Intermittent mobility as a livelihood strategy for landless rural people in Andhra Pradesh

Abstract

This article analyses the multiple causes and temporalities of mobility between the Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh and Mumbai’s Madh Island in India. For several decades, the fisheries of Madh Island have been the destination of migrant workers from the rain-shadow region of Rayalaseema. Development practitioners, researchers, and the media have generally addressed migration from Rayalaseema in the context of droughts. Problematizing narratives focused on exceptional weather events, I suggest that for landless lower-caste people, who constitute the majority of migrants, everyday life is characterized by stable instability related to climate, government policy, land ownership patterns, and the vagaries of informal work. Disrupting conventional binaries between forced/voluntary movement and temporary/permanent migration, I develop the notion of intermittent mobility to characterize how migrants creatively combine urban and rural opportunities in their efforts to live with multicausal stable instability and build a better future for their children. Intermittent mobility as a rhythm of life reflects not only migrants’ strategic intentionality but also their position within a field of unequal power relations; while generated by structural vulnerability, mobility can be an important source of intergenerational resilience.