Who is a Migrant? Questioning Migrant’s Identity: A Study in an Industrial Setting

• In Event: Mobilities and Aspirations of Marginal Groups in Emerging Chinese and Indian Cities

Abstract

At the outset, this paper poses some important questions related to the identity of the employees who reside in its Township of the industry. Who is a migrant? Why we do call him or her a migrant? Do the employees consider themselves as migrants? For whom, is one a migrant? It is also important to know the local term called ‘baaharwale ’, which can replace the term migrant. Not all HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) township residents are ‘baaharwale’, though they are HAL wale. How HAL wale became ‘baaharwale’ for each other? This is in the ways they have treated or defined each other in their everyday life. They have constructed different aspects of their background as differences in attributing the term ‘baaharwale’. This study raises the point of the fluidity in the meaning of the term migrant itself. Who is a migrant is a highly contextual term. It is used by different people in different senses and various points in time for various individuals. While exploring the life worlds in the making I have found the term ‘baaharwale’ is used as per occasion and interaction by the township residents for other residents who at one level are, all technically speaking, migrants. The term ‘baaharwale’ thus enables an easier configuring of ‘life world as a process’ which is continuously being made and remade through intersubjective interactive understanding among people of the Industrial Setting.

Author

• Saroj Kumar Dhal, Symbiosis International University, Pune, India