Social Protection Policies Towards Non-Resident Keralites (Pre-Recorded)

• In Event: Diasporic Engagements (Pre-Recorded)

Abstract

As a regional state, Kerala occupies a unique position in regard to the institutionalization of social protection policies towards its migrants. Social protection policies have been traditionally associated with national level policy and protecting individuals living on national territory and not abroad. The government of the South Indian state has been actively involved in reaching out to the state’s emigrants and return migrants, starting with the establishment of the department of Non-resident Keralites' Affairs (NORKA) in 1996. NORKA ROOTS as an agency for the implementation of NORKA schemes was established in 2002. NORKA’s mandate is to provide social welfare services and trainings to potential migrants, people residing outside of Kerala internationally or within India (Non-Resident Keralites (NRKs)), and returned migrants. The Government of Kerala is one of the pioneers globally to set up an institution such as NORKA on sub-national level and is a forerunner in the Indian context as well: NORKA was created eight years before the federal Ministry for Overseas Indian Affairs, which has similar functions and schemes as the former.
Taking the case of the developments in Kerala and its role as a global and national forerunner in terms of social protection towards its emigrants, this paper asks why (sub-national) states include emigrants and return migrants in their social welfare provisions? Which factors are decisive for the inclusion of emigrants in social protection schemes of origin countries? The paper aims to address these questions for the case of Kerala by analyzing the politics of social policy design through concepts of the social construction of group deservedness in public policy. The politics of social policy design are conceptualized as decision-making processes involving three dimensions: firstly, NORKA’s selecting and categorizing a group as benefit deserving; secondly, the choice of policy instruments; and thirdly, the ways the choices of recipients of benefits and policy instruments are justified.
Drawing on interviews with NORKA officials and reports of the Legislative Assembly’s Committee on NRKs, it is shown that these policies are informed by a notion of citizenship rights rooted in the discourse of the Keralan model of development, while being identified as an instance of global social policy formation. By highlighting the policy-making of social protection policies towards emigrants by regional governments, this paper adds to the conceptualization on sub-national stakeholders in the making of social policies towards international migrants.

Author

• Mira Eileen Burmeister-Rudolph, University of Amsterdam