Strategically “Out of Place”: Unemployed Migrants Mobilizing Rural and Urban Identities in North India

Increasing numbers of young people are migrating across the Global South to pursue tertiary education and find employment. In north India, though, as elsewhere, migrants are often unable to realize the kind of social mobility to which they aspire. This article examines the ways in which educated yet unemployed male migrants perform identities to contend their marginality. Through a multisited ethnography, during which I accompanied participants to their rural villages as well as the regional city of Dehradun, I argue that young men strategically mobilize identities that register them as “out of place.” By drawing together critical migration studies and mobilities literatures, I show how young men perform rural identities in urban areas and urban identities in rural ones to realize status and respect. In a context of widespread unemployment and uncertainty, this is an important strategy through which migrants seek to position themselves as worthy youth with meaningful prospects, at the same time as they leave open the possibility of both rural and urban futures. Key Words: identities, India, migrants, mobilities, young men.