Doctoral Dissertation Research: Success and Livelihood Outcomes within Migrant Social Networks

对于许多农业家庭来说，劳动力迁移已成为一种流行的战略，以减轻和克服对他们生计的压力和威胁。虽然移徙作为一种生计多样化战略可以有效应对经济不稳定，但劳工移徙和汇款通常是一种临时措施。一旦返回家园，他们不仅要寻找其他生计来源，而且要适应新的当地现实和文化模式。该项目建立了一个框架，以了解移徙者返回家园后可获得的生计资本类型，以及这种资本如何与在其各自社交网络中传播的社区成功标准相互作用。它响应社区的需要，由社区利益攸关方在地方一级发起。然而，由于回移是一个全球性问题，该项目采用了一种研究方法，使其研究结果具有普遍性，并可扩大到审查其他情况下的回移和重返社会问题，以便进行跨文化比较。调查结果有可能为政策提供信息，沿着设计和执行回返者重返社会支助方案。该项目旨在通过连续的自由列表、半结构化访谈和文化一致性，了解当地社区对成功的定义，并评估非移民和移民回返者如何与这些当地定义保持一致。然后，它将查明非移徙者和移徙回返者的生计成果，并收集个人通过各自网络获得的可持续生计资本的信息，使用生活史日历和半结构化访谈来指导网络数据收集。将定性方法和数据与定量网络措施相结合，将有助于人类学中网络分析的方法论讨论，特别是自我网络。该项目通过在文化、移民和网络研究的交叉点上为人类学理论添加分层和跨学科的方法，为该学科带来了新的见解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

For many agricultural households, labor migration has emerged as a popular strategy to mitigate and overcome the stresses and threats to their livelihood. While migration as a livelihood diversification strategy can be an effective response to economic precarity, labor migration and remittance is usually a temporary measure. Upon returning home, they not only have to find alternative sources of livelihood but assimilate to new local realities and cultural patterns. This project builds a framework to understand the types of livelihood capital available to migrants once they return home, and how this capital interacts with community standards of success circulating in their respective social networks. It responds to community needs and was initiated at the local level, by community stakeholders. However, as return migration is a global issue, this project incorporates a research approach to make its findings generalizable and can be expanded to examine return migration and reintegration in other contexts for cross-cultural comparisons. Findings have the potential to inform policy, along with the design and implementation of reintegration support programs for returnees. The project aims to obtain an understanding of success as defined by the local community and assess how non-migrants and migrant returnees align with these local definitions, through successive free-listing, semi-structured interviews, and cultural consonance. It will then identify livelihood outcomes among non-migrants and migrant returnees and collect information on sustainable livelihood capitals that individuals have acquired through their respective networks using a life history calendar and semi-structured interviews to guide network data collection. Combining qualitative methods and data with quantitative network measures will contribute to methodological discussions of network analysis, specifically ego networks, within anthropology. The project brings new insights into the discipline by adding a layered and interdisciplinary approach to anthropological theories at the intersection of culture, migration, and network studies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.