Priya Deshingkar

University of Sussex · Department of Geography

The COVID-19 pandemic and interventions addressing it raise important questions about human mobility that have geopolitical implications. This forum uses mobility and immobility during the pandemic as lenses onto the ways that routinised state power reacts to acute uncertainties, as well as how these reactions impact politics and societies. Specifi...

The authors use the lens of religion to understand how migrants from Senegal embarking on high-risk journeys across the Sahara and the Atlantic conceptualise migration, cope with hardship and give meaning to their experiences. The paper aims to provide insights into religious belief systems and their intersection with the process of irregular migra...

This article traces the experiences of accompanying wives who had migrated with their husbands from southern Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and returned to their villages during the COVID-19 pandemic. It dwells on post-marriage migration and work which is an under-researched aspect of women’s migration. Our study offers insights into the ways in which mar...

The hyper-precarity, enforced immobility and invisibility of India’s migrant workforce have been starkly in focus since March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic began. The papers in this special issue explore migrants’ lived experiences of mobility and immobility during the Covid pandemic. They provide granular accounts of the translocal and temporal...

Debt-migration is endemic in construction work in India, where exploitative social relations are an integral part of businesses’ capital accumulation model that can entrap migrants in forced labour and perpetual indebtedness. Drawing on concepts of cultural capital, ‘constrained agency’, and qualitative interviews with migrants and their wives, thi...

Contemporary dominant literature and media reports on irregular migration portray migrants as victims of human trafficking and smuggling rings. They focus on the criminal aspects of the roles of those who involve in migration facilitation. This chapter challenges such arguments for downplaying the dynamism and social complexity of the organization...

Sensationalist accounts of human smuggling from Ethiopia towards Saudi Arabia allege that operations are controlled by criminal networks who converge in a variety of illegal markets posing a threat to national security. Such convergence narratives construct Ethiopian human smuggling as an organized criminal business that extracts profits from and i...

Between 2014 and April 2019, the government of Myanmar banned international migration for domestic work to Singapore and criminalised the brokering of such migration as well as predeparture training and placement of migrants as domestic workers in Singapore. These measures were taken in response to concerns over the alleged abuse of migrant women a...

The paper provides a bottom up view on human smuggling facilitation and the rationale behind extremely high-risk and complex irregular migration journeys from the Kolda region of Senegal across the Sahara and through the Atlantic sea. Interviews with aspiring, returned and deported migrants as well as smugglers and their associates provide insights...

This paper examines the crucial role that migration brokers play in organizing and sustaining irregular migration from Ethiopia to South Africa. Brokers and smugglers assist migrants in circumventing layers of migration control and navigate the complex, risky mobility landscape in the context of the governments’ organized campaign to stop ‘illegal...

The paper analyses the mediation of Bangladeshi construction worker migration to the Gulf and how multiple and unpredictable risks and opportunities are co-created by brokers, employers and the state. It examines how migrants navigate these to achieve imagined futures and their own role in co-creating precarity. The authors employ a relational lens...

Drawing on interviews with migrant domestic workers and brokers in Accra-Tema, the capital city of Ghana, this paper throws light on the everyday practices of brokers in producing ideal workers for urban middle class and expatriate families as well as overseas employment. The authors map the different kinds of brokers who are involved in the select...

This article discusses the migration processes and brokering practices that link Ethiopia and Sudan by taking into account the social, economic, political and cultural underpinnings of human smuggling in the region. The analysis is based on three months of fieldwork using a conventional qualitative research methodology. Respondents were selected fr...

This paper presents an emic perspective on the drivers and outcomes of migration brokerage through a study of low-skilled migrant construction workers from Chapainawabganj – a district in the north-west of Bangladesh – travelling to Qatar. The paper problematises assumptions underlying dominant discourses on the relationship between migrants and br...

The research draws on interviews with rural-urban migrant construction workers in Kathmandu as well as with families of construction workers, other migrant labourers and non-migrants in two contrasting villages in the Karve district in Central Nepal and Saptari district in the Terai. Interviews at destination show that migrant construction labourer...

Migration for domestic work has become the subject of intense debate among international human rights organisations and policy makers concerned with the welfare of workers who are predominantly women from poor and historically disadvantaged communities. This paper is a review of the literature on South-South migration for domestic work, undertaken...

This letter probes the causal links between migration, remittances and resilience to environmental change. Three case studies have been chosen, Western Mexico, the Central Plateau of Burkina Faso and Eastern India, where satellite imagery shows recent regeneration of vegetative cover and where there is evidence of high rates of migration. The findi...

Labour inspections could, in theory, improve labour standards and help countries move towards decent work goals and the elimination of chronic poverty. But, in practice, inspections are either not conducted or do not result in penalties for those who break the law. Using the case of India, and examining labour contracts and standards in selected in...

A central aim of this article is to understand the impact that local governance structures have on the ability of governments to implement social policy in India. It compares the administration of self-employment programmes in Madhya Pradesh (MP) and in Andhra Pradesh (AP), two states in which administrative and territorial powers of local governan...

This article explores the relationship between internal migration and economic growth and development in Asia, concentrating on four countries: China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia. Levels of internal migration in Asia are high and rising. Despite being negatively regarded by many policy makers, internal migration can contribute to economic growth a...

The paper discusses how gaps in both the data on migration and the understanding of the role of migration in livelihood strategies and economic growth in India, have led to inaccurate policy prescriptions and a lack of political commitment to improving the living and working conditions of migrants. Field evidence from major migrant employing sector...

Resurveys in six villages in Madhya Pradesh show that contrary to mainstream perceptions, seasonal/circular migration has become more accumulative for the poor over the last five years as new opportunities in urban areas have reduced the uncertainty of finding work, wages have increased and the dependence on contractors has declined. Furthermore, m...

This paper explores pathways out of poverty and vulnerability and discusses the role of livestock and livestock-based strategies in these pathways. A panel data set used for the study is drawn from the Livelihood Options Project (LOP) of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in London and its partners. This particular data set relates to the Ind...

This paper investigates the factors associated with private sector smallholder livestock and the associated income of the poor in the Indian States of Andhra Pradesh. The data used are drawn from the Livelihood Options Study led by the Overseas Development Institute, London, specifically the Census Survey 2001/2 and Panel Survey of early 2005. Poor...

This paper investigates the factors associated with private sector smallholder livestock and the associated income of the poor in the Indian States of Andhra Pradesh. The data used are drawn from the Livelihood Options Study led by the Overseas Development Institute, London, specifically the Census Survey 2001/2 and Panel Survey of early 2005. Poor...

This article explores the relationship between internal migration and economic growth and development in Asia, concentrating on four countries: China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia. Levels of internal migration in Asia are high and rising. Despite being negatively regarded by many policy makers, internal migration can contribute to economic growth a...

Despite the fact that land rental is restricted to varying degrees in India, the participation in this market is widespread and it is observed to operate relatively efficiently in 12 villages studied in Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The estimated probit models predicted that the rental market transferred land to those with relatively smaller h...

Development projects in Andhra Pradesh are emerging as new sources of displacement in the scheduled areas. But the track record of governments regarding rehabilitation of tribals leaves a great deal to be desired. The tribals are not homogeneous as upwardly mobile sections have already emerged. Recent research suggests a trend towards livelihood di...

This study is a comprehensive analysis of the nature, the dynamics and the determinants of poverty in the semi-arid tropics (SAT). It uses the sustainable livelihood framework to identify the underlying determinants of poverty and the pathways in moving out of poverty. Quantitative analysis based on the most recent National Sample Surveys (NSS) of...

Decentralisation is commonly defended on the grounds that it will bring government closer to people, thereby creating political structures that are more transparent and accountable to poor and marginal groups in society. However, a problem that is well recognised in the decentralisation literature is that the devolution of power will not necessaril...

In this paper we show that, when endogenous fertility is considered via Cobb-Douglas preferences, public debt plays a clear-cut role on dynamic inefficiency (DI) of an OLG economy: in fact, for correcting the DI problem, debt must be increased (decreased) when the economy is overaccumulating (underaccumulating). The occurrence of overaccumulation,...

There is compelling evidence from all over India that the temporary migration of labourers (especially rural-urban) is on the increase. While many poor people perceive migration as an opportunity because they can tap remunerative labour markets, the mainstream view remains rather negative and many rural development programmes aim to reduce migratio...

"Population mobility within poor countries has increased worldwide as better roads and communication networks offer people employment opportunities in distant locations. High levels of mobility either within rural or between rural and urban areas help to strengthen the livelihoods of those mainly dependent on selling their labour, and in some areas...

Contributions on issues of representation in citizen juries and similar participatory approaches

Transformations in the global food system are causing changes in food production and marketing in India at a slower rate than elsewhere in the developing world but there is a growing domestic market for horticultural produce, in both traditional and exotic vegetables. Production and marketing arrangements are responding to changing demand driven by...

Several large-scale outbreaks of diseases in the human population and among farm animals in India have been traced to food contamination. Scientific studies have established how contamination is passed through animal feeds to the human food chain. This paper identifies the stakeholders in the feed and food contamination debate and assesses their ro...

Climate-induced changes in the forest sector could have far reaching consequences for rural communities and the economy in developing countries. Despite the many uncertainties involved in predicting impacts, it makes social and economic sense to identify adaptation options now. The case study of Himachal Pradesh shows that, for adaptation measures...

The book derives from a study group constituted at the 41st Pugwash Conference held in Beijing in 1991. The chapters present viewpoints on the possibilities for, and the obstacles against, humanity changing course on to the "right fork' of sustainable development with equity. The contributions are in two sections: food and energy, and politics and...

This thesis examines the determinants of the changing access of the rural poor to biomass fuel and fodder. It focuses on one category of biomass, crop residues, and analyses how the welfare of poor people has been affected by their changing entitlements to the use of this resource. These issues have been addressed by studying the distribution of bi...

South Asian economies are undergoing unprecedented transformation with changes in global markets and national level policy reforms to promote the liberalization and privatization of manufacturing and marketing. Yet little is known about the ways in which these changes are impacting on the poor and how these differ by region. There is also insuffici...

This brief explores circular migration in India and the policy response, and impact of this policy response, on the welfare of migrants and more broadly, on regional inequality.

Drawing on a recent international study of pro-poor agricultural extension, on a major study of rural livelihood diversification in India, and on recent analysis of gender and agricultural development, this paper argues that new approaches to extension have much to contribute to the livelihoods of poor groups and of women, providing they: • recogni...

"Decentralization is commonly defended on the grounds that it will bring government closer to people, thereby creating political structures that are more transparent and accountable to poor and marginal groups in society. However, a problem that is well-recognized in the decentralization literature is that the devolution of power will not necessari...

"India has around 100 million circular migrant workers, placing its experience almost on a par with Chinas. Yet migration in India faces an almost total absence of forward-thinking policies. Rejecting policies to 'keep them in rural areas' as unrealistic, this paper identifies the kinds of migrant support that are needed if migrants are to continue...