The Department of History organised a talk, ‘Home in the Making: Migration Pathways and the Role of Facilitation in Asia’, by Dr. Ruth Achenbach from the Goethe University, Frankfurt and Dr. Megha Wadhwa, an anthropologist and film Maker currently working at the Free University Berlin. The talk has been drawn from a collaborative project (QuaMaFa) that investigates the role of skills in labour migration in Asia, with a focus on skilled migration from India to Japan and Singapore and skilled and educational migration from China to Singapore and South Korea. The speakers highlighted the role of recruitment agents, placement companies, study abroad consultants and brokers in facilitating such transnational mobilities, and their functioning, negotiating state migration infrastructure and obligations to the employers and migrant workers.
The talk was followed by screening of the documentary film, ‘Home in the Making’, directed by Megha Wadhwa. The film is an outcome of a collaborative effort of five female migration studies scholars. It takes the viewers through the challenges of home making in the destination countries through the lives of seven Asian migrants in South Korea, Singapore, and Japan. The film examines migrants’ personal and professional journeys, their aspirations for staying or leaving their host country, and everyday encounters they undergo. Through their quest for a place to call ‘home’, the documentary offers a perspective on belonging, identity and resilience. Dr. Wadhwa underlined on the idea that migration is a constant journey and that “Home-making” is an endless and challenging task even for privileged, skilled migrants.
The ensuing question and answer session led to a fruitful discussion on different aspects of migrant emplacement, role of support communities, the emotional challenges migrants face, and the significance of visual documentation in migration research. The discussion ended by emphasizing the complementarity of audio and visual documentation and outreach in research.
The programme was held at C.V. Raman Auditorium on 13 January 2025. It was organised under the aegis of the ‘Brokering Mobility’ project, being funded by the Institution of Eminence (IoE), University of Hyderabad. Dr. V J Varghese, the Principal-Investigator of the project introduced the event and the speakers, and moderated the discussion. Prof. Suchandra Ghosh, the Head of the Department of History, extended a vote of thanks to the speakers, participants as well as the IoE for support.
Contributed by: Varsha C, M.A History