, he asked the help of all the migrants from Qatar to donate for a new high school in the village. In which he succeeded, which shows not only the collective wish from the village for more education, but also how being a migrant results in expectations that lead to even more expenses.
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A third increased expenses, that was less apparent and little discussed by respondents was that people increased their consumption in luxurious goods. Televisions, motors, jewelry and clothes, according to one respondent this was caused by the fact the more people have migrated and thereby encountered more luxurious lifestyles. Especially my translator made me aware of the fact that many respondents we spoke to could easily provide food and shelter for their family, many also had visible jewelry or new motorbikes. However, they were unsatisfied with their income, because they encountered more luxurious lifestyles which they now aspired too, and for which their current income is insufficient.
A fourth expense, a bit paradoxically, is the money that is required to migrate. Before one starts earning a better salary abroad, there needs to be a big financial investment for the arrangement of the journey. For the 30 respondents this amount averaged around ₹ 83.000, which is a multiple of the monthly salary that one can earn in Samyiar Pettai. Especially via an agent this is very costly, therefore every migrants takes on loans, as income through fishing is in almost all cases insufficient. But the expectations on the return on investment are often high, so people are willing to get in debt in order to improve financially. In many cases this return on investment I high enough, but in several cases people come back from abroad with more debt than before.
So the financial struggle is caused by several factors, and to the people of Samyiar, migration seems to be the only remedy. Several respondents described how they have no chance for a better life in Samyiar Pettai, therefore, there is no other option than migration.
1.5 Arrangements
When regarding a village such as Samyiar Pettai superficially, one would not suspect to find a vast network of international contacts to be present. However, many of the fisherman are still in contact with either the natives of the host country, or other migrants whom the met there. These contacts are often called upon when arranging a visa, employment and/or housing abroad. When this network is lacking it is very difficult to arrange such a journey, therefore the expertise of an agent is called upon.
From the migrants I spoke to, 40 percent migrated with the help of friends and family, the other half of the respondents went abroad with help of an agent, see figure 1. Via an agent is often the less preferred way, this has two reasons. First, when asked how much the journey abroad had costs, it became clear that via an agent the costs were a lot higher. The mean costs for a journey is ₹ 82.500, with a maximum of ₹ 200.000, and a minimum that is ten times lower. So there are clearly big differences. When arranged via relatives the only costs were for the visa and tickets, which resulted in the costs being significantly lower. When arranged via an agent it is not unusual that the costs easily exceed ₹ 100.000, while
agent 14 (46,7%) relative/friend 12 (40%) no data 4 (13,3%)
Figure 1: Journey arranged via own network or agent (n=30)
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Second, trusting an ‘outside’ agent, in contrast to someone you are familiar with comes with more risks. As the agent is the only one in your network who has the knowledge and contacts to arrange your migration, this gives them a lot of power. Quite frequently this results in conflicts between migrant and agent as promises are not kept. Numerous stories of this kind came forward during the interviews as people were deceived by their agent (e.g. lower salaries than expected), this subject is explored more in depth later on. But all in all, this makes travelling via relatives or friends the preferred option.
The availability of a network including other migrants abroad is thus very valuable, and going abroad can help establishing such a network via useful contacts with other migrants or local people. These new contacts allow second time migrants to return more easily to the host country, and more securely without the help of agents. This result in a clear tendency in Samyiar Pettai that first time migrants often let their journey be arranged via an agent, while second time migrants to rely on their own network.
1.6 Migrants
So who are the people that have migrated? We collected information on migrants via semi structured interviews (n=30), and through a survey (n=94). From the 94 migrants, 40 were abroad at the time of the survey, and the other 54 had been abroad at least once before the survey was conducted. The larger sample of the survey makes it more representative, but the interviews contain more in depth information. Therefore, this section compares, were possible, characteristics of the migrants in the survey and interviews.
The mean age of the migrants in the survey is around 37 years, from the interview respondents it was 41 years old. This disparity might be due to the fact that younger people are more likely to be abroad. These findings were supported by the results of the interviews: for a large share, young people who were asked whether they had migrated turned out not to have gone abroad (yet), the youngest respondent is 24 years old. The same was true for elder people, they never got the chance to migrate, and the oldest person we spoke to that did migrate was now 58 years.
When regarding some general
characteristics of the migrants we see a lot of similarities. First, Samyiar Pettai is a fishing village, therefore it migt not come as a surprise that the majority of the migrants both here and
abroad were fisherman, see figure 2. With
regard to the profession that migrants perform at home four exceptions were found to being a fisherman: an entrepreneur, a shopkeeper, ship mechanical and an electrician. Second, it turned out that with regard to religion the respondents were even more homogenous; every respondent identified himself as Hindu. Third, role in the family is very similar too. The interview respondents were all father, except
Electrician 4 (4,3%) Fisherman 77 (72%) Student 5 (5,4%) Other 4 (4,3%) no data 13 (14%)
Figure 2: Occupation of migrants when returned to Samyiar Pettai ( n=93)
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for four respondents, whom were among the younger migrants, they were not married yet. From the survey we found that many migrants are the head of their family (51.1 percent ), but also a large share is living with their parents (43.3 percent). The last, most strong similarity between the migrants, is found in that every respondent is born and raised in Samyiar Pettai.
On the surface we see in only two aspects clear differences between migrants. This variety is found in education level. In comparison to the village, we can see from table 3, that there is a significant relationship between being a migrant and the height of your education level. We see that the amount of people older than 18 years who have received no education is higher among non-migrants (31.73 percent), as compared to migrants (18.43 percent). Moreover, 47.29 percent of the migrants have received higher education, while this number is significantly lower among non-migrants (28.46 percent). This could mean that the higher educated persons are more willing or better able to go abroad. However, as is discussed later, the relationship could work the other way around too: host-countries prefer those migrants whom have had education, and therefore rejecting some of the lower educated people.
Table 3: Cross Tabulation of level of education comparing migrants to non-migrants, for the people older than 18 year (n=379)
Level of education Non-migrant Migrant Percent N
No education 31.73% 18.43% 34.04% 129 Primary and secondary school 33% 34.27% 33% 125 Higher education 28.46% 47.29% 33% 125 Total 100% 100% 100.0% 379 Pearson Chi-square 6.797* Cramer’s V 0.138* * = significant at p<0.05
For the interviews, nine respondents indicated to have none education at all, a majority
stayed in school between 5th and 12th standard, six finished a Diploma study, and only one has
graduated a bachelor in economics, a similar distribution is found from the survey. Also, when walking through the village it could not go unnoticed that some houses looked very new, expensive and spacious, while other huts were old and poorly maintained, indication for differences in socio-economic status. This difference between rich and poor also came forward from the interviews, let it be indirectly. Some families had assets like a motor-bike or a boat and were able to invest in the education of their children. Other were experiencing a day-by-day struggle as a share laborer on a fishing boat. However, socio-economic status seemed to have little influence on whether someone would migrate, as there was a large culture of taking on and giving loans from and to neighbors and friends, this allowed at least some of the less fortunate families to acquire funds for migration. So despite several common characteristics, education level and socio economic status do not allow for the construction of a single profile of a Samyiar Pettai migrant.
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1.7 Destination and occupation
Where do the migrants go, and what occupation do they acquire when they are there? In figure 3 the different destinations are given. Remarkable is that every country is in (south) Asia, and that the large majority are the Gulf states. Especially Qatar is host to a big share of the migrants (49.5 percent), reason for this abundance can be several. First, Qatar is apparently the most welcoming towards migrants, for instance, they have a special fisherman visa, an arrangement that enables and simplifies the migration process. Second, and in line with the chain migration theory discussed before, the men in Samyiar Pettai prefer to go to ‘known’ areas. Before migrating they undoubtedly heard stories from other migrants, and when stories are positive they would like to go there too. Third, due to the fact that many people went to Qatar, there is infrastructure in place to facilitate this journey, e.g. in the form of an agency that arranges these journeys.
The job that the migrants performed in Qatar is without exception fisherman. Most often this meant that around five or six laborers from Samyiar Pettai or other places in Tamil Nadu would join a boat owner on a fishing trip. Half of the catch would go to the owner, and the laborers would get the other half, and so salaries would be dependent upon the catch. Most laborers who worked under this rule of division experienced this as a fair share Of course other divisions (e.g. 40-60) did occur, but fifty-fifty was the most common. The employer would also arrange housing and food.
Aside from these general characteristics personal experiences varied greatly. For
instance, Niheel, a 32 years old fisherman had very pleasant contact with his employer. He would be taken care of when he was sick, they paid him salary when he was on vacation and his employer shared in the travelling costs between India and Qatar. However, the opposite story came from Sakathivil, a man without education whose parents had died while he was a child. His illiteracy had made him vulnerable, consequently he was cheated on by his agent and his employer. His experiences were terrible, he told that:
‘I was taken away my freedom and treated like a slave’
For three years he apparently did not get paid, and when he would not work did not get any food. Worse of all is that he was not able to leave because his passport was taken away by the owners and he was locked in his house. This shocking story leaves us to wonder why some had a good time, while others were mistreated in every way, this is discussed later.
The second most popular destination was Singapore (20.4 percent). Singapore differs from the other destinations in that it is the only non-Gulf country that is host to a large share of migrants. Journeys to this country are exclusively arranged via agents, and it is a destination for higher skilled laborers. This is not a coïncidence, Singapore actively targets skilled migrants, while
refusing the uneducated. This is illustrated by table 4, which shows a significant relationship
bahrein 1(1,1%) dubai 9(9,7%) kuwait 4(4,3%) maleisia 1(1,1%) oman 1(1,1%) Qatar 46(49,5% ) saudi 12(12,9% ) singapore 19(20,4%)
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between going to Singapore and the height of your education. For example, 42.8 percent of the migrants who went to Singapore have had higher education, in contrast to 6 percent for the migrants going to other destination. This is quite a strong relationhip, with a high assosiation between going to Singapore and having a higher educational level (Cramer’s V = 0.44). Also, in table 5 we see that the occupation of migrants in Singapore is very different from other destinations. Most work in construction, a job that requires prior education, while other destinations are mainly in the fisheries. A skill which everyone in Samyiar Pettai posseses. For instance, we see that only 11.1 percent of the none educated migrants Singapore, and 63.6 percent of all the higher educated migrants go to Singapore. Additionally, one respondent expresses that Singapore has the best reputation, which means that there is little chance that you would get cheated on. The available jobs there are in construction, plumbing, electrician and maintenance. An interesting difference between Singapore and the other countries was that there were more opportunities to get a promotion. This led to some migrants to follow an educational program in Singapore that would enable them to get higher functions within a company.
Finally, the other destinations that were heard less often were Saudi, Dubai, Bahrein, Kuwait, and Italy respectively. Dubai and Saudi were mentioned several times, and people worked here mainly in the fishing sector and some as housekeepers. Two persons indicated to have worked in Bahrein on fruit plantations. Lastly, one men told that he had ever visited Italy when working on a boat, which made him the only person to have left the Asian continent. So, what comes forward from this general overview is that the destination of migration largely determines what
Table 4: Cross Tabulation of the level of education and the destination of migration (n=83)
Level of Education Singapore other Total % Total N
No education 6.3% 11.9% 10.8% 9 Lower education 82.1% 50.0% 75.9% 63 Higher education 43.8% 6.0% 13.3% 11 Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 83 Pearson Chi-Square 16.048* Cramer’s V 0.440* * = significant at p<0.05
Table 5: profession of migrants in Singapore compared to other migration countries (n=30)
Profession Singapore other Total Total N
Construction 44.4% 14.3% 23.3% 7
Fisherman 11.1% 61.9% 46.7% 14
fruit plantation 0.0% 9.5% 6.7% 2
other 44.4% 14.3% 23.3% 7
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kind of profession people preform. But this relation is probably working the other way around too, maybe more strongly, the profession that one is able to perform, gives an indication of the location to where one is going.
1.8 Length of stay, Return and Remigration
Overall we see that the average time of being abroad is 9 years, with someone being away for 24 years, while the minimum was only three months. The length of stay seems to have the strongest link with the ‘successfulness’ of migration, with the successful migrants staying longer than the unsuccessful ones. This division between the successful and the failed are dealt with later on in this paper. Another factor that seems to determine the length of stay is the destination. When going to Singapore it is not uncommon to stay for over ten years, while in Qatar some stayed only for three months, and five to six years was the average. A reason for this could be that, as discussed before, Singapore offers opportunities for promotions, in contrast to Qatar where people have little chance of climbing up the ladder. Subsequently, in Singapore there is an incentive to participate in educational programs, which can result in people becoming more committed to staying, as they have invested time, effort and money. Another, more broad explanation could be that expectations that were given by relatives and agent were closer to reality than for instance in Qatar. Thus the good reputation of the country, seems reliable and that agent did not play such a dubious role as sometimes in Qatar.
However, at one time everyone returns to their home village. But this is not where migration ends, often people travel back and forth between their home and host countries. Respondents indicated that they returned quite often, some once every 3 years, but far more often people returned every year to Samyiar Pettai. For instance, just on holiday, or to come home when one expecting a new child. When home, people participated in fishing again, and went back after two or three months. However, some were forced to return home, in most cases because the contract of employment has ended.
Depending on how a migrant experienced his time abroad, there was often the wish to remigrate. Not necessarily because they liked their time, but as voiced earlier, because work in Samyiar Pettai does not offer any perspective on a better life. What we see is that people try to return to their previous work, given that they had a good time. But when people did not have a good experience we see that they try to migrate to a totally different country. Additionally, in such cases people seem more hesitant to take just any job. Just as Sakathivil, the man who was treated as a slave, is now waiting for his friends to find something suitable, because he is not willing to take that risk again. But for others remigration is no longer an option, because host countries becomes more picky in who they allow to migrate. Even for a job as a fisherman in Qatar the level of education hugely influences your chances. 7Aanadaraj (32 year old) is now stuck at home, his lack of education has made him a less desired worker. Possibly, because employers prefer workers who speak English, and they have the feeling they are more likely to find this in someone with an education, consequently, the uneducated struggle in finding a job. For Mahilavan (52 years old), who worked in Singapore for over thirteen years, it is not his education that is obstructing him to go abroad again. He is unable to return, because a new rule in Singapore prohibits migrants older than 50 years to get a working license.
This conflicts with the wish of many men whom indicated that they would like to stay abroad as long as possible. Arumugam, a seaman whom has been in Singapore, Qatar and Italy, explains that:
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‘Despite my arm injury, I want to keep working abroad as long as possible, or at least until my two daughters are married.’
As he has no sons, he is the only one who supports his family financially, which puts pressures on him. Besides marriages, other respondents indicated that building a house, and financing the education of their children are life goals after which they would like to return home. Personal preferences do not seem to matter, what is best for the family is determining.
1.9 Rate of success
Without a doubt, starting with Sakathivil allows us to start with the person who is worst off and thus can be categorized as failed. His parents, whom were poor to begin with, died when he was 15, and from there on his life became a struggle. Since his fifteenth his grandparent took care of him, but they could not afford to pay for education. This left him illiterate, and without migration he would have no perspective of becoming anything else than a laborer on a fishing boat. Therefore, he let an agent arrange a journey to Qatar for ₹ 150.000, which is far above the average price. Looking back, he blames the agent for taking advantage of his illiteracy, which left him vulnerable to this kinds of exploitation. This also came forward after he signed the contract and arrived in Qatar in 2004. Here he did not get the salary he thought he would get, actually he said that he did not receive anything, and his passport was taken by the owner. This made him unable to return. After three years, with help of the police, he managed to return to India. After all, he says, he earned nothing and still is in huge debts. The agent would not refund any of his money, which forced him to call in the help of gangsters from a nearby village who were able to recover only one third of the ₹ 150.000, which is of only little comfort.
This story is, luckily, an extreme, but a somewhat similar story comes from 8Kannan, a uneducated fisherman with three daughters. He tells us how the declining catches as a result of the drought forced him to migrate. Lacking a useful network, he called in the help of an agent. He already felt uncomfortable with this, because similarly to 18Sakathivil, he feels that his illiteracy puts him in a vulnerable position. He could do nothing but pay his agent ₹ 75.000 and trust him blindly. Consequently he arrived in Qatar to fish with twenty others from Samyiar Pettai. But he arrived there with little preparation, and no idea what to do. The sea was different, he was not used to the wind and he could not sell his fish. This unfamiliarity with his
surroundings made him the first of the twenty villagers to return, after only three months.
Another story comes from Idha11Darmalingam (42 years old), also an uneducated man.
He himself had a good job in Qatar, but was treated badly, however, his son was maybe even less fortunate. They paid an agent ₹ 75.000 to arrange his journey, but never heard of him again. Hence, the family is now in debt, as ₹ 75.000 disappeared into thin air, and the expected income that his son would get is gone. Overall it made him skeptical regarding migration, feeling that is not all good. Therefore, for now, he and his son have no wish of leaving again. Thus, migration can worsen instead of resolves financial situations. In these stories, education and illiteracy seem to be the important factor in their failure, as the agent is in a powerful position as a literate. However, from Sakathivil and Darmalingam it was very clear that their agent was dishonest, to which they had no defense. For Kannan it seems different, as he was just incapable to deal with such a totally new situation, while the others he travelled with proved better able to handle the
