Contested mobilities: gendered migration pressures among Cambodian youth

Abstract

This paper explores how gender norms and expectations shape the migration decisionmaking processes of Cambodian young people, in a community characterized by high levels of migration to Thailand. Based on qualitative fieldwork with migrant and nonmigrant youth, I examine how young people make sense of migration and its local alternatives, and highlight the various gendered pressures that young people, and particularly men, experience for migration. Given the lack of local life-making alternatives that neatly conform to hegemonic masculine ideals, young men experience strong pressures for migration and encounter negative social judgments where they seek to stay put. In contrast, young women experience less forceful migration pressures, perceive meaningful alternative life-making projects in the village, and feel more free to actively resist migration. More generally, my findings highlight the importance of interrogating gendered processes of migration not only in terms of how they affect women and those who choose to migrate but also with consideration to how they affect men, and those who choose -or would prefer -to stay home.

Escape to victory: Development, youth entrepreneurship and the migration of Ghanaian footballers

“…Instead, they were embracing a career in football often at the expense of their schooling. While it is important to acknowledge the diversity of experiences and conditions occurring across the Global South, it is appropriate here to highlight that other studies have also documented the often-fragile relationship between education and opportunities to earn a decent living, for example in Cambodia (Bylander, 2014), the Gambia (Jones and Chant, 2009), Ghana (Langevang and Gough, 2012;Porter et al, 2011), India (Jeffrey, 2010b) and Bolivia (Punch, 2015).…”

“…Bylander (2014) has recently explored how a paucity of local opportunities for social mobility, alongside notions of hegemonic masculinity, has resulted in young Cambodian men feeling pressured to migrate in order to better their life chances. Conversely, youth who opt to remain sedentary encounter negative social judgments and have to find ways to make their relative immobility productive, or at least appear to be so.…”

From rice fields to financial assets: Valuing land for microfinance in Cambodia

“…For many, land ownership is an integral component of the social bonds that hold together rural communities. That is not to deny that many youth in Cambodia today aspire to the financial independence that wages promise (Bylander, ; Peou, ). However, many of the youth who migrate to help their families repay their loans still maintain aspirations to return to their home village at a later stage in the life course (Peou, ).…”

Exploring the “Age Question” in Research on Young Migrants in Southeast Asia

“…Although Sallie Yea (2016: 9) notes that the youngest migrant flower sellers working on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City are nine or 10 years of age, young people mostly become involved in migration in their second decade of life. For example, Maryann Bylander (2015Bylander ( : 1129 notes that from the age of 14 or 15 it is not uncommon to see young Cambodians leaving for work to Thailand.…”

“…Such temporary forms of labor migration may also take a cross-border form. For example, Maryann Bylander (2015) describes the young Cambodian migrants she worked with as involved in "cyclical" migration as the majority of the households had (young) family members working in Thailand for part of the year. Whereas the young migrants studied by Bylander and Peou had a reasonable degree of influence over their migration project, this was much less the case for some of the young Indonesian women and girls Atsushi Sano (2012; worked with.…”