‘Currents and eddies’: Indian-Middle East migration processes

Abstract

Migration begets migration in a constant flow of currents and eddies with people moving in to fill the niches vacated by emigrants thus blurring boundaries and spaces. This paper explores the nested complexities of the migration processes between India and the Middle East, and within India, from the regional perspective of Kerala. It assesses the claim that migration flows do not yield to a particular framing, highlighting the necessity of rethinking existing theoretical notions in terms of dependency and development and locating the migrants in multiple domains across spaces, regions and social locales as well as the practical implications thereof.