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Introduction: Livelihood Security in Changing Socio-Economic Environment in Himachal Pradesh Read chapter Read first chapter

2014 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

12. On-Migration Aspirations and Livelihood Among Tibetan Newcomers

Author : Rebecca Frilund

Published in: Livelihood Security in Northwestern Himalaya

Publisher: Springer Japan

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Abstract

This article demonstrates that a growing number of Tibetans aspire to migrate to the West and that their ‘capital’ in India, Dharamsala, has become a place of various on-migration activities for the Tibetan newcomers who have relatively recently arrived to India. The case is connected with the current academic discussion on on-migration, a task that has not been fulfilled in the context of this locality before. The study is done by qualitative ethnographic methods, examining migration aspirations of the Tibetan newcomers and their flow out of Dharamsala particularly through heterogeneous refugee narratives and the statements of the Tibetan settlement officials. There is no single motive behind the on-migration aspirations of the Tibetan newcomers, but the interviewees highlighted their livelihood-related difficulties, although increased freedoms in India compared with Tibet under the Chinese rule were appreciated. Hence, global socio-economic and political inequalities affect the migration patterns of the Tibetan newcomers.

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Footnotes
1
I use the term diaspora, a common term used among the Tibetan intelligentsia and researchers (Diehl 2002; Hess 2006; Yeh 2007; Prost 2008b; Prost 2008a; CTA 2009; McConnell 2009; Swank 2011), when I refer to the Tibetans living outside Tibet. It can be argued that the lowest common denominator for diaspora is a group of people living outside their homeland with at least some kind of a shared identity and means of cultural survival (Parreñas and Siu 2007).
 
2
I use the term newcomer (e.g. Hess 2006) because most of the Tibetans who I interviewed and who had arrived to India relatively recently used it when they spoke about themselves in English. However, also the terms recent arrivals (Diehl 2002) or new arrivals (Yeh 2000) have been used by other scholars.
 
3
I have coded my interviews as follows: 13 interviews of the officials of the organizations, O1–O13, and 21 interviews of the Tibetans from Tibet, I1–I20.
 
4
Defining oneself as a newcomer tells a lot about how they have adapted to India. One Tibetan who I interviewed had been living in Dharamsala for 17 years and still defined himself as newcomer while another had been living in Dharamsala for 16 years and did not define herself as a pure newcomer anymore, because she thought she had pretty much adapted to India.
 
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Metadata
Title
On-Migration Aspirations and Livelihood Among Tibetan Newcomers
Author
Rebecca Frilund
Copyright Year
2014
Publisher
Springer Japan
Book
Livelihood Security in Northwestern Himalaya

Print ISBN: 978-4-431-54867-6

Electronic ISBN: 978-4-431-54868-3

Copyright Year: 2014

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-54868-3_12