Leaving the Land

During the last decade, indigenous youth from Northeast India have migrated in large numbers to the main cities of metropolitan India to find work and to study. The migration is facilitated by new work opportunities in the hospitality sector, mainly as service personnel in luxury hotels, shopping malls, restaurants and airlines. Prolonged armed conflicts, militarisation, a stagnant economy, corrupt and ineffective governance structures, and the harsh conditions of subsistence agriculture in their home villages or small towns impel the youth to seek opportunities outside their home region. English language skills, a general cosmopolitan outlook as well as a non-Indian physical appearance have proved to be key assets in securing work within the booming hospitality industry. Leaving the Land traces the migratory journeys of these youths and engages with their new lives in cities such as Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Thiruvananthapuram.

Read more http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2019/10/the-job-of-being-hospitable-in-global-india/

Engagements

• Kikon, D. and Karlsson, B. G. (2020) ‘Light Skin and Soft Skills: Training Indigenous Migrants for the Hospitality Sector in India’, Ethnos. Taylor & Francis, 85(2), pp. 258–275. doi: 10.1080/00141844.2018.1543717.
• Karlsson, B. G. and Kikon, D. (2017) ‘Wayfinding: Indigenous Migrants in the Service Sector of Metropolitan India’, South Asia: Journal of South Asia Studies. Taylor & Francis, 40(3), pp. 447–462. doi: 10.1080/00856401.2017.1319145.
• Markiewicz, A. (2017) ‘Placement & Grooming Centre in Dimapur‘, raiot.in. May 12.
• Markiewicz, A. (2017) ‘Williem and his friends in Bangalore‘, raiot.in. April 9.

Cited in

• Gergan, M. D. and Smith, S. H. (2021) “Theorizing the City: Racialized Himalayan Youth on Exposure, Encounter, and Becoming”, ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 20(4), pp. 387-408.
• Gergan, M. D. and Smith, S. H. (2021) ‘Theorizing Racialization through India’s “Mongolian Fringe”‘, Ethnic and Racial Studies.
• Kikon, D. (2021) ‘Dirty Food: Racism and Casteism in India‘, Ethnic and Racial Studies.
• Kikon, D. and McDuie-Ra, D. (2021) Ceasefire City: Militarism, Capitalism, and Urbanism in Dimapur. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
• Kikon, D. and Barbora, S. (2021) ‘The rehabilitation zone: Living with lemons and elephants in Assam‘, Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 4(3), pp. 1121-1138.
• Arora, V. and Ziipao, R. R. (2020) ‘The Roads (Not) Taken: The Materiality, Poetics and Politics of Infrastructure in Manipur, India’, Journal of South Asian Development. doi: 10.1177/0973174119896470.
• Bardalai, K. (2019) ‘Malls versus Streets: North-Eastern Women between Modernity and Marginality’, South Asia: Journal of South Asia Studies, 42(6), pp. 1078–1094. doi: 10.1080/00856401.2020.1675022.
• Cederlöf, G. (2019) ‘Afterword: The flow of objects at the political edges: A postscript’, in Dzüvichü, L. and Baruah, M. (eds) Objects and Frontiers in Modern Asia: Between the Mekong and the Indus. New Delhi: Routledge.
• Karlsson, B. G. (2019) ‘Theory from the hills’, The Highlander: Journal of Highland Asia, 1(1), pp. 26–30.
• Mukherjee, M. and Dutta, C. (2018) ‘Contested Urban Spaces in Delhi: Experiences of Discrimination of Women from Northeast India’, Journal of Social Inclusion Studies, 4(2), pp. 258–280. doi: 10.1177/2394481118812310.

In the media

• Thinkers reason why Naga youths are leaving Nagaland
• Migration in the time of Conflict: Experiences from Nagaland state
• Nagaland: Anthropologist Dolly Kikon releases 2nd book in Kohima
• Migration of NE youths: Journey in search of jobs
• Why NE indigenous youths migrate to other cities in India?
• Book on Indigenous Migration launched in Kohima