By focusing on the question "Why leave?" Amrita Datta tells touching human stories as part of an important global trend: the reconfiguring mobility amidst rapid political changes and an unprecedented pandemic. Nuanced and powerful, the book shows that migration is never about jobs or status only, it is also about everyday dignity and liveability, for instance the ability of making friends and moving around in a city safely, which are in turn conditioned by large political forces. A very timely and significant contribution to migration studies and global anthropology.
-------- Biao Xiang, Director, Anthropology of Economic Experimentation, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany
This book tells the stories of Indian immigrants in Germany, including Blue Card holders and students categorized as highly skilled migrants, as well as others choosing shadow migration pathways in order to leave the country. It investigatestheir motivations for leaving India and choosing Germany as an immigration destination. Grappling with the stories of tech workers fleeing the pandemic, activists fleeing the witch hunting of the government, women escaping gender(ed) violence and queer people seeking freedom, this book uses reflexivity as an analytical tool. Investigation of their transcultural practices also reveals a general intent among Indians to create homes in Germany, despite several challenges to such efforts, including structural and everyday symbolic racism.
Amrita Datta is a migration scholar currently based at the Department of Sociology, University of Siegen, Germany, as a Marie Sklowdowska-Curie Fellow. Earlier, she earned a doctoral degree in Sociology from the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
