Richa Shivakoti
on
Pandemic Return, Reintegration and Re-migration
of Nepali Migrant Workers

4 July 2024 | 3–5 PM
(Nepal Time)

The lecture will be delivered via Microsoft Teams
Click here to join

The vulnerability of temporary migrant workers became dramatically visible during theglobal pandemic as an unprecedented number were forced to return to their homecountries, including Nepal. Richa Shivakoti will present findings from a study funded bythe SSHRC Insight Development Grant to study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemicon temporary migrant workers from Nepal. This research was conducted in partnershipwith the Centre for the Study of Labour and Mobility (CESLAM) in Kathmandu. Theresearch team collected primary data from 150 pandemic returnee migrant workers fromthe Gulf countries, Malaysia and India to Nepal with four sets of semi-structuredinterviews over a two-year period, in addition to several focus group discussions withreturnees and interviews with stakeholders. Dr Shivakoti’s presentation will deal with thecomplex migration pathways, crisis return, im/mobility, capabilities and aspirations ofreturnees.
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Richa Shivakoti is the Research Lead on Migration Governance at the Canada ExcellenceResearch Chair (CERC) in Migration and Integration at Toronto Metropolitan University,Canada. She is the Primary Investigator for a SSHRC Insight Development Grant onpandemic returns
and a Collaborator for a SSHRC Partnership Grant on complexmigration flows . She has published widely on migration governance, labour migration,emigration restrictions on women migrants, and transnational administration of labourmigration policies.

Dr Shivakoti holds a PhD in Public Policy from the National University of Singapore and adual Masters in Public Affairs and Political Science from Indiana University, Bloomington.Previously, she was a research officer at Carleton University, a postdoctoral fellow atMaastricht University and a Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University. She has taught invarious capacities in universities in Canada, USA, Singapore and Nepal and has workedfor various international organisations.