Ramesh Sunam is an Assistant Professor at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.

"For years the village has been studied as a place unto itself, with intimate ties of community and economy. In The Remittance Village, Ramesh Sunam skilfully, convincingly and, at times, movingly shows why we need to think afresh about the roots of rural poverty, the nature of agrarian transformation, and the livelihood vulnerabilities that arise with market integration and transnational labour mobility. This book may be about one Nepali remittance village, but the lessons stretch way beyond this singular place and its inhabitants."Jonathan Rigg, Professior,University of Bristol, UK. Author of More than Rural: Textures of Thailand’s Agrarian Transformation "Ramesh Sunam’s The Remittance Village presents a fascinating exploration of the social relations through which transnational migration, land access, and poverty are constituted and experienced in the Tarai region of Nepal. Sunam skillfully nuances contemporary debates about the power dynamics underlying transnational migrants’ and other rural subjects’ relative precarity and well-being in the context of agrarian change. Locating his rich, field-based study within dynamic global, national, and regional contexts, Sunam situates poor rural households in complex and differentiated trajectories, engaging the intersectional lenses of class, caste, gender, and ethnicity. Transnational migrants augment livelihoods with remittances and forge household livelihood pathways in which migration presents uneven opportunities for improvement but generates new risks as well. The book deftly illustrates the contradictory, diverse, and complex ways that major sources of rural livelihoods in contemporary Asia such as land, remittances from transnational migration, and non-farm work opportunities remain important in new ways to villagers’ everyday lives. The book is set to become a go-to source for learning to document the social complexities of migration and agrarian change."Nancy Lee Peluso, Henry J. Vaux Distinguished Professor, University of California, Berkeley

• Acknowledgements List of Tables List of Figures List of Abbreviations Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Mapping Rural Poverty and Livelihoods Chapter 3: More Than the Soil: Land as a Rural Pivot Chapter 4: Labour, Remittance and Agrarian change Chapter 5: Rural Non-agricultural Pathways Chapter 6: Transnational Labour Migration, Remittances and Livelihood Dynamics Chapter 7: Joining the Dots References Index

Ramesh Sunam is an Assistant Professor at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.

"For years the village has been studied as a place unto itself, with intimate ties of community and economy. In The Remittance Village, Ramesh Sunam skilfully, convincingly and, at times, movingly shows why we need to think afresh about the roots of rural poverty, the nature of agrarian transformation, and the livelihood vulnerabilities that arise with market integration and transnational labour mobility. This book may be about one Nepali remittance village, but the lessons stretch way beyond this singular place and its inhabitants."Jonathan Rigg, Professior,University of Bristol, UK. Author of More than Rural: Textures of Thailand’s Agrarian Transformation "Ramesh Sunam’s The Remittance Village presents a fascinating exploration of the social relations through which transnational migration, land access, and poverty are constituted and experienced in the Tarai region of Nepal. Sunam skillfully nuances contemporary debates about the power dynamics underlying transnational migrants’ and other rural subjects’ relative precarity and well-being in the context of agrarian change. Locating his rich, field-based study within dynamic global, national, and regional contexts, Sunam situates poor rural households in complex and differentiated trajectories, engaging the intersectional lenses of class, caste, gender, and ethnicity. Transnational migrants augment livelihoods with remittances and forge household livelihood pathways in which migration presents uneven opportunities for improvement but generates new risks as well. The book deftly illustrates the contradictory, diverse, and complex ways that major sources of rural livelihoods in contemporary Asia such as land, remittances from transnational migration, and non-farm work opportunities remain important in new ways to villagers’ everyday lives. The book is set to become a go-to source for learning to document the social complexities of migration and agrarian change."Nancy Lee Peluso, Henry J. Vaux Distinguished Professor, University of California, Berkeley

• Acknowledgements List of Tables List of Figures List of Abbreviations Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Mapping Rural Poverty and Livelihoods Chapter 3: More Than the Soil: Land as a Rural Pivot Chapter 4: Labour, Remittance and Agrarian change Chapter 5: Rural Non-agricultural Pathways Chapter 6: Transnational Labour Migration, Remittances and Livelihood Dynamics Chapter 7: Joining the Dots References Index

Ramesh Sunam is an Assistant Professor at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.

"For years the village has been studied as a place unto itself, with intimate ties of community and economy. In The Remittance Village, Ramesh Sunam skilfully, convincingly and, at times, movingly shows why we need to think afresh about the roots of rural poverty, the nature of agrarian transformation, and the livelihood vulnerabilities that arise with market integration and transnational labour mobility. This book may be about one Nepali remittance village, but the lessons stretch way beyond this singular place and its inhabitants."Jonathan Rigg, Professior,University of Bristol, UK. Author of More than Rural: Textures of Thailand’s Agrarian Transformation "Ramesh Sunam’s The Remittance Village presents a fascinating exploration of the social relations through which transnational migration, land access, and poverty are constituted and experienced in the Tarai region of Nepal. Sunam skillfully nuances contemporary debates about the power dynamics underlying transnational migrants’ and other rural subjects’ relative precarity and well-being in the context of agrarian change. Locating his rich, field-based study within dynamic global, national, and regional contexts, Sunam situates poor rural households in complex and differentiated trajectories, engaging the intersectional lenses of class, caste, gender, and ethnicity. Transnational migrants augment livelihoods with remittances and forge household livelihood pathways in which migration presents uneven opportunities for improvement but generates new risks as well. The book deftly illustrates the contradictory, diverse, and complex ways that major sources of rural livelihoods in contemporary Asia such as land, remittances from transnational migration, and non-farm work opportunities remain important in new ways to villagers’ everyday lives. The book is set to become a go-to source for learning to document the social complexities of migration and agrarian change."Nancy Lee Peluso, Henry J. Vaux Distinguished Professor, University of California, Berkeley

• Acknowledgements List of Tables List of Figures List of Abbreviations Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Mapping Rural Poverty and Livelihoods Chapter 3: More Than the Soil: Land as a Rural Pivot Chapter 4: Labour, Remittance and Agrarian change Chapter 5: Rural Non-agricultural Pathways Chapter 6: Transnational Labour Migration, Remittances and Livelihood Dynamics Chapter 7: Joining the Dots References Index