Connecting and Disconnecting People and Places: Migrants, Migration, and the Household in Sri Lanka

Domestic and international migration provide the point of entry for an investigation of social and economic transformations that are altering the function and functioning of the household at two sites in rural Sri Lanka. Based on a survey questionnaire of one hundred households complemented by interviews with a subsample of fifty migrants or their families, the article views migration not as just connecting people and places but being constitutive of those places. Domestic migration is shown to be an “escape” strategy, whereas international migration is pursued as part of a household livelihood strategy undertaken for the sake of the family. In the former, an individualization of activity occurs as young women and men become partially independent wage earners, whereas in the latter migration raises the bargaining power and status of the migrant but in the context of the household, rather than separate from it. We look inside the household to illuminate the status, place, and role of migration and keep doing so as household–migration interactions evolve. Taking this approach, we seek to explain a series of conundrums relating to migration.